And if it goes well, as it looks like doing, The club doing similar offers for the remaining home games to fill the stadium???
I am a S/T holder but to be honest I wouldn't begrudge someone sitting next to me paying say £5/£10 per game which is less than the average per game over the season just to get a full ground and imtimidating atmosphere to get out this league?
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Me and my family recently brought the 5 year season ticket, but I wouldn't give a damn if the club sold the remainder of single game tickets for £5 / £10 if it fills up the stadium.
1. no doubt some would
2. it may get some people into the habit of only going to games if its cheap and they know there is another one around the corner
3. it may influence people not to get a ST for next season if they feel there are frequent offers.
Its a tough balancing act
Agree. not everyone or even a majority but some people will be unhappy. More importantly it may deter some people buying a season ticket next time. You have to keep the differential between the ST price and 23 x match tickets (including offers) and that is something that gets discussed at length at Target 40K meeting as AFKA will find out soon.
Also the aim is not just to fill the ground once. Rather to increase income to the club over the long term
Each time the Club offers a mass discount like Exeter, existing season tickets holders get a credit for the (approximate) difference between the average ticket price and the promotional price. So, if the average for a season ticket holder is £15 and Exeter is 'all tickets for £5', then each season ticket holder gets £10 credit ... to be used against next season's ST price.
Too simple?
No, too complicated and rather expensive. If we have 7000 adult STs then that's £70k that has been "paid back".
That's 14,000 £5 tickets worth of refunds or more than we have sold for Saturday.
It is therefore, in my opinion, somewhat blase to effectively say sod the season ticket holders and carry on charging a fiver a throw for the rest of the season. Some season ticket holders may think why bother to make the sacrifice?
There is a balancing act between alienating loyal, longstanding fans who've dug into their pockets at a time the Club needed it and attracting bums on seats who may just be there to take advantage of an offer.
I was going to suggest something along those lines - or a discount for all existing season tickets on next years prices
I always remember reading about Napoli a few years back being relegated to C1 or C2 because of financial shenanigans. They allowed people in for next to nothing just to get bums on seats and were getting 50 or 60,000 people through the door. Bums on seats generate money with programmes, food, drinks etc and it created a superb atmosphere and they are now back in the big time
just a thought
Exactly. The STs are vital to both income and making the gates look respectacle.
Paid back ... or a reward for showing up front loyalty back in August?
And I thought this was about the long term ... not just about Saturday.
Plus, the credit only comes in to play if someone buys a season ticket next year.
Whatever you call it is still a £70k reduction in income for the Club and that's just one game.
The reward for showing loyalty back in the summer is that your ST will cost less the 23 x match tickets including special offers.
So then you have £100 to work with.
Can't drop too low as if the two are two close you have people saying" I miss a few games a year for work/evenings etc so I won't bother".
So you work on maybe £70 differential. That allows you offer 3 £10 off games or two £15 off offers.
That keeps STs happy and keeps the STs good value for money plus giving the Club enough flexibility to make two or three offers a season.
Perhaps offering £ 10.00 off of next years ST to current holders + £ 10.00 off a ST to those who purchased a £ 5.00 Exeter ticket will not only keep current ST holders, but maybe add a few more season ticket sales.
The potential bank interest that could be gained by more people buying upfront should go towards the losses that would be incurred by selling discounted tickets ?
We would get more bums on seats and benefit from the associated incremental revenue streams mentioned above ie merchandise, programmes, food etc. And who knows attract new supporters.
It could work like this:
Say a season ticket now is (for simplicity) either £500 in West and East or £300 in Covered End.
In June the Club announce that all £500 seats will be sold for £250 and all the £300 seats for £150 for the forthcoming season. The caveat of this being that it will only be viable if the club can sell double the number of season tickets it has done this year by a certain date in the summer. (Say we sold 8,000 this year then the offer would only stand if we sold 16,000 at this knock down price).
If by the end of the stated date windows enough tickets had not been sold then the price would revert to normal.
Bradford did something similar.
Problem is individuals aren't sure if they are paying £500 or £250 and to many that is a big difference.
Still, all good to get ideas. Just the sort of thing that gets discussed at T40k meetings so keep them coming.
Do bear in mind that we want both income and attendances up not just one or the other.
If people then thought "actually i cant afford the full price of £500 so ill not get one" they havent lost anything and will only pay on the gate.....which is the same as what would happen if they were offered at full price originally.
With upped attendance, whilst you would be earning less per capita on ticket sales than before the increase in volume would negate all of this. Plus all the incremental revenue that would come with it.
Say for example
Scenario one as it is now: 5,000 season tickets at £500 gives you £2.5m .
Each buys a pint at the ground. £3 x 5,000 = £15,000 game x 23 games = £345k Incremental revenue a season. Total income per season = £2,845,000
Scenario 2 with half priced season tickets taken up: Then 10,000 STs at £250 each would also give you £2.5m
However if every one of those 10,000 buys a pint then thats £30,000 a game = £690,000 incremental rev per season. Total income per season = £3,190,000
And that is just based on buying a pint so factoring in programmes, food, club shop etc it would be a considerable increase. Plus once a season ticket is bought then it's bought and even if the holder doesnt go to any games whilst you wont get any incremental revenue youd still have more than if they didnt have a season ticket at all.
the average per spend in the ground (food/drinks/progs etc) is fairly low. Airman worked it out as above £1.50. And I think that is spend not profit but Airman will correct me on that
* Before anyone says it I do get my round in in the Lib : - )
In the scenario i suggest you earn EXACTLY the same on the initial ticket sales as we do know. However your revenue increases on the additional stuff that comes with extra attendees. Unless the additional Stewarding costs/ police etc between a crowd of 12k and a crowd of 24k make it uneconomical then i cant see how doubling the crowd would do anything other than both improve the atmosphere and increase profits?
I agree although people will moan that the "new" fans aren't hardcore enough, don't know the words to the songs, clog up the beer queues and leave early
: - )
It gives us some purpose in life!
Why can we never have an FA cup run?
We did but lost to Barnet on penalties.
"but" they will say "wasn't it more fun in League 1 playing Swindon and Walsall"
: - )