"Meanwhile, two hours before kick-off on a matchday, prices will still increase by £3 for adults, over 65s and U21s."
For the love of God, why?
They have effectively lost me as a customer as I have no intention of buying a ST whilst RD and KM are still at the club. I don't leave near enough to the Valley to justify going there before matchday, I'm not going to arrive 2 hours before the match kicks off (although this is mainly thanks to Southeastern and their crap service at weekends), and my decision to go to the Valley is usually made on the morning.
Can I print off my ticket at home? Or do I need to collect? The club's website is not helpful in this respect.
Maybe I am the one who needs to show them how to use a computer, since no one at the club seems competent enough to make this information easily accessible on their website. Absolute sack of shit this club.
Fiiish, all of your posts make you sound like an educated, intelligent chap so I assume that you go to things like concerts, plays, musicals, other sporting events and that sort of thing. Would you stroll up to the O2 on a night that a night that had a huge act on and expect to buy a ticket just before you go in? I only ask because if not (and remembering that Ticket master charge something like £10 booking fee per ticket) you must have some experience of planning your life before the day in question. Is it so black and white that for an event that is in the diary for up to ten months before it happens you cannot make a decision to go 24 hours before it starts? And if not you will refuse to ever go again if they make you pay a little extra for not booking in advance?
I know we hate those running the club but it must be very difficult to plan staff rotas when you have no idea what you are going to need. As much as many people would love Roland to lose all of his money and enjoy reducing his income it is just unrealistic for the club to spend thousands of pounds providing staff for peak periods when there is an alternative and they can financially reward those that take advantage of it.
Almost every event that i can think of has an early bird discount - including season tickets. There was outrage on here a few years ago when someone pointed out that a season ticket was not much cheaper that paying match by match.
Sometimes credibility goes if one criticises absolutely everything. This is not great marketing but there is justification for it, in my opinion.
Save that sweet £12/hour or whatever it is the ticket office folks are paid.
You're obviously not as all indie and hip and down wit da kids as you think.
Fiish, how many league 1 clubs sell out every week ? (no problem filling their stadiums).
NB read my response to you above. I'd guess you have a smartphone, so just scan your phone ticket at the turnstile.
I honestly have no idea. The stadiums range from under 5K to over 32K. I would say that any club that can achieve over 75% attendance on a regular basis is doing pretty well.
Would the online system be able to cope if 500 people all logged on to purchase tickets at 12:45, I have my doubts.
So do I, but then if I didn't have a S/T, I'd be buying much earlier than that.
It's a general rule of thumb that if you leave things to the last minute, something is more likely to go wrong.
Fail to plan is plan to fail
If only the Government had put in a £3 surcharge for all those who tried to register to vote in the referendum and crashed the website two hours before the deadline we could have avoided all this aggro.
Fiish, how many league 1 clubs sell out every week ? (no problem filling their stadiums).
NB read my response to you above. I'd guess you have a smartphone, so just scan your phone ticket at the turnstile.
I honestly have no idea. The stadiums range from under 5K to over 32K. I would say that any club that can achieve over 75% attendance on a regular basis is doing pretty well.
Thanks for the smartphone tip.
I would virtually put my house on no one in L1 selling out on a regular basis. Bradford C may come close.
Fiish, how many league 1 clubs sell out every week ? (no problem filling their stadiums).
NB read my response to you above. I'd guess you have a smartphone, so just scan your phone ticket at the turnstile.
I honestly have no idea. The stadiums range from under 5K to over 32K. I would say that any club that can achieve over 75% attendance on a regular basis is doing pretty well.
Thanks for the smartphone tip.
I would virtually put my house on no one in L1 selling out on a regular basis. Bradford C may come close.
I decided to look this up out of interest and yeah not a single one comes close. AFC Wimbledon I think is the only club that comes close from last year but their stadium is tiny.
Our 'reported' attendance last year was an average of 15K, which would put us in the top 3 attendances next year. If we fall below the top 5 (even in 'reported' attendances), considering we have the 5th biggest stadium, would be an indictment of the club's failure to get people to come to the ground.
Fiish, how many league 1 clubs sell out every week ? (no problem filling their stadiums).
NB read my response to you above. I'd guess you have a smartphone, so just scan your phone ticket at the turnstile.
I honestly have no idea. The stadiums range from under 5K to over 32K. I would say that any club that can achieve over 75% attendance on a regular basis is doing pretty well.
Thanks for the smartphone tip.
I would virtually put my house on no one in L1 selling out on a regular basis. Bradford C may come close.
"Meanwhile, two hours before kick-off on a matchday, prices will still increase by £3 for adults, over 65s and U21s."
For the love of God, why?
They have effectively lost me as a customer as I have no intention of buying a ST whilst RD and KM are still at the club. I don't leave near enough to the Valley to justify going there before matchday, I'm not going to arrive 2 hours before the match kicks off (although this is mainly thanks to Southeastern and their crap service at weekends), and my decision to go to the Valley is usually made on the morning.
Can I print off my ticket at home? Or do I need to collect? The club's website is not helpful in this respect.
Maybe I am the one who needs to show them how to use a computer, since no one at the club seems competent enough to make this information easily accessible on their website. Absolute sack of shit this club.
Fiiish, all of your posts make you sound like an educated, intelligent chap so I assume that you go to things like concerts, plays, musicals, other sporting events and that sort of thing. Would you stroll up to the O2 on a night that a night that had a huge act on and expect to buy a ticket just before you go in? I only ask because if not (and remembering that Ticket master charge something like £10 booking fee per ticket) you must have some experience of planning your life before the day in question. Is it so black and white that for an event that is in the diary for up to ten months before it happens you cannot make a decision to go 24 hours before it starts? And if not you will refuse to ever go again if they make you pay a little extra for not booking in advance?
I know we hate those running the club but it must be very difficult to plan staff rotas when you have no idea what you are going to need. As much as many people would love Roland to lose all of his money and enjoy reducing his income it is just unrealistic for the club to spend thousands of pounds providing staff for peak periods when there is an alternative and they can financially reward those that take advantage of it.
Almost every event that i can think of has an early bird discount - including season tickets. There was outrage on here a few years ago when someone pointed out that a season ticket was not much cheaper that paying match by match. If Airman Brown had introduced the 'surcharge' or 'discount for early payment' back in the Premier League days it would have been heralded as a masterstroke. When we were charging Arsenal fans £45 when the rest of the ground was paying £30 there wasn't an uproar.
Sometimes credibility goes if one criticises absolutely everything. We need to remember that when we 'declared war' on the current regime they were hardly going to bend over and take it up the ar$e now were they?
Load of rubbish, KHA, not least because I didn't have responsibility for the ticket office in the PL and we would never have done such a thing anyway. Neither did we charge Arsenal £45 when the rest of the ground was paying £30. As it happens the board imposed £45 prices on the management team. We didn't agree with it and we failed to sell out the matches as a consequence of it, because there weren't enough verifiable Charlton fans willing to pay that price for the available home seats.
As for the rest of it, "huge acts" don't play to a stadium with 15,000 empty seats. The cost of employing the half a dozen casual ticket staff on matchdays is peanuts next to the revenue. A business that turns away extra revenue with next to no cost of sale attached isn't likely to last long.
Fair enough on the Arsenal tickets, I thought the £45 prices only applied to those behind the goals.
My point still stands about other events though. If one can arrange that in advance there is no reason as to why one can't make a decision to go to football in advance also. Just because there is no question of getting in doesn't mean that the decision to go has to be made in the morning of the game does it?
Oh shush @KHA Fact, I'm not buying any season tickets. Fact, me and the kids would have bought some walk up tickets half a dozen times a season for games maybe blessed with good Weather, now the £9 surcharge will make us fuck off and do something less boring instead. I promise you it's no skin off our noses......I'm just annoyed I'm unlikely to be there to join in the sadly inevitable September protests against these pricks
The surcharge does not apply to kids or U18's tickets. I find this all so petty the income to the club could be less than £2000 per game hardly seems worth all the hassle.
The surcharge does not apply to kids or U18's tickets. I find this all so petty the income to the club could be less than £2000 per game hardly seems worth all the hassle.
"Meanwhile, two hours before kick-off on a matchday, prices will still increase by £3 for adults, over 65s and U21s."
For the love of God, why?
They have effectively lost me as a customer as I have no intention of buying a ST whilst RD and KM are still at the club. I don't leave near enough to the Valley to justify going there before matchday, I'm not going to arrive 2 hours before the match kicks off (although this is mainly thanks to Southeastern and their crap service at weekends), and my decision to go to the Valley is usually made on the morning.
Can I print off my ticket at home? Or do I need to collect? The club's website is not helpful in this respect.
Maybe I am the one who needs to show them how to use a computer, since no one at the club seems competent enough to make this information easily accessible on their website. Absolute sack of shit this club.
Fiiish, all of your posts make you sound like an educated, intelligent chap so I assume that you go to things like concerts, plays, musicals, other sporting events and that sort of thing. Would you stroll up to the O2 on a night that a night that had a huge act on and expect to buy a ticket just before you go in? I only ask because if not (and remembering that Ticket master charge something like £10 booking fee per ticket) you must have some experience of planning your life before the day in question. Is it so black and white that for an event that is in the diary for up to ten months before it happens you cannot make a decision to go 24 hours before it starts? And if not you will refuse to ever go again if they make you pay a little extra for not booking in advance?
I know we hate those running the club but it must be very difficult to plan staff rotas when you have no idea what you are going to need. As much as many people would love Roland to lose all of his money and enjoy reducing his income it is just unrealistic for the club to spend thousands of pounds providing staff for peak periods when there is an alternative and they can financially reward those that take advantage of it.
Almost every event that i can think of has an early bird discount - including season tickets. There was outrage on here a few years ago when someone pointed out that a season ticket was not much cheaper that paying match by match. If Airman Brown had introduced the 'surcharge' or 'discount for early payment' back in the Premier League days it would have been heralded as a masterstroke. When we were charging Arsenal fans £45 when the rest of the ground was paying £30 there wasn't an uproar.
Sometimes credibility goes if one criticises absolutely everything. We need to remember that when we 'declared war' on the current regime they were hardly going to bend over and take it up the ar$e now were they?
Load of rubbish, KHA, not least because I didn't have responsibility for the ticket office in the PL and we would never have done such a thing anyway. Neither did we charge Arsenal £45 when the rest of the ground was paying £30. As it happens the board imposed £45 prices on the management team. We didn't agree with it and we failed to sell out the matches as a consequence of it, because there weren't enough verifiable Charlton fans willing to pay that price for the available home seats.
As for the rest of it, "huge acts" don't play to a stadium with 15,000 empty seats. The cost of employing the half a dozen casual ticket staff on matchdays is peanuts next to the revenue. A business that turns away extra revenue with next to no cost of sale attached isn't likely to last long.
Fair enough on the Arsenal tickets, I thought the £45 prices only applied to those behind the goals.
My point still stands about other events though. If one can arrange that in advance there is no reason as to why one can't make a decision to go to football in advance also. Just because there is no question of getting in doesn't mean that the decision to go has to be made in the morning of the game does it?
Oh shush @KHA Fact, I'm not buying any season tickets. Fact, me and the kids would have bought some walk up tickets half a dozen times a season for games maybe blessed with good Weather, now the £9 surcharge will make us fuck off and do something less boring instead. I promise you it's no skin off our noses......I'm just annoyed I'm unlikely to be there to join in the sadly inevitable September protests against these pricks
So what is it? Is it no skin off your nose (promise?) or are you annoyed?
It isn't being done to raise revenue as it's priority.
It's being done to discourage people buying at the ground in the 2 hours before kick off.
It's trying to force fans to buy online and use their smart phone to access the turnstiles, print at home & access the turnstiles or buy online & collect at the NW corner collection point.
Doing this will mean they need less ticket office staff & it will reduce the likleyhood of any queues.
The surcharge does not apply to kids or U18's tickets. I find this all so petty the income to the club could be less than £2000 per game hardly seems worth all the hassle.
Not bothered, they can still suck my left one
I guess we'll have to put our tank and rocket launcher plans on hold then mate
"Meanwhile, two hours before kick-off on a matchday, prices will still increase by £3 for adults, over 65s and U21s."
For the love of God, why?
They have effectively lost me as a customer as I have no intention of buying a ST whilst RD and KM are still at the club. I don't leave near enough to the Valley to justify going there before matchday, I'm not going to arrive 2 hours before the match kicks off (although this is mainly thanks to Southeastern and their crap service at weekends), and my decision to go to the Valley is usually made on the morning.
Can I print off my ticket at home? Or do I need to collect? The club's website is not helpful in this respect.
Maybe I am the one who needs to show them how to use a computer, since no one at the club seems competent enough to make this information easily accessible on their website. Absolute sack of shit this club.
Fiiish, all of your posts make you sound like an educated, intelligent chap so I assume that you go to things like concerts, plays, musicals, other sporting events and that sort of thing. Would you stroll up to the O2 on a night that a night that had a huge act on and expect to buy a ticket just before you go in? I only ask because if not (and remembering that Ticket master charge something like £10 booking fee per ticket) you must have some experience of planning your life before the day in question. Is it so black and white that for an event that is in the diary for up to ten months before it happens you cannot make a decision to go 24 hours before it starts? And if not you will refuse to ever go again if they make you pay a little extra for not booking in advance?
I know we hate those running the club but it must be very difficult to plan staff rotas when you have no idea what you are going to need. As much as many people would love Roland to lose all of his money and enjoy reducing his income it is just unrealistic for the club to spend thousands of pounds providing staff for peak periods when there is an alternative and they can financially reward those that take advantage of it.
Almost every event that i can think of has an early bird discount - including season tickets. There was outrage on here a few years ago when someone pointed out that a season ticket was not much cheaper that paying match by match. If Airman Brown had introduced the 'surcharge' or 'discount for early payment' back in the Premier League days it would have been heralded as a masterstroke. When we were charging Arsenal fans £45 when the rest of the ground was paying £30 there wasn't an uproar.
Sometimes credibility goes if one criticises absolutely everything. We need to remember that when we 'declared war' on the current regime they were hardly going to bend over and take it up the ar$e now were they?
Load of rubbish, KHA, not least because I didn't have responsibility for the ticket office in the PL and we would never have done such a thing anyway. Neither did we charge Arsenal £45 when the rest of the ground was paying £30. As it happens the board imposed £45 prices on the management team. We didn't agree with it and we failed to sell out the matches as a consequence of it, because there weren't enough verifiable Charlton fans willing to pay that price for the available home seats.
As for the rest of it, "huge acts" don't play to a stadium with 15,000 empty seats. The cost of employing the half a dozen casual ticket staff on matchdays is peanuts next to the revenue. A business that turns away extra revenue with next to no cost of sale attached isn't likely to last long.
Fair enough on the Arsenal tickets, I thought the £45 prices only applied to those behind the goals.
My point still stands about other events though. If one can arrange that in advance there is no reason as to why one can't make a decision to go to football in advance also. Just because there is no question of getting in doesn't mean that the decision to go has to be made in the morning of the game does it?
Oh shush @KHA Fact, I'm not buying any season tickets. Fact, me and the kids would have bought some walk up tickets half a dozen times a season for games maybe blessed with good Weather, now the £9 surcharge will make us fuck off and do something less boring instead. I promise you it's no skin off our noses......I'm just annoyed I'm unlikely to be there to join in the sadly inevitable September protests against these pricks
So what is it? Is it no skin off your nose (promise?) or are you annoyed?
It's two different sentences. Read it again and don't rush yourself xx
"Meanwhile, two hours before kick-off on a matchday, prices will still increase by £3 for adults, over 65s and U21s."
For the love of God, why?
They have effectively lost me as a customer as I have no intention of buying a ST whilst RD and KM are still at the club. I don't leave near enough to the Valley to justify going there before matchday, I'm not going to arrive 2 hours before the match kicks off (although this is mainly thanks to Southeastern and their crap service at weekends), and my decision to go to the Valley is usually made on the morning.
Can I print off my ticket at home? Or do I need to collect? The club's website is not helpful in this respect.
Maybe I am the one who needs to show them how to use a computer, since no one at the club seems competent enough to make this information easily accessible on their website. Absolute sack of shit this club.
Fiiish, all of your posts make you sound like an educated, intelligent chap so I assume that you go to things like concerts, plays, musicals, other sporting events and that sort of thing. Would you stroll up to the O2 on a night that a night that had a huge act on and expect to buy a ticket just before you go in? I only ask because if not (and remembering that Ticket master charge something like £10 booking fee per ticket) you must have some experience of planning your life before the day in question. Is it so black and white that for an event that is in the diary for up to ten months before it happens you cannot make a decision to go 24 hours before it starts? And if not you will refuse to ever go again if they make you pay a little extra for not booking in advance?
I know we hate those running the club but it must be very difficult to plan staff rotas when you have no idea what you are going to need. As much as many people would love Roland to lose all of his money and enjoy reducing his income it is just unrealistic for the club to spend thousands of pounds providing staff for peak periods when there is an alternative and they can financially reward those that take advantage of it.
Almost every event that i can think of has an early bird discount - including season tickets. There was outrage on here a few years ago when someone pointed out that a season ticket was not much cheaper that paying match by match. If Airman Brown had introduced the 'surcharge' or 'discount for early payment' back in the Premier League days it would have been heralded as a masterstroke. When we were charging Arsenal fans £45 when the rest of the ground was paying £30 there wasn't an uproar.
Sometimes credibility goes if one criticises absolutely everything. We need to remember that when we 'declared war' on the current regime they were hardly going to bend over and take it up the ar$e now were they?
Load of rubbish, KHA, not least because I didn't have responsibility for the ticket office in the PL and we would never have done such a thing anyway. Neither did we charge Arsenal £45 when the rest of the ground was paying £30. As it happens the board imposed £45 prices on the management team. We didn't agree with it and we failed to sell out the matches as a consequence of it, because there weren't enough verifiable Charlton fans willing to pay that price for the available home seats.
As for the rest of it, "huge acts" don't play to a stadium with 15,000 empty seats. The cost of employing the half a dozen casual ticket staff on matchdays is peanuts next to the revenue. A business that turns away extra revenue with next to no cost of sale attached isn't likely to last long.
Fair enough on the Arsenal tickets, I thought the £45 prices only applied to those behind the goals.
My point still stands about other events though. If one can arrange that in advance there is no reason as to why one can't make a decision to go to football in advance also. Just because there is no question of getting in doesn't mean that the decision to go has to be made in the morning of the game does it?
Oh shush @KHA Fact, I'm not buying any season tickets. Fact, me and the kids would have bought some walk up tickets half a dozen times a season for games maybe blessed with good Weather, now the £9 surcharge will make us fuck off and do something less boring instead. I promise you it's no skin off our noses......I'm just annoyed I'm unlikely to be there to join in the sadly inevitable September protests against these pricks
So what is it? Is it no skin off your nose (promise?) or are you annoyed?
It's two different sentences. Read it again and don't rush yourself xx
Do you have a smartphone ?
If so buy them online at say 12.30 if the weather is good & scan your phone at the turnstile.
If you prefer you can collect the tickets at the NW corner collection point, to save queueing to purchase tickets.
Those that have to go, just remember to make sure you definitely don't buy £5 kids tickets to sit anywhere you like in the ground (just by scanning your printout at the turnstile).
Because if you did that you'd be depriving the modern day Alan Turing of your hard-earned, while you watch dross football from one of the best seats in the house for a fiver!
"Meanwhile, two hours before kick-off on a matchday, prices will still increase by £3 for adults, over 65s and U21s."
For the love of God, why?
They have effectively lost me as a customer as I have no intention of buying a ST whilst RD and KM are still at the club. I don't leave near enough to the Valley to justify going there before matchday, I'm not going to arrive 2 hours before the match kicks off (although this is mainly thanks to Southeastern and their crap service at weekends), and my decision to go to the Valley is usually made on the morning.
Can I print off my ticket at home? Or do I need to collect? The club's website is not helpful in this respect.
Maybe I am the one who needs to show them how to use a computer, since no one at the club seems competent enough to make this information easily accessible on their website. Absolute sack of shit this club.
Fiiish, all of your posts make you sound like an educated, intelligent chap so I assume that you go to things like concerts, plays, musicals, other sporting events and that sort of thing. Would you stroll up to the O2 on a night that a night that had a huge act on and expect to buy a ticket just before you go in? I only ask because if not (and remembering that Ticket master charge something like £10 booking fee per ticket) you must have some experience of planning your life before the day in question. Is it so black and white that for an event that is in the diary for up to ten months before it happens you cannot make a decision to go 24 hours before it starts? And if not you will refuse to ever go again if they make you pay a little extra for not booking in advance?
I know we hate those running the club but it must be very difficult to plan staff rotas when you have no idea what you are going to need. As much as many people would love Roland to lose all of his money and enjoy reducing his income it is just unrealistic for the club to spend thousands of pounds providing staff for peak periods when there is an alternative and they can financially reward those that take advantage of it.
Almost every event that i can think of has an early bird discount - including season tickets. There was outrage on here a few years ago when someone pointed out that a season ticket was not much cheaper that paying match by match. If Airman Brown had introduced the 'surcharge' or 'discount for early payment' back in the Premier League days it would have been heralded as a masterstroke. When we were charging Arsenal fans £45 when the rest of the ground was paying £30 there wasn't an uproar.
Sometimes credibility goes if one criticises absolutely everything. We need to remember that when we 'declared war' on the current regime they were hardly going to bend over and take it up the ar$e now were they?
Load of rubbish, KHA, not least because I didn't have responsibility for the ticket office in the PL and we would never have done such a thing anyway. Neither did we charge Arsenal £45 when the rest of the ground was paying £30. As it happens the board imposed £45 prices on the management team. We didn't agree with it and we failed to sell out the matches as a consequence of it, because there weren't enough verifiable Charlton fans willing to pay that price for the available home seats.
As for the rest of it, "huge acts" don't play to a stadium with 15,000 empty seats. The cost of employing the half a dozen casual ticket staff on matchdays is peanuts next to the revenue. A business that turns away extra revenue with next to no cost of sale attached isn't likely to last long.
Fair enough on the Arsenal tickets, I thought the £45 prices only applied to those behind the goals.
My point still stands about other events though. If one can arrange that in advance there is no reason as to why one can't make a decision to go to football in advance also. Just because there is no question of getting in doesn't mean that the decision to go has to be made in the morning of the game does it?
Oh shush @KHA Fact, I'm not buying any season tickets. Fact, me and the kids would have bought some walk up tickets half a dozen times a season for games maybe blessed with good Weather, now the £9 surcharge will make us fuck off and do something less boring instead. I promise you it's no skin off our noses......I'm just annoyed I'm unlikely to be there to join in the sadly inevitable September protests against these pricks
So what is it? Is it no skin off your nose (promise?) or are you annoyed?
It's two different sentences. Read it again and don't rush yourself xx
Do you have a smartphone ?
If so buy them online at say 12.30 if the weather is good & scan your phone at the turnstile.
If you prefer you can collect the tickets at the NW corner collection point, to save queueing to purchase tickets.
I'm a bit sceptical that in practice they will leave online ticketing up until 1pm, whatever they say. The reason is that doing so generates more tickets for collection, which they'll then have to process.
I assume that you go to things like concerts, plays, musicals, other sporting events and that sort of thing. Would you stroll up to the O2 on a night that a night that had a huge act on and expect to buy a ticket just before you go in?
It's harder near the O2 because it's private property, but it's quite easy to rock up to Brixton Academy a few minutes before a headline band is due on stage and pick up a cheap ticket from a tout. For cash. (In theory, you should be able to do the same from the Seatwave shop next to the O2 on quieter nights, though I've never tried it myself.)
You can't compare sell-out gigs (which are often programmed to sell out, or worse, programmed to sell out to the likes of StubHub so walk-ups have to pay more) to tanking third division football teams playing to echoing arenas built for top-division football.
That is, unless you are Katrien Meire or Tony Cojones, in which case you're already exhibiting world-class levels of self-delusion.
If I was CEO and wanted to change the way people went about their business, I'd try to encourage people to change with an incentive rather than put a problem in place...
So, the club should have kept the price of match tickets the same as last year, but made it £1 less to buy online/download to smartphone or whatever. That way, they could gauge what the take up is/see whether there was a market for it.
If I was CEO and wanted to change the way people went about their business, I'd try to encourage people to change with an incentive rather than put a problem in place...
So, the club should have kept the price of match tickets the same as last year, but made it £1 less to buy online/download to smartphone or whatever. That way, they could gauge what the take up is/see whether there was a market for it.
Exactly, carrot not stick but Katrien and Cahones don't understand customer service
So many cheap ways to drive ticketing on-line.
Buy on-line and you're entered into a monthy draw to win a signed bal/seat on the sofa/tour of the training ground etc etc
In principal i do not have a huge problem with the idea if introduced correctly. The vast majority of people now have the tech and knowledge to book online. If you have no surcharge on kids and OAPs then the 'middle ground' would I guess be 95% tech savvy (and that comes from me without a smart phone!).
The issue is that the best time to introduce this is when you are successful, crowds are on the rise and keen to come and will put up with the odd distraction. Not when every action is being picked over and criticised. It would surely be better to build the infrastructure and encourage people to use it - discounts for certain matches and the like if you book on line - a carrot, rather than a stick. Then after a season or two of that, when a lot of fans are used to the system, bring in the surcharge.
The small back track yesterday smacks of them having bought this in knowing they would get abuse and having a plan to water it down to try to show they are listening to the fans without really changing the fundamental point of a surcharge.
As someone without a season ticket this year and with a dislike of the regime meaning I don't want to give them unnecessary money it just means that if, with a couple of hours to go before a game I do not have a ticket I won't be tempted to do a late walk up but not sure I would have been anyway.
It isn't being done to raise revenue as it's priority.
It's being done to discourage people buying at the ground in the 2 hours before kick off.
And therein lies the problem. Wouldn't it make more sense to encourage fans to buy through other means than to discourage them from buying in certain windows?
It's not like we're awash with fans. There will be games next season where 80% of the seats will be empty - they'd need to sell a tiny number of tickets to justify a couple of extra members of staff for those two hours. In fact, that'd be a lot cheaper than upgrading their sh!tty online ticketing system.
You'd have thought that they would have learned last year that cost cutting above all else has a disproportionately high impact on your revenues (cut costs on the squad, move to League One rather than Championship money).
Cost cutting is fine where employed sensibly and with provision not to harm either existing or potential revenues. These cretins will go running to Roly telling him they've saved £10K per year in Overhead, ignoring the fact that they have lost £20k as a result.
Why not just have self-service kiosks? A short-term expense but removes need to have more than one member of staff manning the area. It's what train stations and cinemas do nowadays and it seems to work. Kind of.
Just like the few £100 they "saved" from getting rid of the firm selling programmes.
Only realised after they'd done it they the firm owned the mobile stalls used to sell the programmes and wouldn't, unsurprisingly having just been sacked, loan them back.
Months of no proper way to sell programmes lead to drastic reduction in sales and so income.
Response from club. People aren't buying programmes, let's get rid of programmes completely. That is the level of incompetence we are dealing with.
Comments
That sweet, sweet £3.50/hour
NB read my response to you above. I'd guess you have a smartphone, so just scan your phone ticket at the turnstile.
It's a general rule of thumb that if you leave things to the last minute, something is more likely to go wrong.
Fail to plan is plan to fail
Thanks for the smartphone tip.
Our 'reported' attendance last year was an average of 15K, which would put us in the top 3 attendances next year. If we fall below the top 5 (even in 'reported' attendances), considering we have the 5th biggest stadium, would be an indictment of the club's failure to get people to come to the ground.
Fact, I'm not buying any season tickets.
Fact, me and the kids would have bought some walk up tickets half a dozen times a season for games maybe blessed with good Weather, now the £9 surcharge will make us fuck off and do something less boring instead. I promise you it's no skin off our noses......I'm just annoyed I'm unlikely to be there to join in the sadly inevitable September protests against these pricks
It's being done to discourage people buying at the ground in the 2 hours before kick off.
It's trying to force fans to buy online and use their smart phone to access the turnstiles, print at home & access the turnstiles or buy online & collect at the NW corner collection point.
Doing this will mean they need less ticket office staff & it will reduce the likleyhood of any queues.
If so buy them online at say 12.30 if the weather is good & scan your phone at the turnstile.
If you prefer you can collect the tickets at the NW corner collection point, to save queueing to purchase tickets.
Because if you did that you'd be depriving the modern day Alan Turing of your hard-earned, while you watch dross football from one of the best seats in the house for a fiver!
You can't compare sell-out gigs (which are often programmed to sell out, or worse, programmed to sell out to the likes of StubHub so walk-ups have to pay more) to tanking third division football teams playing to echoing arenas built for top-division football.
That is, unless you are Katrien Meire or Tony Cojones, in which case you're already exhibiting world-class levels of self-delusion.
If I was CEO and wanted to change the way people went about their business, I'd try to encourage people to change with an incentive rather than put a problem in place...
So, the club should have kept the price of match tickets the same as last year, but made it £1 less to buy online/download to smartphone or whatever. That way, they could gauge what the take up is/see whether there was a market for it.
So many cheap ways to drive ticketing on-line.
Buy on-line and you're entered into a monthy draw to win a signed bal/seat on the sofa/tour of the training ground etc etc
The issue is that the best time to introduce this is when you are successful, crowds are on the rise and keen to come and will put up with the odd distraction. Not when every action is being picked over and criticised. It would surely be better to build the infrastructure and encourage people to use it - discounts for certain matches and the like if you book on line - a carrot, rather than a stick. Then after a season or two of that, when a lot of fans are used to the system, bring in the surcharge.
The small back track yesterday smacks of them having bought this in knowing they would get abuse and having a plan to water it down to try to show they are listening to the fans without really changing the fundamental point of a surcharge.
As someone without a season ticket this year and with a dislike of the regime meaning I don't want to give them unnecessary money it just means that if, with a couple of hours to go before a game I do not have a ticket I won't be tempted to do a late walk up but not sure I would have been anyway.
It's not like we're awash with fans. There will be games next season where 80% of the seats will be empty - they'd need to sell a tiny number of tickets to justify a couple of extra members of staff for those two hours. In fact, that'd be a lot cheaper than upgrading their sh!tty online ticketing system.
You'd have thought that they would have learned last year that cost cutting above all else has a disproportionately high impact on your revenues (cut costs on the squad, move to League One rather than Championship money).
Cost cutting is fine where employed sensibly and with provision not to harm either existing or potential revenues. These cretins will go running to Roly telling him they've saved £10K per year in Overhead, ignoring the fact that they have lost £20k as a result.
Only realised after they'd done it they the firm owned the mobile stalls used to sell the programmes and wouldn't, unsurprisingly having just been sacked, loan them back.
Months of no proper way to sell programmes lead to drastic reduction in sales and so income.
Response from club. People aren't buying programmes, let's get rid of programmes completely. That is the level of incompetence we are dealing with.