DN35 Jason and Andrew Interview

Quoted from HertsGTFC

Agree completely when I said "genius idea" I was being sarcastic, it's bonkers and I'd be amazed if we took a step to p1ss off season ticket holders.

I guessed you were being 'flippant' but it wouldn't surprise me if someone genuinely suggested it.
The whole situation regarding seats available or sold and non-attendees is a very complex one to resolve to everyone's satisfaction.

If we had a new stadium there would be no seating issues.  Just saying.

We're not getting one though, regardless of how much it would benefit (or how much I agree with you).

In the current climate we simply can't afford one, as has been detailed to death on here previously.  It pains me, but it is what it is.  We therefore need to maximise what we've got in front of us.

All the solutions I've read on here are carrots to please STHs who don't turn up.

As in life, a stick element may help too.

Miss six games a season and you can't renew that particular seat at an early bird price so it is released into the system.

Could stop the hoggers.

Also if people want to buy a seat to help the club but have no intention to attend, why not let them have restricted view seats at a cut price. Everyone happy as the prime seats now freed up while the non attendee has a season card and knowledge of an actual seat at ground.

Interesting approach.  Bit of carrot and stick in it.  We've got to be careful that we don't turn fans away with too harsh a stick.  If we have a shitty season and come November we're bottom of the table and no-one wants to watch us, the club would be grateful of that £30k that came in through the door in the summer months.  

I'd personally think something a bit less stick and a bit more carrot could work.  As per your idea, attendance or released into the system for X % of games = Early Bird Discount or similar.  Or for every game you do attend/release ticket for you get a chunk of the Early Bird reduction.  Tiered approach to it:

50% or less attended/released = 50% of the maximum discount...

I think 100% = 100% is probably a bit harsh though. Be unfair to stop someone getting maximum discount because of one/two games of unfortunate circumstances/sudden illness.

Quoted from Yarborough Vaults

All the solutions I've read on here are carrots to please STHs who don't turn up.

As in life, a stick element may help too.

Miss six games a season and you can't renew that particular seat at an early bird price so it is released into the system.

Could stop the hoggers.

Also if people want to buy a seat to help the club but have no intention to attend, why not let them have restricted view seats at a cut price. Everyone happy as the prime seats now freed up while the non attendee has a season card and knowledge of an actual seat at ground.

Bollox answer.

I have a mate who has had a season ticket for years but probably only makes half the games as he lives and works down south.

If he has paid for his seat in advance he should have access to it when ever he likes.

If the club said he could only have access to a limited view he would tell the club to go fuk themselves.

Quoted from Yarborough Vaults

All the solutions I've read on here are carrots to please STHs who don't turn up.

As in life, a stick element may help too.

Miss six games a season and you can't renew that particular seat at an early bird price so it is released into the system.

Could stop the hoggers.

Also if people want to buy a seat to help the club but have no intention to attend, why not let them have restricted view seats at a cut price. Everyone happy as the prime seats now freed up while the non attendee has a season card and knowledge of an actual seat at ground.

Again though, the situation is more nuanced than that. As someone who lives a three-hour round trip away from BP, I do tend to miss somewhere in the region of 6 games per season. Typically mid-week games if my work commitments don't allow, and the occasional Saturday game when I might have other family commitments.

That's been the case for about 20 years, and until very recently it's not been a problem. To the contrary in fact; though I have bought a season ticket for a few reasons, such as convenience, the ability to get hold of away tickets for the odd local derby and in the rare event of a big cup draw, the number one reason was to help support the club. That was certainly the only reason I bought one for the 20/21 season, when it always seemed as though actually getting to a game would be a virtual impossibility.

There will be plenty of others like me who don't fit the broad description of "hogger". The stick approach would be harsh on too many long-term, loyal fans for it to ever get a good reception imo, so that basically leaves us with the carrot. A £5 credit to spend in the ground on matchdays in return for handing your seat back (perhaps an extra quid if you do it a week or more in advance), assuming it is resold at full price AND a certain threshold is also met in terms of ticket sales (e.g. 90% of non-ST capacity). Assuming on average the club makes a profit of £12 (factoring in concessions), that would have been another £12,000 in the coffers on Monday.

There's an argument that fans should be prepared to hand their seat back for free, as is the case right now, but I think that's a naive view. People are busy, the system is clunky and the lack of a motivating factor is likely to mean that more people don't bother, than do. I released my seat for the original Carlisle game back in August last year, as I was abroad at the time. When it was rearranged I was told my ST would be good for the new date, only to find my ticket had been invalidated when I arrived at the turnstiles. By the time I managed to get things resolved in the ticket office, we were 2-0 down.

Give people a motivation. Make things easy. No one suffers. Everybody wins.

I don't think it's much more complicated than that.

Quoted from Poojah

Again though, the situation is more nuanced than that. As someone who lives a three-hour round trip away from BP, I do tend to miss somewhere in the region of 6 games per season. Typically mid-week games if my work commitments don't allow, and the occasional Saturday game when I might have other family commitments.

That's been the case for about 20 years, and until very recently it's not been a problem. To the contrary in fact; though I have bought a season ticket for a few reasons, such as convenience, the ability to get hold of away tickets for the odd local derby and in the rare event of a big cup draw, the number one reason was to help support the club. That was certainly the only reason I bought one for the 20/21 season, when it always seemed as though actually getting to a game would be a virtual impossibility.

There will be plenty of others like me who don't fit the broad description of "hogger". The stick approach would be harsh on too many long-term, loyal fans for it to ever get a good reception imo, so that basically leaves us with the carrot. A £5 credit to spend in the ground on matchdays in return for handing your seat back (perhaps an extra quid if you do it a week or more in advance), assuming it is resold at full price AND a certain threshold is also met in terms of ticket sales (e.g. 90% of non-ST capacity). Assuming on average the club makes a profit of £12 (factoring in concessions), that would have been another £12,000 in the coffers on Monday.

There's an argument that fans should be prepared to hand their seat back for free, as is the case right now, but I think that's a naive view. People are busy, the system is clunky and the lack of a motivating factor is likely to mean that more people don't bother, than do. I released my seat for the original Carlisle game back in August last year, as I was abroad at the time. When it was rearranged I was told my ST would be good for the new date, only to find my ticket had been invalidated when I arrived at the turnstiles. By the time I managed to get things resolved in the ticket office, we were 2-0 down.

Give people a motivation. Make things easy. No one suffers. Everybody wins.

I don't think it's much more complicated than that.

Impossible to argue with any of that.

If I'm being honest and brutally so with it, it feels a bit like the club are just being a bit lazy and complacent with the whole issue.  Regardless of how deep they bury their heads in the sad, the issue remains and will remain for as long as there's appetite.  The example you mention of you basically getting copulated over because you did the 'right' thing in the first place sums it up, sloppy.

Quoted from diehardmariner

Impossible to argue with any of that.

If I'm being honest and brutally so with it, it feels a bit like the club are just being a bit lazy and complacent with the whole issue.  Regardless of how deep they bury their heads in the sad, the issue remains and will remain for as long as there's appetite.  The example you mention of you basically getting copulated over because you did the 'right' thing in the first place sums it up, sloppy.

100%. I think there’s likely a technical challenge in that our ticketing platform is far from best in class, so automating something akin to what I outlined might be trickier in practice than is immediately obvious. But ultimately, other clubs do similar things - it most certainly is at an impossibility.

Oh to have Fenty back and the days where  you could just walk up at 5 to 3 and grab an unrestricted seat 🙏🙏