Empty seats

Fewer attendees than season ticket holders at last night’s match. Brentford have taken pretty drastic action with their policy for next season’s season tickets - miss four games without making your ticket available for resale and lose your seat for the following season:

[img]https://www.northstandchat.com/attachments/fpfw70kxsaazmnd-jpeg.157464/[/img]
That’s a little too draconian for my liking, but surely we should be looking at a more effective, incentive based solution for next season. Even something simple, like a few quid credit to spend at the club would help, wouldn’t it?

I have a season ticket but only get to 7 or 8 games. I've released it on half a dozen occasions but the guy next to me says its only been used once. Maybe because it's a single seat, not sure. Apparently it wasn't even used for the Luton replay
I don't want any compo, I bought the seat partly as a donation in the hope of boosting the transfer kitty. Brentford must be selling out to take such a big step and it seems strange to penalise your core supporters

There a seat in the row in front of me. Showing reserved so it should be a ST but it's been empty every league game so far.

I know of at least three people who buy season tickets without ever attending a game "to help the club out".
Difficult to argue with that level of commitment but perhaps the club could ask them the question regarding something even more positive to do with those particular seats.

Quoted from Les Brechin

There a seat in the row in front of me. Showing reserved so it should be a ST but it's been empty every league game so far.

My ST seat doesn't have a reserved sticker on it and I attend every home game. In fact it's the only seat around me which doesn't have a reserved sticker on it.

I can't believe this is even worthy of discussion.
Who do they think they are?
Fan buys ticket and gets bollocking for not turning up, the country has gone mad.
male masturbators.

Quoted from barralad

I know of at least three people who buy season tickets without ever attending a game "to help the club out".
Difficult to argue with that level of commitment but perhaps the club could ask them the question regarding something even more positive to do with those particular seats.

People bought them knowing they won’t make all games , I’m sure they offer them to their mates and family .
Last nights game was always going to be one of the least attended , especially now it’s  getting to the business end of the Champions League knock out stages.

It’s only really an issue for the games that are completely sold out

I’ve bought one for years. I’m an exile and maybe make 60-70% of games. Midweek is out in term time as we don’t get home until midnight.

I do release it when I remember. But to be penalised for supporting the club through its worst is a bit harsh.

There were plenty of seats available in the Osmond.

Quoted from Poojah

That’s a little too draconian for my liking, but surely we should be looking at a more effective, incentive based solution for next season. Even something simple, like a few quid credit to spend at the club would help, wouldn’t it?

Been thinking a bit about this, and the more I think about it the more complicated it becomes. That’s without having balance sheets and budgets to worry about too.

Whatever’s in place, I think it could only work if compo is dished out once tickets are resold rather than released. Otherwise you’re looking at guaranteed ST income potentially fluctuating week to week, you could have every ST release their seats one week and suddenly you’ve got 5500 lots of fivers or credits to dish out.

You couldn’t really do it as a flat single rate, it would have to be based on the value/category of the ST - if you’ve paid £70 for a kids’ ST and it’s resold every week, you could end the season in profit. Morally though, if the seat is sold as a ST and then sold again once released, the club will have made twice the income for the same thing, so a decent whack should go back to the ST holder.

Then if you’ve got an adult ST, and the seat is resold as a concession, how much is that worth? Averaged out, an adult ST is worth £14.78 per game (most stands), that seat could be sold as cheap as £5, total revenue from that seat then is £19.78, less than the standard £20 matchday price.

Like I said, complicated.

Lincoln have a system where somekind of buyback is triggered when only a certain number of tickets remain ( 200 or so) - don’t know the details but Leicester Tigers have something like it as well. Perhaps it needs a more sophisticated ticketing system.

As far the last numbers announced in the summer are concerned I think we had as many ST sales as Lincoln and more than Stockport. Both clearly have much higher usage than us. And then by contrast Port Vale sold 6k ST but only had 4600 at a midweek home game the other week.

I expect ST sales to dip quite a bit next season, but it probably won’t affect attendances that much if % usage rises as a result.