Brian Fantana
Well-known member
On the day of the game, there were in the region of that many tickets for sale (given the game had previously sold out, these had to be one ones listed).
Got something to say or just want fewer pesky ads? Join us... 😊
[Albion] Club cancelling ST due to non-attendance
- Thread starter Hornblower
- Start date
I agree with a vast majority of your post but the bit above not so. The club can't complain that supporters treat the club like any other commercial entity, such as a supermarket, when the club treat supporters as customers rather than fans. Charging for pathetic little things such as print at home tickets just distances the club from supporters.
- Jul 27, 2024
- 845
The charge for print-at-home tickets is surely not designed to be a revenue earner. I’m guessing its purpose is to discourage the use of paper tickets as they are easier to resell/pass on.
PascalGroß Tips
Well-known member
- Jan 29, 2024
- 778
Was just about to post the same
dsr-burnley
Well-known member
- Aug 15, 2014
- 2,699
It's a fine line, isn't it. When you have more customers than you can cope with, discouraging the less profitable ones may seem like a good idea. The problem comes if and when there comes a time when you don't have more customers than you can cope with - have you put people off that would otherwise have still been customers? Presumably the club has looked at the options and decided that the benefit outweighs the disadvantage.
You're not discouraging customers, you're just trying to change their habits. Yes, there may be some that never/can't use a mobile phone but there are also a proportion that just refuse to.
That old customer chestnut rears it's ugly head again.
I agree that if the amount of lost sales due to disgruntlement (for example I recall someone saying they now refuse to buy a half time pie) is greater than the income generated by the print at home option, then you are absolutely correct. Bin it.
If I were the club, and if the print at home rubric were fully automated (I seem to recall I had to send an email last time I needed to do this, and it was answered by a human being who was receiving a salary) I would not charge for it.
But my impression is that the number of people who are boycotting the club's goods because they have to print their ticket at home is vanishingly small. so I suspect we are debating the equivalent of how many unicorns are required to make a good barbecue.
Finally I presume you are unfamiliar with the saying 'take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves'
- Jun 27, 2012
- 14,733
Do the Albion really "discourage the less profitable ? ". They still actively sell OAP and concessionary tickets and season tickets (some clubs no longer do so) , they don't charge admin fees or interest for those that pay for season tickets monthly (many other clubs do) , even prices of tea and pints aren't exhorbitant (£2.50 for a tea and £5.80 for a Harveys) , last season they offered £75-100 season tickets for our 3 games in Europe (this season Villa have sold 1 Champions League ticket for that amount) . And behind the scenes there are plenty of stories of club going out of their way to accomodate fans with illness, mobility issues, Yes. There is some pricing designed to change behaviour that affects a handful. And a lot of persistent posters on here complaining about it (multiple times over) but not sure thats the fair story of Albion as a club.
Dave the OAP
Well-known member
I think where the club ( and they are not alone) encourages sporting tourists then the term “ customer” is valid.
i am very surprised the club are spending money on putting in extra seats above the NS when we very rarely sell out any games. I can understand it if they have to make some of them 1901 to appease those they are kicking out of their “ seats for life”. What really concerns Me is how far the shelf will stick out impacting the views of those of us near the back …a la QPR etc.
i assume the plans and dimensions are up on the tinterweb somewhere
Everything changed when Barber joined the club and his opening gambit was to refer to supporters / fans as "customers". That is his mindset and it isn't ever going to change.
I wholeheartedly agree the club is normally good at helping. When son had ligament injury we were quickly relocated . However Coming up we have Arsenal 5.30 sat, Everton 3.00 sat 25th Jan. Then 8.00pm frid 14th feb Chelsea followed by Bournemouth Tues 25th feb 7.45 pm which will surely make it difficult for a lot of people..
These late or even worse late midweek games are surely making many(inc myself) wonder whether Sky/TNT and watching at home may be a better bet next season.
Don’t worry Dave. I expect the QPR shelf was designed before computers, simulation, etc.
OK, thanks.
So the exchange opens only when the match is sold out.....so much for a small crowd due to low demand, then.
I did know that the ticket exchange had been open. @Thunder Bolt had put hers on the exchange. (Incidentally @Thunder Bolt did your Palace tickets sell?)
So what we are thinking now is that that more than 1,500 tickets had been put on the exchange and 1,500 of them had not been bought due to low demand, accounting for the low attendance....but....
but , this cannot be the case because if you put a ticket on the exchange it is either bought by someone else, or you end up having to pay for it. In either case the seat is counted in the pretendance (along with the tickets that were not put on the exchange and the owner failed to attend).
The key point is this. If the exchange opens only when the match is sold out then the pretendance will always record a sell out no matter how many bums actually take their seats.
With all this in mind I still think the Palace gate was down largely due to loss of available seats due to security issues meaning whole columns of seats were kept empty.
Can anyone in the know tell us if the capacity was reduced for the Palarse match?
(I am also considering the possibility that the club opens the exchange before all tickets are sold. This would be bet-hedging to allow a practicable sales window - the exchange would be useless if it only ever opened days or hours before KO. So in the Palace case the exchange may have opened a week or more begore KO, when maybe 29,000 tickets had been allocated, with juicy west upper tickets on the exchange being snapped up, but in the end 1,500 tickets, mainly in the corners, remained unsold. Possible?)
- Jul 27, 2024
- 845
I don’t really have a problem with that. We are both customers and fans. These are just labels.
But it’s Sky, TNT, etc that are the reason for these obscure KO times. You have a point.
- Jun 27, 2012
- 14,733
?? We sell out every match.
If fans can't regularly make matches which aren't Saturday at 3pm, then a season ticket probably isn't a good idea.
Not sure why fans need to grandstand about this? Schedule changes aren't new - or going away.
Or presumably managed when we were in the EFL
No. The club in my experience is very fan-friendly, and all this bollox about discouraging legacy geriatric supporters such as myself is what my old dad, who would have been 100 a few weeks ago, would have called: "a load of old tutt" (rhymes with foot).
I recall Attila posting on here a year or so about recreating a pressure group to hold the club to account for non-socialist practices. He was derided by all, including soppy old Labourites who supposedly think nothing in life is fair, like my good self.
Shit happens in life, and we need to stay alert so we can fight against proper bad shit.
Not waste energy catastrophizing over trivia.
The absolutely parochial and self-absorbed thinking of some people, and their one-eyed view of all aspects of life actually allows proper bad shit to be missed.
That's how we ended up with Brexit and Johnson;
people howling at the moon about imaginary threats to their lifestyle, and blowing the building up in an attempt to fix it all.
It gets on my tits when people carry on with equivalent shit at the football.
Especially at out club.
Football is a luxury head space, a great escape, and a source of joy.
Yeah, I want a monorail and free chips and a 100 million pound striker.
Bloom and Barber OUT.
We need Saudi owners NOW!
