Away ticket priority - do you think the Albion should run this scheme?

[mr turd]

Yeah agreed the club doesn't give a shit about supporters,some fan dick knight is

Supporters make every club,but its just because the gullible fans put up with everything full stop.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

All you ever want to do is say things that will not upset the board and contradict anybody who has a suggestion to improve the supporters lot.

Bollocks.

Is this intended not to "upset the board":-

As for the Spurs fiasco, it is increasingly looking like something has gone wrong in the particular way that these tickets were issued. First-come-first-served is a good SYSTEM, but did that system break down on this particular occasion?

It looks to me that it might well have done. Possibly the fault of the Royal Mail, but some people are reporting rejection letters being received by people who applied on days one and two (including people who hand delivered applications to the Ticket Office). If that is the case, then something has gone wrong in the Ticket Office. And that means that it will have to be investigated and rectified.

I'll concede that I'm not automatically assuming that something has gone wrong in the Ticket Office - bcause I don't KNOW that it has. But I am saying that it might have done and that the Club should investigate. I expect they'd prefer not to.

 

[The Large One]

All you ever want to do is say things that will not upset the board and contradict anybody who has a suggestion to improve the supporters lot.

This from someone who wants the club to charge us for selling tickets? Or did you suggest that in the hope the club would actually do that so you could slag them off again?

 

[Beach Hut]

I would struggle to pay for an away season as well as the home one x 1.5 and possibly might move next season as mini hut is showing a great interest in the Albion now (SCR when he can't go) - I may move to the family area next season.

I suppose therefore I will have to "do the postal lottery" every now and then.

Nice to see having been told I was a victim of two customers there is a growing swell of opinion that perhaps there has been a huge faux pas in the ticket office somewhere along the line.

I suspect we will debate this again either if we beat Spurs and get another good 4th round draw or Rotherham away - I wonder which one it will be ?

 

[bathseagull]

Just voted no.

I feel the current system is the best option FOR ME. I am a student and do not have a regular income. I go to an away game if I can afford it and if my workload allows. I DO NOT choose the 'bigger' games to attend - i'm going to watch the albion, not the opposition. I know that if i want to go i have to send in the application as quickly as possible so check the website every couple of days to see if they're on sale. So far, I have never missed out on a ticket.

However, I do feel that something could be offered to someone who knows they will attend every game. 2 good mates of mine who have been to more games than me this season did not get spurs tickets which is a shame.

In short, something like an away season ticket would be good but only if it doesn't encroach on those who can only go to certain games.

 

[gollum]

I would pay up front to guarantee away tickets, but not everyone can afford to shell out an additional £500 in the summer. I don't believe the club would be prepared to make the extra effort required to produce an away membership scheme. The club do know the regular travellers, they know who applies for tickets but administering any scheme would be a nightmare. Sad to say it though first come first served is the best option from the club's point of view. You just need to be well organised, look on the club website and hassle the ticket office for when ticket apps will be taken. There is another alternative of course, just join the Costa express and your tickets are guaranteed. Only problem there is not much chance of a before the game.

 

[BensGrandad]

Lord B

You know, if you are honest with yourself, that irrespective of the arguments and evidence showbn the club will not admit that their sytem fell down.

The excuse I was given at 3.00pm on 23rd December was that there had been problems with the Post Office due to the Christmas rush and that although my son posted his letter on 6th December it must have got held up in the post.

Numerous people have posted on here saying that they sent off early and either didnt get tickets or got £37 ones in the second batch.

It is obvious even to an idiot like me that Tuesday delivery arrived, Wednesday was then put on top and Thursdays on top of that so that the ones that arrived Tuesday were right at the bottom of the pile instead of the top.

I checked with the post office and was assurred that on 6th Dec all mail was cleared from Sussex and delivered within the normal time as they were not exceptionally busy then.

All I have tried to do is suggest a sytem that makes the most of what we have i.e lists of STH and AMS members and use this list to its fullest advantage to record arrivals of ticket applicatuions etc. The alternative being ALL tickets for BHA games either home or away coming from our office and as suggested an admin or ticket charge levied would more than pay for one extra person to op-erate this in the ticket office plus probably earn some extra money as well.

 

[dougdeep]

Whatever! At this rate these whinging threads will still be going round by next Christmas. It's only a game for sake.

 

[Happy Seagull]

It's only a game for sake.

An away one

 

[Uncle Buck]

OK, away ticket priority, well I think there should be something in place, but as ever the most vocal on here are going to argue against it, as much of NSC does not attend the run of the mill away games.

Personally I think the club should operate something similar to what the FA run via Englandfans for the distribution of away tickets for England games. 70% of the tickets are allocated to those with the most loyalty points, with the other 30% allocated via a ballot to the rest of applications, meaning that the most loyal are rewarded, whilst the floating support still have a chance of a ticket.

Now come the arguments of administating a scheme. Well the club have a database of every member of the AMS, so it would not be rocket science to mark against a member each time they bought a ticket, meaning you had a record of their away attendance (each time I do multiple applications, I get individual receipts with each members name, AMS number and home address, so the system is not that basic).

Regarding the fact that not all away games are all ticket, well this season, all games have had advanced ticket sales, so if such a scheme was introduced, if you wanted your away point, well you buy your ticket in advance. Those that do not, do not get an away point, tough luck. Now if the club decide that there is say a £15 pa admin fee on this scheme to cover the costs then fair enough, at least then the tickets will be distributed in a more fair way.

 

[TrevorDove]

Voted no - first come first served - you win some you lose some.

I want to go to football when I want - why should I have to be behind some saddo who goes to every game..

Football is great - but the not life changing FFS.

 

[Trigger]

Voted no - first come first served - you win some you lose some.

I want to go to football when I want - why should I have to be behind some saddo who goes to every game..

Football is great - but the not life changing FFS.

 

[Bozza]

OK, away ticket priority, well I think there should be something in place, but as ever the most vocal on here are going to argue against it, as much of NSC does not attend the run of the mill away games.

Personally I think the club should operate something similar to what the FA run via Englandfans for the distribution of away tickets for England games. 70% of the tickets are allocated to those with the most loyalty points, with the other 30% allocated via a ballot to the rest of applications, meaning that the most loyal are rewarded, whilst the floating support still have a chance of a ticket.

Now come the arguments of administating a scheme. Well the club have a database of every member of the AMS, so it would not be rocket science to mark against a member each time they bought a ticket, meaning you had a record of their away attendance (each time I do multiple applications, I get individual receipts with each members name, AMS number and home address, so the system is not that basic).

Regarding the fact that not all away games are all ticket, well this season, all games have had advanced ticket sales, so if such a scheme was introduced, if you wanted your away point, well you buy your ticket in advance. Those that do not, do not get an away point, tough luck. Now if the club decide that there is say a £15 pa admin fee on this scheme to cover the costs then fair enough, at least then the tickets will be distributed in a more fair way.

Does the Englandfans scheme cover both home and away games? If so, how would you practically translate such a scheme to a league club where you may have season ticket holders who never go away (bar the odd 'big' game) and those who go away only?

 

[Lord Bracknell]

Lord B

You know, if you are honest with yourself, that irrespective of the arguments and evidence showbn the club will not admit that their sytem fell down.

I'm sorry, BG, I have NO IDEA what the Club will or will not admit. Honesty with myself isn't an issue.

You seem to think I have some connection with the Club. Apart from being a season ticket holder, and attending some of the Falmer For All meetings, I don't.

Like you, I have opinions about ticketing. When I have disagreed with what the Club has been doing (or proposing), I have written to them and said so. When the AMS Scheme first started, it included a "loyalty points" element. I disagreed with it then. I still disagree with it. I wasn't the only person who was pleased when it was abandoned. I disagreed with the ballot that was used to distribute tickets for the end of season game at Grimsby two seasons ago. I'm pleased that the Club hasn't attempted to use that method again, because it plainly wasn't fair.

As I've already said, the lesson to be learned from the Spurs ticketing fiasco is NOT that there is something inherently wrong with first-come-first-served. If, as you claim, there has been a failure in the Ticket Office, I think it is essential that the Club correct that failure. If there turns out to be another explanation, I'd like to hear it. Whatever the explanation is, though, I'd like to see the retention of first-come-first-served (which is what NSC overwhelmingly voted for in a poll only last month).

 

[seagull in ireland]

gonna vote no.as i live in ireland i can only get to a certain number of games 5 so far this season .i was at reading,watford,nottm forest,home v sheff utd,and sunderland.when i came back from sunderland i booked my flight for 7th jan to go to the game wherever it was.i am a member of the ams.due to postal strike etc my letter of rejection came back.so flights booked no,no ticket.i know there will be a lot of people at spurs who haven't seen the albion as much as i have this season,but 1st come 1st served,overall means i can get most away tickets,i agree sth & ams should get priority,and maybe for the big games go on the amount of time you have been a member or sth.

 

[Curious Orange]

Okay, some practical points need to be made about administering any loyalty points scheme.

First off, database, clearly the club have a database but I doubt it records every game attended home and away (or tickets purchased for) by every fan. Developing the software to do this is inherently risky (it might f*ck up the system/data you already have). It would not be the simple thing some people think, and as a software tester I'm well aware that it wouldn't be. Obviously I know nothing about the system the club currently has, but for arguments sake let us assume it is MS Access. The club would first have to work out what additional tables, fields, and GUI changes they would require in order to administrate the system. They would then need to consider whether the database they are using is capable of handling the extra data and the number of users wishing to access this data. If they are using Access it is highly likely that they would need to migrate to a more stable database. On the hardware front they would also need to consider whether they need to expand the amount of diskspace they need to cope with the additional data they will be adding on a regular basis. Developing requirements for the system, coming up with the functional specification and then developing and testing the system would take at least six months in my opinion.

Then it comes to the practicalities of adminstering the system. Logging tickets purchased is the easy bit. The problem occurs when actually prioritising applications when they arrive by reference to the information provided by the database. To my mind this would inevitably lead to manually sorting the applications by priority as they arrive prior to actually processing them (in order to ensure absolute fairness), this is clearly much more time consuming than just having a pile from Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday etc. and process them in order from Monday until you run out of tickets.

 

[Uncle Buck]

Does the Englandfans scheme cover both home and away games? If so, how would you practically translate such a scheme to a league club where you may have season ticket holders who never go away (bar the odd 'big' game) and those who go away only?

Currently it only gives you a cap for away games, however the next membership period is going to reward people with one cap for home games attended and 2 for away attended.

However I am not really advocating a system where season ticket holders get priority, if they do not travel away often then I guess they take their chances. What needs to be put in place is something that protects the 500 or so that go everywhere. Also if you were to go down a 70% on loyalty (from the current season) and 30% via a ballot, the chances are if you have only attended say 3 games this season away from home, for Spurs you would probably have qualified for a ticket.

 

[BensGrandad]

Okay, some practical points need to be made about administering any loyalty points scheme.

First off, database, clearly the club have a database but I doubt it records every game attended home and away (or tickets purchased for) by every fan. Developing the software to do this is inherently risky (it might f*ck up the system/data you already have). It would not be the simple thing some people think, and as a software tester I'm well aware that it wouldn't be. Obviously I know nothing about the system the club currently has, but for arguments sake let us assume it is MS Access. The club would first have to work out what additional tables, fields, and GUI changes they would require in order to administrate the system. They would then need to consider whether the database they are using is capable of handling the extra data and the number of users wishing to access this data. If they are using Access it is highly likely that they would need to migrate to a more stable database. On the hardware front they would also need to consider whether they need to expand the amount of diskspace they need to cope with the additional data they will be adding on a regular basis. Developing requirements for the system, coming up with the functional specification and then developing and testing the system would take at least six months in my opinion.

Then it comes to the practicalities of adminstering the system. Logging tickets purchased is the easy bit. The problem occurs when actually prioritising applications when they arrive by reference to the information provided by the database. To my mind this would inevitably lead to manually sorting the applications by priority as they arrive prior to actually processing them (in order to ensure absolute fairness), this is clearly much more time consuming than just having a pile from Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday etc. and process them in order from Monday until you run out of tickets.

I give in to your gretaer knowledge of this as regards the use of computer but being a not veery experienced user I thought that it would be easy to administer and to set the PC to pull out the names you wanted so I am wrong sorry.

We shall have to go back to Black Bin Liners marked Monday Tuesday Wednesday etc and 'file' the days deliveries in the respective one to ensure first come first served.

I thought that computers were meant to relieve work and one person do the work of perhaps 3 or 4.

 

[Storer68]

Its good to know nothing changes at this club. I can recall when we moved back to Withdean in 1999 that there was ticketing problems (for home games).

And lets recall how smoothly and efficiently we dealt with people wanting tickets to go to Cardiff.................


Can I then ask some simple questions.

We all have to send in an SAE with the ticket applications. The club use these to send back the rejectetion letters - why can't these envelopes be date stamped on the reverse when they are received, then at least we wuld know whether the problem lay with the club or the Post Office. Date as postmark on the letters told me nothing about when the club received my application although they obviousy received it too late (tho they should have received it on the 8th or 9th December)

Of course the club can record whom they've sent the tickets to - I thought they have to anyway to comply with the League's requirements. and given that they've got both STHs and AMS databases it can't be rocket science (or particulalrly time consuming) to record whom they've issued tickets to.

But then they'd probably have to buy another Commodore 64.