Pay on the gate question

[clapham_gull]

How will I be able to gaurantee sitting in the same seat for each game.

Your season ticket is a piece of plastic, that's how. No differerence from now, except you will be able to use the same piece of plastic for cup games or (if you aren't a season ticket holder) for league games.

This sounds rather complicated and technical but it's the way of the world with transport in London now.

Stewards will have readers that scan your card and tell you where your seat is if you've forgotten...

I'm not joking....

All london buses have a reader where you are expected to scan your card as you enter. The newer buses no longer accept cash.

If the ticket inspectors get on the bus, they have a small reader that checks your card to make you've paid or have a valid season ticket.

This isn't tomorrow technology...

.. and it doesn't stop the occassional traveller (or tourist) getting the cash-less buses.

( In many ways we are behind the times in this country.. I was in communist Poland in the 80s and you couldn't use cash on the buses. Not that anyone had any cash - but you get the idea. I was in Spain earlier this year and you HAD to buy tickets from the newsagent before getting on the bus. )


I'm thinking aloud, but an automated telephone service or website where you "buy a ticket onto your card" will become such a usual thing in the next few years that we won't even think about it.

I was talking about the barclaycard earlier, but currently (and Beachy can back me up - it's his line of work) they are currently doing trials in London with MOBILE PHONES to get you round the underground too. You have your mobile in your hand and wave it over a reader which lets you on.

People are also looking into sending tickets as text messages (in barcode form) to mobiles.. again ask the HUT.

As I said - all this stuff is happening now, it isn't an issue about how can we be clever to get round not paying on the gate..

.. it's how ticketing for any event (or travel) is going.

Cashless and paperless, no massive queue for tickets or delays in getting people in and seated. Tis the future...

 

[Alex Alex Dawson oo! oo!]

How will I be able to gaurantee sitting in the same seat for each game.

Haven't read the entire thread as I've been working but I guess you would load up the card and essentially buy/reserve your 'seat' for every league game before the season starts.
Something to raise at the Falmer Roadshow next year I think.
By the way, with the current system do STH's get a paper ticket for each game - ie is your ST a book of these?

 

[Alex Alex Dawson oo! oo!]

Your season ticket is a piece of plastic, that's how. No differerence from now, except you will be able to use the same piece of plastic for cup games or (if you aren't a season ticket holder) for league games.

Bloke I'm working with is a Reading supporter and this is what they have now for their STH's. Not sure how the system works if you're not an STH but they only have about 2000 tickets per game available for home fans to buy anyway. Capacity is 24000, there are approx 18000 STH's and 3500-4000 allocated for away supporters.

 

[clapham_gull]

Currently, if you book your rail tickets online you have the option to go to a machine in the station enter a code and it will print them out for you. Extend that idea and basically put the machines outside of railway stations.

I was in the BBC a few months ago and alongside the coffee machines is a national rail ticket machine. Not a standard ticket machine, but one that basically has the www.trainline.co.uk running on it.

You can check times, routes etc.. and buy a ticket.

Such machines, literally just a web browser and a card reader don't just have to be for football matches. Locally they could be used to buy cinema tickets etc...

Alternatively, like the airlines you will potentially be able to print your own ticket if you like at home.

The transport industries are working towards getting rid of paper tickets where they can and everyone else will eventually follow.

 

[BensGrandad]

My question was in answer to Lord B saying that ST will fade away as we know them and you have all expanded on this. Thank you. I am still in the get on the bus and pay the conductor time, but I was in London recently and used these ticketless buses which seemed very good. One question, are these pay machines by every bus stop or only at fare stages ? As it happened I joined the bus outside Kennington station and there was a machine there that issued a ticket.

 

[clapham_gull]

My question was in answer to Lord B saying that ST will fade away as we know them and you have all expanded on this. Thank you. I am still in the get on the bus and pay the conductor time, but I was in London recently and used these ticketless buses which seemed very good. One question, are these pay machines by every bus stop or only at fare stages ? As it happened I joined the bus outside Kennington station and there was a machine there that issued a ticket.

You can pick up at Oyster an any underground station with (I think) ten pounds charged up on it, from the ticket office.

The bigger stations have machines which issue Oyster cards like a can of coke.

You also get the bus only ticket machines in the streets (which I've never used), like the one you saw at Kennington. New to london, but common in Europe. Not new technology and I think these will be a short term thing.

The Oyster "travel only" concept is also probably an interim thing technology wise as well, as the way the technology is going you will be able to "put a ticket" on your mobile, mp3 player... whatever.

I guess most people would be more comfortable still having a card though. I suspect that such a card will eventually be used for other things, not just for getting on the tube. As I said the Barclay Card Credit / Oyster is already here.

It's just a means of connecting to a central computer to check whether the "device" or card in your hand can be used to gain entry "this time". The ticket doesn't sit "on" the device or card, it's just proves you've "bought one"

We seem to have become accustomed to things other than cameras taking pictures. I think we will become very soon accustomed to things other than tickets getting you onto trains or into stadiums...

... and probably companies like Ticketmaster basically controlling the lot.

 

[BensGrandad]

As we live in a world of credit cards how is this applied to an oyster card or must you pay cash.

 

[clapham_gull]

As we live in a world of credit cards how is this applied to an oyster card or must you pay cash.

Putting money on the Oyster ?

You go to machine, put your oyster on the reader (not a slot - just a pad which you hold the card against )

They have a limited "range", but enough so don't have to get the card out of your wallet (You can scan your wallet)

It tells you the status of the card, what's on it (eg. credit / season ticket )

Stick your credit card in , enter your pin. The machine returns your credit card.

Put the card back on the pad and you are away.

( They're arent new machines. Just the old ticket machines with a Oyster reader bolted on the front )

If you can't be bothered queing on a Monday morning, you can do it all online if you register your Oyster (which you have to with a season ticket)

You can monthly tickets this way too.

Much better than it used to be. 100 times better believe me...

( 10 million Oysters issued and 80% of all journeys use them )

 

[BensGrandad]

The theory is then, that we will still be able to buy our season tickets ona credit card as now the only difference being that we will not get a book of 23 tickets just a swipe card. It should make entry to the ground quicker and do away with the old fiddle of 2 going throw the turnstile together at all ticket games and giving the gateman the extra ticket money, as happened in most London grounds for years. Obviously moves will have to be made to make the cards so that a 30 year old cannot enter on an under 16s card or OAP card.

 

[hitony]

For the smaller clubs who very rarely fill there grounds, i believe that a "Pay on the Gate" (or at a ticket office near the ground) is always a good idea.

maybe its because i am from the older generation that remembers the days when you just turned up and paid your 5 shillings

 

[Scotty Mac]

its exactly the same way that season tickets work for the toronto blue jays - except if you want to pay on the gate, you get a paper ticket from the ground and that is scanned instead

if you already have a ticket and simply charge it up and turn up at the ground, then how will games be designated as sold out or all ticket - as the club wont know who is planning on turning up. it could lead to a situation where you have 30000 people turning up on a match day, only to find that the stadium is already full and so 8000 cant get it

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

There doesn't have to be turnstiles. You can always have a ticket office at the ground which you visit first. Quite a few clubs do that, after all. In recent years, I've done that at Partick, Falkirk and Swindon. Works fine.

Indeed, Im sure all clubs with the barcode tickets have one as well.

 

[Dave the OAP]

Its very simple.

1.STH get a swipe card that has 20 odd games already blown into it. STH goes up to a card reader at the entrance and swipes his card....that game is taken off his card and he enters

2. Non STH's can apply for a card ( if they want- not demanded by the club!) at the beginning of the season or whenever they want and this card will be linked to their account at the club. On that account, you will leave a credit card/switch card number and whenever the card is swiped at the stadium, you are issued with entrance and your account is debited.

3. On the day people. Take their credit card/switch card to a reader by an entrance...swipe your card and you are automatically debitted with the cost and allowed entrance. This will work in the same way as you do at supermarkets etc etc.


If the club start with all this...."you can only get in if you buy one from a station or the club shop in Brighton" and cannot pay at the stadium on the day, this will be HASSLE and the same problems we have at Withdean will be repeated and people will give up!

It has to be EASY again!!!!

 

[Mellor 3 Ward 4]

3. On the day people. Take their credit card/switch card to a reader by an entrance...swipe your card and you are automatically debitted with the cost and allowed entrance. This will work in the same way as you do at supermarkets etc etc.


If the club start with all this...."you can only get in if you buy one from a station or the club shop in Brighton" and cannot pay at the stadium on the day, this will be HASSLE and the same problems we have at Withdean will be repeated and people will give up!

It has to be EASY again!!!!

1000000000000000000% Correct,

It HAS to be easy, and IMO that DOES mean being able to pay in some form or another ON THE DAY, without this facility the club will have a half empty stadium week in week out.

They have had lnog enough to plan for it so make it work.

It's all very well having swipe cards in lieu of STs but for the CASUAL fan, they have to KNOW that they can just turn up, pay and get in.

 

[Titanic]

Its very simple.
...

2. Non STH's can apply for a card ( if they want- not demanded by the club!) at the beginning of the season or whenever they want and this card will be linked to their account at the club. On that account, you will leave a credit card/switch card number and whenever the card is swiped at the stadium, you are issued with entrance and your account is debited.

3. On the day people. Take their credit card/switch card to a reader by an entrance...swipe your card and you are automatically debitted with the cost and allowed entrance. This will work in the same way as you do at supermarkets etc etc.

...

How does that work with allocating a seat / location in the ground etc ??
and what about groups of people wanting to sit together ??

 

[Dave the OAP]

How does that work with allocating a seat / location in the ground etc ??
and what about groups of people wanting to sit together ??

you have non reserved seating in all but one or two stands, like the Goldstone, where before the South Stand was made all seating, only the West Stand had reserved seating

the main stand could be for STH's and corporates

 

[Titanic]

Is unreserved seating common, or even allowed, in football grounds ? and is it different in the Premier / Championship etc.. ?

 

[Dave the OAP]

Is non-reserved seating common in football grounds ?

pass....but there is no reason in a stadium that will hold somewhere between 22 and 28 thousand you cannot have unreserved seating. If in years to come and we are getting gates of 20k + then perhaps it will need to be looked at , but I would start with the premis that apart from occasional games, we will be looking at 13 to 15k tops

 

[Cian]

This idea of I would go if I could pay on the day is old hat rubbish like if you are looking for a job or a car somebody always says, if only you had asked me last week I knew of one. It is easy to say things when you know they can't happen.

Earlier this year I was heading to a game, pre-planned, and ended up with 7 of my colleagues coming too, because we could pay on the gate; although that happened once in the ~10 pay on gate games I went to straight from work...

 

[East Staffs Gull]

For one of our recent games the club advertised the availability of tickets right up to kick-off, for collection at Withdean. Can't remember whether that was online or via the phone.