[Albion] Spurs - Sat 5th Feb 8pm

[Bold Seagull]

I'm personally satisfied that is not the case. I don't expect anyone to take any notice of what I say however.

And to be fair, you likely know more than most.

Tickets were announced on Thurs 13 Jan around lunchtime I think for most people. Up to 9k available. Tickets went on sale 9am Friday 14 Jan to all STs and 1901, with Albion+ members 9am Mon 17 Jan when it was sold out pretty much immediately.

Are you saying that 5700 tickets sold in just 3 days to just STs and 1901 DIDN'T suggest sufficient demand? If so, and if the club were truly prepared to take on 3300 additional tickets, what would have been the timeframe do you think needed to have triggered that purchase?

Given there was absolutely no caveat on the 9k being available, I would say the speed at which the 5700 tickets went wasn't just hot cakes, they went like cats on a hot tin roof!

 

[Simster]

I think there's a lot of after-timing going on here, as a scroll back to the opening pages reveals...

I know you're not accusing me personally of after-timing rather than using the likes on my original quote as proof that maybe others are, because I remain astonished that we are taking 5,700 to Spurs for an 8pm Saturday night kick off. That is a huge turnout for the 4th round of the modern day FA Cup.

I think [MENTION=189]Wozza[/MENTION] said that it's probably the same 2-3,000 who go to the London league games because of the way the loyalty points work, and that this was an easy way of getting to a new ground - especially with the "cheap" £50 family ticket option. That must explain it.

Those calling for "honesty" from the club over this are not being reasonable IMO. The club only ever said they "may" take the full 9,000. Cup competitions must be very difficult to judge demand as demand is all over the place for such games. We only had 13,000 for Palace at home in the cup a few years back, for example.

 

[Neville's Breakfast]

Let them eat cake !!!

 

[Wardy's twin]

Yep - as I said above, I don't think Spurs have helped out here at all.

They have STHs in those upper blocks that they'd have to relocate in order to sell to us (or any side taking the full 15%). They put those tickets on sale to those STHs which meant we couldn't take them.

Surely fans in the affected blocks must know that they have the potential to loose their seats at cup games even though the club has included that as part of their season ticket. If not then it means Spurs have no intention of honouring the 15%.

Still don't understand why BHAFC don't have some form of presell system whereby you just buy a ticket and then scramble for position later , not the best but it certainly would allow the club to gage demand without losing money and avoid this type of criticism.

Sure its a lucky dip but buying seats away is becoming that anyway..

 

[Bozza]

I know you're not accusing me personally of after-timing rather than using the likes on my original quote as proof that maybe others are, because I remain astonished that we are taking 5,700 to Spurs for an 8pm Saturday night kick off. That is a huge turnout for the 4th round of the modern day FA Cup.

Oh, I absolutely wasn't accusing you of anything at all.

All I did was scan through the first few pages of the thread to re-highlight how a lot of fans were suggesting demand wouldn't be great for this game given the fixture scheduling and transport conundrum, and how those signals would have been picked up by the club.

But I'd certainly place you as a long-time fan with enough experience to have a good gut-feel for fan sentiment.

Those calling for "honesty" from the club over this are not being reasonable IMO. The club only ever said they "may" take the full 9,000. Cup competitions must be very difficult to judge demand as demand is all over the place for such games. We only had 13,000 for Palace at home in the cup a few years back, for example.

Yep. I've not really touched on this, but there has been criticism for the club's forecasting/modelling on ticket demand, but I agree with you: it must be massively difficult for games like this as there's very little (if any) precedent to give reliable data to inform decision-making. I'm struggling to think of any game which is vaguely comparable to this one which would allow me to have any real confidence predicting what ticket take-up would be.

 

[jackalbion]

I'm personally satisfied that is not the case. I don't expect anyone to take any notice of what I say however.

Is it a case that they intended to take the extra 3,330 yesterday, but tottenham said no? Because it seems like that, is what I interpret it as, having all the information available now. A simple mistake of not reading the small print of having to get them up front.

 

[Neville's Breakfast]

Oh, I absolutely wasn't accusing you of anything at all.

All I did was scan through the first few pages of the thread to re-highlight how a lot of fans were suggesting demand wouldn't be great for this game given the fixture scheduling and transport conundrum, and how those signals would have been picked up by the club.

But I'd certainly place you as a long-time fan with enough experience to have a good gut-feel for fan sentiment.



Yep. I've not really touched on this, but there has been criticism for the club's forecasting/modelling on ticket demand, but I agree with you: it must be massively difficult for games like this as there's very little (if any) precedent to give reliable data to inform decision-making. I'm struggling to think of any game which is vaguely comparable to this one which would allow me to have any real confidence predicting what ticket take-up would be.

But they don’t need to do any forecasting or modelling. That is over complicating a very simple concept. Simply communicate with the fans that 5700 was a possible final allocation, explain the timelines and let people make decisions accordingly. Even better would be for the club to lobby for more time for away clubs to sell tickets and perhaps to drop this rule on making them liable for unsold tickets but clearly that’s a close season issue and not specifically related to this game.

 

[Bozza]

But they don’t need to do any forecasting or modelling. That is over complicating a very simple concept. Simply communicate with the fans that 5700 was a possible final allocation, explain the timelines and let people make decisions accordingly. Even better would be for the club to lobby for more time for away clubs to sell tickets and perhaps to drop this rule on making them liable for unsold tickets but clearly that’s a close season issue and not specifically related to this game.

I'm not arguing on the comms.

And you can choose to ignore it if you want, but on this thread the club have been accused of both:

1. Not taking the full 9,000 tickets from the off.
2. Not being very good at modelling and forecasting demand for tickets.

Anyway, I've wasted enough time posting about a game I was never going to attend, so I'll leave it now and use my time a little bit more productively.

 

[Neville's Breakfast]

I'm not arguing on the comms.

And you can choose to ignore it if you want, but on this thread the club have been accused of both:

1. Not taking the full 9,000 tickets from the off.
2. Not being very good at modelling and forecasting demand for tickets.

Anyway, I've wasted enough time posting about a game I was never going to attend, so I'll leave it now and use my time a little bit more productively.

Fair enough. I’m not going either as it’s too far away. I only got involved because of the context of full allocations not taken for northern games.

 

[drew]

But they don’t need to do any forecasting or modelling. That is over complicating a very simple concept. Simply communicate with the fans that 5700 was a possible final allocation, explain the timelines and let people make decisions accordingly. Even better would be for the club to lobby for more time for away clubs to sell tickets and perhaps to drop this rule on making them liable for unsold tickets but clearly that’s a close season issue and not specifically related to this game.

Who's going to cover the cost of unsold tickets then?

If clubs like Burnley had the right to take the whole of the south stand but end up only selling 100 tickets spread across the whole stand then that's a lot of revenue that the club are losing.

With regard to the Spurs game, I think the only question here is why the club didn't even take 10% of capacity let alone 15%?

 

[worthingseagull]

as annoying as this all is, everyone makes mistakes & nothing can be done now so all I'd really like to see is a statement from the club saying sorry, on this occasion we've called this wrong and simply didnt anticipate the tremendous support we might get for this game. Then we can all go about our business with a shrug and say 'fair play'

 

[Neville's Breakfast]

Who's going to cover the cost of unsold tickets then?

If clubs like Burnley had the right to take the whole of the south stand but end up only selling 100 tickets spread across the whole stand then that's a lot of revenue that the club are losing.

With regard to the Spurs game, I think the only question here is why the club didn't even take 10% of capacity let alone 15%?

It’s an opportunity cost rather than an actual cost and is a drop in the ocean of football finance. The more revenue generated by PL clubs the more they dole out to players, coaches and administrators so it’s wasted anyway.

 

[durrington gull]

And to be fair, you likely know more than most.

Tickets were announced on Thurs 13 Jan around lunchtime I think for most people. Up to 9k available. Tickets went on sale 9am Friday 14 Jan to all STs and 1901, with Albion+ members 9am Mon 17 Jan when it was sold out pretty much immediately.

Are you saying that 5700 tickets sold in just 3 days to just STs and 1901 DIDN'T suggest sufficient demand? If so, and if the club were truly prepared to take on 3300 additional tickets, what would have been the timeframe do you think needed to have triggered that purchase?

Given there was absolutely no caveat on the 9k being available, I would say the speed at which the 5700 tickets went wasn't just hot cakes, they went like cats on a hot tin roof!

Im surprised that have sold out 5700 tbh - great support considering awful KO time and no trains home

 

[South west gull]

The other possibility is they never had any intention of taking the 3300 tickets in the first place because they simply didn't want to be left with any. They went with 9k in comms because they know that's the FA rules and why risk a bit of a backlash on only taking 5700 when they probably felt we wouldn't sell all the 5700 anyway. Just leaving it quiet no one would be none the wiser. The perfect scenario for them would have been to have sold 5500 by the end of this week and not even announce they had let the 3300 go, and have a couple of 100 left to shift between now and the game.

What has backfired is demand, and they're now left justifying the call, not communicating this reduced 5700 limit to fans in the first instance, and now blaming slowish demand, Spurs etc. That's my take on it. I don't blame them only taking 5700, even now agree they'd struggle to sell a decent portion of 3300 further tickets, but just remember it's fans you're communicating to and a bit of honesty is needed, even if you have to take a bit of criticism for only taking 5700, at least that is the clear and honest route.

The extra 3300 were never going to be available to us the fans.you can fool some of the fans sometimes but not this time.

Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk

 

[Cadiz Seagull]

Slightly off subject but in his notes PB says the game is on terrestial TV. Is it? Because I haven't seen that announced anywhere.

 

[spoonie]

Slightly off subject but in his notes PB says the game is on terrestial TV. Is it? Because I haven't seen that announced anywhere.

yeah ITV 4

 

[Giraffe]

My take on it is:

1) I don't think we would have sold 9k
2) I do think we would have sold significantly over 5.7k
3) I don't think the communication from the club was clear enough and blaming tickets sales between 9pm and the opening of the next group window is a fundamentally flawed argument which has only served to annoy people.

That's a perfect summary for me.

The only thing I'd add is we don't know what the Spurs stance was. If our club said, can we have 4 days to see how quickly we sell the 5,700 and then get back to you with the remaining allocation and Spurs said no to this, then some of the blame is with Spurs. However if we didn't attempt this strategy then that is shocking. Either way your point on communication is the key here. How many we would have sold is a judgement call that they have got wrong in my book but I accept that that is with a degree of hindsight, but not communicating that 5,700 was all we were getting until it had already sold out is shocking.

It is so shocking that I can't help but think there has been some kind of cock up between the clubs in the interim period which is being covered over. I find it very hard to believe the club would not have clarified over the weekend if they knew it was only going to be 5,700. It therefore makes me think there was a misunderstanding between the clubs and our club have slight egg on our faces for perhaps assuming something that wasn't true?

 

[dazzer6666]

as annoying as this all is, everyone makes mistakes & nothing can be done now so all I'd really like to see is a statement from the club saying sorry, on this occasion we've called this wrong and simply didnt anticipate the tremendous support we might get for this game. Then we can all go about our business with a shrug and say 'fair play'

This, but what we will probably get is a robust defence of what was done (see earlier posts that included a reply to a direct email) and a refusal to admit any kind of misjudgment

 

[Cadiz Seagull]

yeah ITV 4

OK thanks

 

[Brovion]

I think people are forgetting how hard it usually is to get to see Brighton away - certainly a game in London. They're exclusively for STHers, unless you fiddle it.

I wouldn't be surprised if there's a core 2000 which go to every London away game. That's leaving scraps for everyone else.

So this is - or was - finally an opportunity for many fans to get to an away game, just up the road (not many teams closer), against a top-six team, in a fantastic 'new' stadium AND for reduced price.

If you have kids, it's extra appealing. Two adults could take two kids for free - all for half the price of a ticket to Hamilton. The musical, not Academicals.

Would like to think the club does actual research and, given TB's business, proper data modelling.... but who knows?

Exactly right. My wife and I aren't STHs, and the last away game we went to was the semi-final against Man City. Fair enough, we're not regular fans and we don't expect to be at the front of any queues.

But we DO like attending the occasional game. (My wife's not really a football fan but she does like the day out). I'd mentioned that we could probably try and get tickets for Spurs as although we'd get a 9,000 allocation, the match was on TV, it was an 8pm kick-off, the trains were dodgy and it was 'only' the FA Cup which is when sometimes the regular fans have a day off. All those factors should mean that those of us who are usually at the back of the queue should stand a good chance of getting a ticket.

So yes, I think the club under-estimated the demand, especially when it's a new stadium and the team are playing so well. Ah well, saved myself a few quid so no harm done.