Ticket Chaos Tonight (the after)

[fork me]

It wasn't a case of people not turning up on time. I walked past the HUGE queue at about 7.30 and I've never seen such a mass of people waiting for tickets. I'd estimate at a LOT more than 200. They were queuing up the ramp and into the car park. Total organisational shambles.

I got there early tonight, there was already a huge queue at quarter past.

 

[Conkers]

We brought our tickets two weeks ago. It aint that bloody hard, to go to Queens Road and pick a ticket up from the shop! Yes tonight was a shambles, by the sounds of it. But common sense, would prevail over this.......

Why should I pay £5 to go down to the ticket office when the £2 booking fee (as mentioned by Insider some time ago) actually covers debit/credit card processing fees AND postage. For the Ipswich game my brother ordered the tickets nearly an entire week before the game and they still weren't sent out. How on earth are we meant to pick the tickets up if they are in the post?

 

[Djmiles]

Jokingly thought to myself before the game that the ticket office couldn't cock up the ticket booth situation for the 2nd game in a row....oh how wrong I was.

 

[Djmiles]

Why should I pay £5 to go down to the ticket office when the £2 booking fee (as mentioned by Insider some time ago) actually covers debit/credit card processing fees AND postage. For the Ipswich game my brother ordered the tickets nearly an entire week before the game and they still weren't sent out. How on earth are we meant to pick the tickets up if they are in the post?

They were never in the post, depsite being told they were

 

[Burgess Hill Seagulls]

About 30 minutes before kick off any idiot could have told the stewards they needed to open the other ticket box, the time it takes them to serve one person is a complete joke aswell. Eventually after being at the front of the que and then it splitting into two and my side of the alphabet being in the other f***ing que I got to the front of the que only to find out they had cocked up my ticket and didnt have it BRILLIANT So in the end after speaking to about 4 different stewards and them all doing nothing one of them finally let me in with my 2 mates who both had tickets without a ticket Complete legend that man is and will be buying him a cup of tea at the next home game, quality steward..Oh and I saw all 4 goals

 

[British Bulldog]

I'd expect a professional sporting organisation to know how many tickets have been sold, know how long on average it takes to serve a punter collecting said tickets and, having done the math, make arrangements to expedite collection.

Wallpaper pasting tables in the South Stand forecourt, or whatever it takes, but have the ability to get tickets in hand quickly.

Absolutely spot on.

 

[Conkers]

About 30 minutes before kick off any idiot could have told the stewards they needed to open the other ticket box, the time it takes them to serve one person is a complete joke aswell. Eventually after being at the front of the que and then it splitting into two and my side of the alphabet being in the other f***ing que I got to the front of the que only to find out they had cocked up my ticket and didnt have it BRILLIANT So in the end after speaking to about 4 different stewards and them all doing nothing one of them finally let me in with my 2 mates who both had tickets without a ticket

That is my situation for the Ipswich game absolutely similar.......except they wouldn't let us in without a valid ticket.

 

[Easy 10]

We brought our tickets two weeks ago. It aint that bloody hard, to go to Queens Road and pick a ticket up from the shop! Yes tonight was a shambles, by the sounds of it. But common sense, would prevail over this.......

I'm sorry Kev, but that is utter BOLLOCKS

Its not unreasonable to expect to turn up at the ground 15 minutes before kickoff to collect a ticket. The club OFFER this facilty, so they should be able to DELIVER it. Fans should not be expected to get to the ground 30-45 minutes early just because the club doesn't lay on enough staff to dish out the tickets that have been purchased in advance by PAYING CUSTOMERS.

I'm a STH so fortunately I don't have to run the tedious gauntlet of trying to get through on that bloody ticketline, or fanny about leaving the pub over an hour before kickoff just to make sure I can (eventually) pick up a ticket in time for kickoff. I've said it before and I'll say it again. This club is losing casual fans hand over fist because of the shoddy, amatuer ticketing arrangements. I consider myself a "die hard fan", but sheesh, I'm not sure I could be arsed to bother with that shambles if I had to.

Its a farce.

 

[Horton's halftime iceberg]

The club offer a service to sell tickets up to 30 minutes before kick off, so they need to be capable of distributing tickets that need to be picked up, in good time. No excuses.

Ken Brown told me tonight that the club have no way of how many tickets are sold after 6 o clock.

On one hand it was good he arrived to stop some serious trouble kicking off outside the ground. But who was in control of the situation, the minute I arrived you could see the problem and people patiently waited for someone to deal with it.

If we did similar things in our day jobs we would be lucky to survive...

 

[Conkers]

Ken Brown told me tonight that the club have no way of how many tickets are sold after 6 o clock.

Considering they are selling tickets on the gate too.....(see my Ask the Club thread)

 

[smudge]

I tried a few times to buy tickets by phone over the last couple of days, to no avail. To cut a long story short, I kept getting cut off after listening to various badly recorded messages, including the bit about the "next game with Crewe". As I'm on my hol's I went into town & bought a couple of tickets for tonight & also for Saturday's game.
When I got to the ground I could not believe the queue of people picking up tickets. I'm glad I managed to get to the shop, but realise that not everybody can do that. It must have been very frustrating in that queue & the overall feeling I get from all this is that somebody involved in ticket sales needs a f***ing rocket. You'd think a cash strapped club like us would try harder to sell tickets & get bums on seats.
I wonder how much revenue the club missed out on through those people that couldn't be arsed with the crap answering machine service from the ticket office?

 

[Da Man Clay]

Ken Brown told me tonight that the club have no way of how many tickets are sold after 6 o clock.
...

I cannot believe we sold more than 20 tickets in that period, if suddently 300 people phoned up the ticket office (which im sure is closed) then someone at the shop (you would hope) would have the common sense to phone the ground!

 

[British Bulldog]

I know what happened today is a bit of a joke, especially as the same happened against Ipswich with the crowd half the size.

But what do fans seriously expect when they purchase a ticket that has been available for weeks, on the day of the game, and then turn up at the stadium 15 miuntes before kick off to collect it??

The club are keen to advertise that you can buy tickets upto 30 mins before kick off so they should at least be able to provide the service that people are paying for.

 

[Djmiles]

Considering they are selling tickets on the gate too.....(see my Ask the Club thread)

That was a joke. Perhaps I should do that in future, as the club seems incapable of giving people who have booked in ADVANCE their tickets.:thud:

 

[Horton's halftime iceberg]

Another thing I want to know is why did they not delay the start of the game by 15 minutes? Even if not everyone could have got in in that time, it would have made the problem a lot smaller.

Because no one was on hand with any authority to do this, I bet the ref had no idea of the problem.

The most upsetting thing tonight was parents with kids who were obviouly taking them to their first game. Missing the first game and witnessing that shambles, I fear that may have been the last game.

I will be back but I am really peed off when we have won 4-0 due to terrible oragnisation. They need to review how they can sell tickets with a limited staff and budget.

 

[Jimmy Grimble]

Mendoza has just been thoroughly rinsed.

 

[portlock seagull]

Must admit, if you've chosen to pick your tickets up at the ground you've left yourself open to possibly having to queue

You and Doug Deep's comments are naive mate (this is not a personal attack by the way). But aren't you assuming people can get there earlier? And even if they can, why should they? - 45 mins to collect a ticket is ridiculous. People just won't bother again. Ken Brown made a good call in the circumstances though the Albion must still offer profuse apologies to all those affected. It's 100% the club's fault and I'm glad they're acknowledging that because the only thing that they could to is make things worse by blaming supporters along the same lines as you have. That would make it a total disaster but Ken seems to be managing this damage limitation situation as best as could be. Offering a discount for another game or something similar to all those the club obviously still have undistributed collection tickets would also be a good gesture in the circumstances.

 

[El Presidente]

We brought our tickets two weeks ago. It aint that bloody hard, to go to Queens Road and pick a ticket up from the shop! Yes tonight was a shambles, by the sounds of it. But common sense, would prevail over this.......

Utter bollocks Kev

1. I didn't know I could get to the game until lunch today, so deferred making a decision.
2. I was coming down from London, after a day at work, so couldn't get to the ground early
3. The club KNEW how many tickets were due for collection, and this number was swelled by a good few fans who were feeling positive after the result on Saturday. If 300 fans (approx) were collecting tickets, then it is not beyond the wit and organisational skills of the ticket office to put more than ONE person in the ticket booth to sort out the issue. It did not help that the tickets in the booth did not even appear to be in alpahbetical order. Someone, somewhere in the club has been very casual in their approach, effectively deciding that it's 'only Barnet' so no effort required, not dissimilar to the attitude of the team against Mansfield in the cup last season

 

[Ernest]

There was already a fair old queue up the ramp to the car park at 715 so they must have been fully aware then so why wasn't something done ?
Typical cock up on a night when we should have been talking about the game.