Time To Drop The Ticket Prices?

[NMH]

It wouldn't make much odds if prices were lower.
That's not what stops people from going. If they went to Cardiff, it was because it was a glory game for good old Albion.

People just seem to think that they're not going to see good football in this division - mugs.

 

[Yorkie]

It wouldn't make much odds if prices were lower.
That's not what stops people from going. If they went to Cardiff, it was because it was a glory game for good old Albion.

People just seem to think that they're not going to see good football in this division - mugs.

I agree with you.

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

If we drop the prices to £ 10 won't it just encourage chavs and pikeys and undiserables. As Basil Fawlty said of his Gourment evening " no riff raff ".

 

[Robot Chicken]

If we drop the prices it might encourage younger people to come, the students, people with kids etc.

We've always been a fickle bunch. We'll come out when the club is in trouble, we'll be there for the successful periods, we'll be turning people away for the visits of the big sides but for a mid table third division game with nothing riding on the result about 5k is our range. How many people are actively boycotting Withdean I wonder.

 

[portslade seagull]

Didn't we drop them this year?

NOt really something like 5% when it should have been at least 20%...
when we 1st got back to withers there was 10 people in my group now i'm the only 1 left and basically it is the price which has stopped all the others going...the crowd today says it all really...we are to expensive to watch !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[paddy]

Why not, for one mid-table league game, lower the prices to £15 and see the affect on attendance. If the gate increases to a level which can sustain the club at reduced prices, lowe the prices for the next 5 games. If the attendances still remain high over those games, the prices for next season can be altered. If not, we will have a definitive answer about lowering ticket prices.

 

[JJ McClure]

Agree with paddy above. The club at least need to try it and see.
I have yet to go to a game at Withdean this season as I can't justify £25 on a ticket whilst also paying for a wedding and honeymoon. Talking to my brother in law lastnight we both said that once some special offers come in we would go back.

 

[Yorkie]

JJ Why not go to the Cheltenham JPT game? It's £10 and we are playing a team at the same level as us?
I'm not being funny, just curious. If price is the only factor then isn't that a game you could go to?

 

[JJ McClure]

You know what Yorkie, I might just do that.

 

[Yorkie]

You know what Yorkie, I might just do that.

 

[British Bulldog]

If we drop the prices it might encourage younger people to come, the students, people with kids etc.

Taking a kid with you and sitting in the family stand is good value it's just a shame they dont extend those prices to the rest of the ground, And maybe if the club dropped the price of taking additional kids with you there might be more interest as I proved in the cup games last season when little bulldog brought his mates along with us.

 

[Kukev31]

It's been time to drop prices for a while.

 

[NMH]

The unfortunate fact is, that the cost of living determines prices.
BHA cannot be asked to pay better wages and compete with other clubs for players, if the books don't balance from the turnstiles - it just doesn't work like that.
You want good football? You want the club to have players like O'Callaghan in the middle and Forster up front - and not get cherry-picked by every club around us for our best players??

The ticket prices stay. No way to compromise, and keep up with the competition.... I mean IN the competition that is called league football.

If people are not able to afford tickets, I'll tell you what the problem is - your mortgage or rent is too high, and your wages are too low.
If you cannot save an extra £25 per week, even by not paying too much for food and clothing, sacrifice that other hobby you spend too much on, don't pay more than your income can support for that item on eBay, forget the wider screen telly, get another model or one that makes sense for the size of your room, don't have an extra one in each bedroom etc.

Brighton has one inherent problem - the wages are too low for the cost of living, and the housing is too expensive.

 

[Deleted User X18H]

[Brighton has one inherent problem - the wages are too low for the cost of living, and the housing is too expensive.[/QUOTE] no really you think so gosh, has anyone told Simon Fanshaw ...........

 

[Mellor 3 Ward 4]

£15.00 for a ticket might attract the casual supporters who decides on the day of the game to go.

£25.00 will not - however I honestly don't believe the club can or will drop prices to such a level.

This is a fall out to the crap football of last season when many STHs did not renew, as now it's easy to give the games a miss when the prices for individual games is so high.

 

[Guy Fawkes]

The unfortunate fact is, that the cost of living determines prices.
BHA cannot be asked to pay better wages and compete with other clubs for players, if the books don't balance from the turnstiles - it just doesn't work like that.
You want good football? You want the club to have players like O'Callaghan in the middle and Forster up front - and not get cherry-picked by every club around us for our best players??

The ticket prices stay. No way to compromise, and keep up with the competition.... I mean IN the competition that is called league football.

If people are not able to afford tickets, I'll tell you what the problem is - your mortgage or rent is too high, and your wages are too low.
If you cannot save an extra £25 per week, even by not paying too much for food and clothing, sacrifice that other hobby you spend too much on, don't pay more than your income can support for that item on eBay, forget the wider screen telly, get another model or one that makes sense for the size of your room, don't have an extra one in each bedroom etc.

Brighton has one inherent problem - the wages are too low for the cost of living, and the housing is too expensive.

A lot of true points here.

Also, no-one has yet pointed out that this is happening to nearly all league football clubs, not just the Albion, so it's not just a one club issue.

If you were to lower the ticket price to say £15.00 you would need the crowd to be 8334 to recover the same money in as the income would be for a crowd of 5000 based on £25.00 a ticket now, and that wouldn't happen game in, game out.

One real problem we have, and people have said this to me many a time, is that you can't just turn up and pay on the gate, I know it's part of the restrictions at Withdean, but where else is there in this country that is all ticket every game.
Could the club go back to the council and try to reach a deal allowing pay at turnstiles for some games?

 

[gullshark]

Maybe it would be worth doing a system that some other clubs do, say class A, B and C games with prices of 25, 20 and 15 respectively.

 

[Bry Nylon]

I'd pay £25 if I thought I was going to something that even vaguely passed as what going to football used to be like. But sadly, on the occasions I go to Withdean it has been anything but. In fact it has been dull and frankly boring.
The crowd shuffles in 5 mins before kick off, you can hear the players talking to each other, and everybody gets up to go with 6 or 7 mins left. This isn't just a Withdean problem - it is what happens at all 'all-seater' grounds, trouble is Withdean simply exacerbates it, because it is what it is.

For me, going to football was never just about the game being played on the pitch - that was simply the backdrop to an afternoon on the terraces with your mates. Everybody had a role to play - the players played the game and the fans on the terraces (home and away fans) provided the atmosphere.

The trouble with all-seater grounds is that they are designed simply for watching the match. Where's the fun in that?

 

[NMH]

I'd pay £25 if I thought I was going to something that even vaguely passed as what going to football used to be like. But sadly, on the occasions I go to Withdean it has been anything but. In fact it has been dull and frankly boring.

Crikey, you must have been unlucky then.
I didn't hear that Leeds was a boring match - Luton certainly wasn't - Millwall wasn't - Southend wasn't........
Were you at the Bristol Rovers game then, where two structured sides had a stalemate - some called it dull, though their keeper did save them really.
Yeovil, where we got the tactics wrong, and were too little too late to save the points?

 

[Bry Nylon]

Crikey, you must have been unlucky then.
I didn't hear that Leeds was a boring match - Luton certainly wasn't - Millwall wasn't - Southend wasn't........
Were you at the Bristol Rovers game then, where two structured sides had a stalemate - some called it dull, though their keeper did save them really.
Yeovil, where we got the tactics wrong, and were too little too late to save the points?

But that's what I mean.... the football itself is only part of it. If the game is exciting, and I try to stand up and get behind the side, I can't. Firstly because it isn't fair on people sat around me, and second because a steward will point at me and tell me to sit down.

Put it like this....with a string of good results behind us and the team riding high in the division, if I go to the next home game will the ground be full 20 mins before kick-off, with songs and chants drifting down Tongdean Lane, and an air of expectation building up? Or will it be virtually empty till 5 mins before k/o, before a deathly hush falls across the ground?

Its not just at Withdean - it happens at most all-seaters.