City Fans Leaving Early/Empty seats

Exeter Blue I am here said:
I've had a season card for the last 15 years (and for 5 previous years back in the 80's). I live 250 miles away and certain games (evening kick offs in particular) are often an impossibility for me due to the difficulty in taking leave from work at very short notice, to accommodate the whims of Sky and BT Sport. I attend about 75% of all games, home and away, albeit that to achieve the latter I'm having to use the begging bowl for tickets more and more often. Whilst the reasonably attractive price of that season ticket makes it preferable to the hassle of buying individual match day tickets, it also galvanises me to go to games to justify shelling out for it every year. If I didn't have the season card I'd probably end up going to half the games that I do. I doubt that I'm alone in that regard, and I'm far from convinced that a hike in season ticket prices to price people in my situation out of contention is a good idea. In my experience once people get out of the habit of going they don't go at all, and whilst Liverpool may have a small army of day trippers waiting to take up the slack, I'm not so sure that we do
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Understandable. I was not suggesting raising the season ticket prices. I think that's why lots of fans buy seasoncards in advance knowing that they can't make every game - because it's cost efficient to do so. People do what suits. City need to react. Sometimes there is no solution, but as demand grows I think the re-sales will grow and be a viable solution.
 
Marvin said:
Liverpool have the same problem. http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/spor...ews/liverpools-plans-fill-2000-empty-14164939

Tickets sold, but not everyone in them.

Non-attending season ticket holders are the problem. Proof was the Burnley FA Cup where everyone had to buy a ticket. Empty seats in the North Stand miraculously vanished.

I agree with the points above that a significant number of season card holders don't go. I suspect city know who they are because they can track attendances.

It is a particular problem at city because of the massive gap between match-day prices and seasoncard prices. Without looking at it, I suspect City have the largest amount of cheap season tickets, and at the same time some of the most expensive match-day prices. Therefore a lot of City fans have decided to buy seasoncards, but not to go to all the games.

Solution: Ticket re-sale. There must be more and more casual City fans around now than ever who want to get to a game. We'd have never been able to sell 50k for a 3rd Round Cup game a few years ago.
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The Burnley FA Cup game said it all for me. 3pm Saturday kick-off, not on TV, cheap tickets, but everyone having to specifically buy a ticket for that game. It sold out 3 days in advance and you just knew there would be hardly any no-shows. The family stand looked the fullest it's been all season (only the Everton game could rival it IMO).

What it also told me is that with it selling out 3 days before, the support IS there to fill a bigger capacity stadium even for less high profile fixtures providing we have a perfect storm of a fan-friendly kick-off time, no live TV coverage, and cheap tickets.
 
M18CTID said:
The Burnley FA Cup game said it all for me. 3pm Saturday kick-off, not on TV, cheap tickets, but everyone having to specifically buy a ticket for that game. It sold out 3 days in advance and you just knew there would be hardly any no-shows. The family stand looked the fullest it's been all season (only the Everton game could rival it IMO).

What it also told me is that with it selling out 3 days before, the support IS there to fill a bigger capacity stadium even for less high profile fixtures providing we have a perfect storm of a fan-friendly kick-off time, no live TV coverage, and cheap tickets.
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Well two of the empty seats were ours. We were in Malaysia having booked before the draw was made and being on the FA Cup scheme. I also missed the Wolves EFL Cup match.
 
Marvin said:
Understandable. I was not suggesting raising the season ticket prices. I think that's why lots of fans buy seasoncards in advance knowing that they can't make every game - because it's cost efficient to do so. People do what suits. City need to react. Sometimes there is no solution, but as demand grows I think the re-sales will grow and be a viable solution.
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That Echo article was a good one Marvin. Going to save that for the next scouser who goes on about empty seats. But at least Liverpool are talking to fans & trying to do something about it. I've posted my solution on here before, which I believe would go a long way to solving the problem, but I'm going to do it again.
  • Instead of paying a load of money for a season ticket, pay a smaller amount upfront (say £150) to reserve the seat.
  • Then up to one week before the game, you can pay for that seat. The price would be the day price less £10. So if it's £40, you pay £30. The tenner comes off the £150 you've already paid.
  • If you haven't paid for the seat by a week before, it gets released as an available seat and anyone can book it but, unless they've paid the up-front fee, it's full price.
  • If you book it but then find you can't go, you can release it up to 48 hours beforehand
  • If the club sees that people are buying seats but not turning up regularly then it can take some sort of action such as revoking membership privileges.
That means if you attend 16 league games a season or more, you're actually in pocket as you've got more discount than the £150 you've paid. Also, the club know who's turning up and who isn't and therefore what seats they can sell. The functionality to do this is already in the system so it shouldn't be difficult to implement.
 
Prestwich_Blue said:
That Echo article was a good one Marvin. Going to save that for the next scouser who goes on about empty seats. But at least Liverpool are talking to fans & trying to do something about it. I've posted my solution on here before, which I believe would go a long way to solving the problem, but I'm going to do it again.
  • Instead of paying a load of money for a season ticket, pay a smaller amount upfront (say £150) to reserve the seat.
  • Then up to one week before the game, you can pay for that seat. The price would be the day price less £10. So if it's £40, you pay £30. The tenner comes off the £150 you've already paid.
  • If you haven't paid for the seat by a week before, it gets released as an available seat and anyone can book it but, unless they've paid the up-front fee, it's full price.
  • If you book it but then find you can't go, you can release it up to 48 hours beforehand
  • If the club sees that people are buying seats but not turning up regularly then it can take some sort of action such as revoking membership privileges.
That means if you attend 16 league games a season or more, you're actually in pocket as you've got more discount than the £150 you've paid. Also, the club know who's turning up and who isn't and therefore what seats they can sell. The functionality to do this is already in the system so it shouldn't be difficult to implement.
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Sounds like it could work. More flexible for fans, but more work for clubs - which is presumably why it's not done! Disappointing that City don't meet with fans.
 
Marvin said:
Sounds like it could work. More flexible for fans, but more work for clubs - which is presumably why it's not done! Disappointing that City don't meet with fans.
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Not necessarily more work. Most people buy tickets online these days plus you could have something like the cup scheme, which automatically assigned the ticket and takes the money unless you tell it not to. And even if it does & you don't want it, you can still release the ticket.
 
Prestwich_Blue said:
That Echo article was a good one Marvin. Going to save that for the next scouser who goes on about empty seats. But at least Liverpool are talking to fans & trying to do something about it. I've posted my solution on here before, which I believe would go a long way to solving the problem, but I'm going to do it again.
  • Instead of paying a load of money for a season ticket, pay a smaller amount upfront (say £150) to reserve the seat.
  • Then up to one week before the game, you can pay for that seat. The price would be the day price less £10. So if it's £40, you pay £30. The tenner comes off the £150 you've already paid.
  • If you haven't paid for the seat by a week before, it gets released as an available seat and anyone can book it but, unless they've paid the up-front fee, it's full price.
  • If you book it but then find you can't go, you can release it up to 48 hours beforehand
  • If the club sees that people are buying seats but not turning up regularly then it can take some sort of action such as revoking membership privileges.
That means if you attend 16 league games a season or more, you're actually in pocket as you've got more discount than the £150 you've paid. Also, the club know who's turning up and who isn't and therefore what seats they can sell. The functionality to do this is already in the system so it shouldn't be difficult to implement.
Click to expand...
Sound in principal but sounds a lot of work. Our ticket office, web page and associated systems are garbage.
Also not really sure club care....why should they. They have our money already.
 
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