Away tickets

[blue corby]

the only chance i have of watching city away apart from tv is going to wembley sad and annoying use to go to many aways with my sad 11000 points.

That’s not correct , a lot of games this season have gone to low points or open sale this season , Cardiff , Southampton , Spurs , Newcastle to name a few

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

Am I correct in the following ? Apologies if I’ve got it wrong
The club can’t implement the points proposal for away games for around 3000 fans but they can implement a system where fans that don’t attend home games can have these points removed ?
Also for certain Euro away games the selling criteria stated that the points would only be awarded once the ticket had been scanned into the stadium . Apparently the system can deal with this ?

For home games, the access and ticketing systems are obviously linked so the club know almost instantly how many have scanned in, who's scanned in and what time they've scanned in. I, of all people, should have known how complex it is to implement a core system but they showed us a diagram illustrating how many system interdependencies there were involving the new ticketing system and there are a lot more than you'd think.

For those CL away games, assuming what you've said is correct, I'm guessing the host club sends us a file of scanned ticket numbers, which are then linked to the supporters who purchased those tickets. From what we were told on Friday, the issue is applying differential points, meaning that we can't currently implement a system whereby we give no points for one game, 20 points for another and 40 for another. My educated guess would be that points are hard-coded into the system, rather than being user-defined parameters that can be changed on demand.

 

[blue corby]

For home games, the access and ticketing systems are obviously linked so the club know almost instantly how many have scanned in, who's scanned in and what time they've scanned in. I, of all people, should have known how complex it is to implement a core system but they showed us a diagram illustrating how many system interdependencies there were involving the new ticketing system and there are a lot more than you'd think.

For those CL away games, assuming what you've said is correct, I'm guessing the host club sends us a file of scanned ticket numbers, which are then linked to the supporters who purchased those tickets. From what we were told on Friday, the issue is applying differential points, meaning that we can't currently implement a system whereby we give no points for one game, 20 points for another and 40 for another. My educated guess would be that points are hard-coded into the system, rather than being user-defined parameters that can be changed on demand.

Thanks for the reply
They may know how many scanned in and what time they scanned in but no way on earth do they know who scanned in , and that’s one of the points I’ve been trying to make. Don’t attend or sell card on the exchange you don’t get points but sell on face book or to a friend and you get points . The club only know who’s card got scanned not who attended , the same for both home and away games.

 

[jrb]

A fairer distribution of away points would be something like this.

More points the further you travel.

5 points for the North and Midlands.
10 points for the South, South East, South West, South Wales. Anywhere past the Watford gap.
15 points for European away games. Quite a few games haven’t sold out over the years.
5 additional points for Midweek away games.(Newcastle away being a recent example)

Those fans who are currently behind on points, but buy tickets when they go to low points or on open sale get a chance to make up some points.

I would also give points to fans who turn up to the home PL games. 3 points per game. That’s an additional 57 points a season if you turn up for every home PL game. 100 points if you attend every PL home game instead of the 57 points.

As for platinum, which I have, it should be scrapped. Until it is people including myself will continue to buy it just to make sure I don’t fall behind points wise. Better to reward fans who actually turn up instead of rewarding fans double points for paying £50 extra at the start of the season.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

I'm of the opinion that my representative isn't representing me particularly well, so I'm not going to contribute on this thread anymore.

Thank fuck for that! ;-)

I will take my grievances direct via email on the City Matters website. I suggest if anyone else feels the same they do likewise; you never know, the club might listen.

If you want to make a coherent and constructive point to me or any other rep via City Matters then we'd welcome your feedback. But if 50 people say x and another 50 say y then we've got to decide what we think is in the best interests overall of the people we represent. And that may not suit you but delight someone else or vice versa. But my remit is to represent all seasoncard holders from ages 6 to 96 and from those who only got their first seasoncard this season to those who've had one since the 1960's. I'm not here just to represent those with over 20k points, although we all recognise, the club included, that these people are the bedrock of our support and deserve some priority over others. But these people will one day stop being able to attend games and we also have to think about how we attract and retain a core, loyal support

FWIW - I'm alright Jack - once the new system has frozen the status quo I will still be able to get to Old Trafford and Anfield and nearly every away game I want to. I will also be able to miss a few if I choose without dropping down the pecking order. What a joke.

Why should you think it's a joke that you don't have to attend an away game or buy a ticket just so you can get to the games you do want to go to. People complain that some people just want to do the big games and not put in the hard yards to do the less popular games but you're actually admitting that it's people like you who actually do that except that you get the chance by having first crack at tickets that you get 40 points for (as I presume you're on Platinum).[/QUOTE]

A truly meritocratic system that rewarded loyalty over a long period of time (which predated the money arriving) is about to be fucked over by a club that doesn't recognize or understand its core support with the contrivance of well intentioned but ineffective busybody committee representatives. All that was required was to introduce a rolling system (5 years perhaps?) that would address the one major flaw - it's difficult to catch up now.

Rewarding things over a long period of time aren't meritocratic though. That's the whole issue here. Suppose someone has done most of the games over the years and had a load of points then gave the ticket to their son or grandson when they decided they couldn't be bothered any more. That's not meritocratic (but I know it happens).

I've personally witnessed a discussion between a group of three or four fans who go to pretty well all games. Fair enough, they're entitled to tickets. But they have family members who have seasoncards but generally only do home games. However they make sure other people use these tickets for aways so have something like 10 tickets with high points. For a CL away, where demand was likely to exceed supply, I heard them talk about who they were getting these ten tickets for, people who didn't have the points themselves (and maybe not even seasoncard holders but occasional attendees). Is that meritocratic?

Two predictions. Firstly our away support will 'soften' - the points hierarchy is now set, there is no incentive for people to try and catch up and no downside to missing the odd one. Secondly, increasing the number of 18 to 25 year olds at away games will lead to a marked rise in trouble, it was lads from this group that started the trouble outside the King Power stadium recently ('Where's Your Chopper Gone?') and the ugly scenes at Newcastle etc.

I'll make some predictions of my own. The games we struggle to sell out we will stil struggle to sell out, like the Newcastle game and Spurs on a Monday night. We don't yet have the fanbase like the rags or dippers to guarantee selling those out. One way to grow that fanbase is to try to grow the group that do go to aways games and we'll do that by giving people more chance of an away ticket. If people now choose not to buy tickets for other less glamorous games like Cardiff or Southampton because they don't get points for it any more, then people lower down the list can go if they want. Typically, games that sold out did so at 15.5k on average last season. Some were more, where we had smaller allocations or the really big games, and some were less (Stoke on a Monday night). If that figure now goes down to 13.5k or even lower then I'd consider that a success and I think most would agree with me.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

Thanks for the reply
They may know how many scanned in and what time they scanned in but no way on earth do they know who scanned in , and that’s one of the points I’ve been trying to make. Don’t attend or sell card on the exchange you don’t get points but sell on face book or to a friend and you get points . The club only know who’s card got scanned not who attended , the same for both home and away games.

Good point. They know who bought the ticket not who used it.

The Ticket Exchange point is an interesting one and we had quite a feisty discussion about it on Friday. The outcome was that we casme to the conclusion that the ticket holder gets the money so shouldn't also get doubly rewarded with the points as well. But there's no way of tracking someone who sells their ticket privately so what's the incentive to use TX, which is limited to 6 games anyway? This bolsters my argument that we need to take a competely fresh look at the way we market and sell tickets across the board as it's not necessarily appropriate in a changed landscape.

And now I've got to get something else done urgently so I'll be off the forum for a few hours.

 

[liamctid]

I'm not sure if I've missed it, but I don't really understand the logic to scrapping the awarding of points.

Is the notion that there's a lot of people in the top bracket who buy tickets purely to shift them and get the points and by taking the points away from them will stop them purchasing?

I disagree with that. People with high points will still get contacted by others saying "alright mate, are you going to Wolves away? If not can I use your ticket?"

And no one would say "I would have done last season, but now I get no benefit to it without the points being added, you can get stuffed."

I'm sure I speak for a lot of other high pointer's on here, if you've sorted someone out before for a ticket on your card because you're not going and their mate is struggling to get a ticket you're doing it moreso for the fact he/she might be able to sort you and your group of mates out in the future than ticket points, IMO.

Sure, there will be people buying tickets with no intention of going but will happily collect the points, but scrapping the points isn't going to stop people using their ticket to sort someone out.

 

[Maccblue]

How will not giving points for away games help that much?
The ones with high points (myself included) will still get first dibs as believe it or not the ones that attend nearly all the aways attend all the homes too and subscribe to all the schemes too as we have to because city forced us down this route so there’s no chance anyone can catch or overtake us?

People with higher points will still get the away tickets even if they aren’t going for their mates who have less points as they won’t wanna risk not getting an away ticket

The proposal makes no difference to me so bring it on
Personally I think your pissing in the wind

Yes based on Liam’s quote I said exactly the same last week

 

[cptaidan88]

A fairer distribution of away points would be something like this.

More points the further you travel.

5 points for the North and Midlands.
10 points for the South, South East, South West, South Wales. Anywhere past the Watford gap.
15 points for European away games. Quite a few games haven’t sold out over the years.
5 additional points for Midweek away games.(Newcastle away being a recent example)

Those fans who are currently behind on points, but buy tickets when they go to low points or on open sale get a chance to make up some points.

I would also give points to fans who turn up to the home PL games. 3 points per game. That’s an additional 57 points a season if you turn up for every home PL game. 100 points if you attend every PL home game instead of the 57 points.

The lad to the side of me lives and works in Ireland and the lad in front travels from North West of Scotland. Both are there at virtually every home game. Equally it takes 2 hours on the train from Euston but probably over 4 hours driving from Bristol. Its too complicated to start faffing around like that.

Those situations are why supporters clubs should get tickets in my opinion (eg someone from Scotland with 10,000 has made more sacrifices than someone from Manchester on 10,010).

@Prestwich_Blue
I'll take you at your word, but I am still skeptical of the clubs claim that its not possible to award loyalty points to individual games as they've managed it before now when we had to collect tickets and they did that on a supporter by supporter basis - this could be done in a broader stroke. They've presumably already got the capability to award either 20 or 40 due to platinum? Ignoring those points, if we are left with an either/or scenario then keeping it as it is has to be better surely? The pecking order won't change otherwise.

Nobody is traveling to Newcastle just to get 20/40 points - they're going because they want to watch City. A reward, and a rational thought for doing so is to move up the pecking order beyond someone who chose not to go (on the basis the game goes to general sale). If the club is not going to award any points then it doesn't matter which games or how many you go to, you stay put where you are. City matters is trying to incentivise home games due to empty seats which is obviously a good thing. But realistically how often are the 1000s of empty seats likely to be supporters that travel to away games on even a semi-regular basis? This has nothing to do with "superfans" or "part timers", just that my assumption and what I think is generally accepted is that there are potentially 1000s who buy a season ticket with no intention of going to more than 10 games (maybe less), because its cheaper than buying 10 tickets.

I don't believe the current system is completely broken. The problem is that it is being abused, and that is what needs to be addressed. Happy for the ballot to be introduced for the young adult category, but if they misbehave, that tarnishes us all and I'd like the club to penalise individuals. I'm pleased that the balloted tickets will be coming out of the overall tickets available.

In terms of platinum, I suspect the resolution will effectively be to divide whatever the club earns from it by number of season ticket holders and increase the price for everyones ticket accordingly next season. Bit harsh on people with gold but it removes the argument. I can't see the club agreeing to accept the loss of revenue even if it was 1p (which it isn't).

I'm willing to give it time to see what you can collectively come up with going forwards, but I have huge doubts that the suggested changes so far will have the desired effect. Its early days I know. I'd hope to see feedback (minutes) at the next meeting from the further discussions that have taken place about alternatives (which you've said they have) - eg a 5 year rolling period, or perhaps a 5-10% ID check/collection at the gate to mitigate touts. The club could be more proactive too if they arrange to buy spares they would catch people out and ban them.

Finally, I implore you and the whole City Matters group to please reconsider the Thomas Cook ticket guarantee again, or at the very least not let it come into force if there are less than say 2,500 tickets available. I've tried to consider both points of view but just don't see how its a positive thing for anyone other than Thomas Cook. If you were willing to agree to bring it up in the next meeting, I'd happily PM my points in a concise manner, just let me know.

 

[Scaring Europe to Death]

I'm not sure if I've missed it, but I don't really understand the logic to scrapping the awarding of points.

Is the notion that there's a lot of people in the top bracket who buy tickets purely to shift them and get the points and by taking the points away from them will stop them purchasing?

I disagree with that. People with high points will still get contacted by others saying "alright mate, are you going to Wolves away? If not can I use your ticket?"

And no one would say "I would have done last season, but now I get no benefit to it without the points being added, you can get stuffed."

I'm sure I speak for a lot of other high pointer's on here, if you've sorted someone out before for a ticket on your card because you're not going and their mate is struggling to get a ticket you're doing it moreso for the fact he/she might be able to sort you and your group of mates out in the future than ticket points, IMO.

Sure, there will be people buying tickets with no intention of going but will happily collect the points, but scrapping the points isn't going to stop people using their ticket to sort someone out.

I fully agree with your main point, as the vast majority of high pointers have been going for years, and don’t miss many games. Occasionally, a ticket might be passed-on, but I refuse to believe that some people abuse the system on a regular basis, purely to guarantee a ticket for the Old Trafford derby.

However, I suppose there’s a wider point that surrounds the concept of loyalty, and the notion that those supporters who traipsed around Lincoln and York in the lower divisions should be ring-fenced

This is our 16th season in the new stadium, and anyone younger than 23 will struggle to remember our last promotion party. They don’t recall York and Lincoln for the same reason that I wasn’t one of the 8,015 against Swindon in 1965.

A whole generation of new supporters are witnessing the most successful Manchester City team of all time, but thanks to the existing system which benefits the fans who were going before they were even born, they’ll struggle for away tickets.

Even worse, they’ll never catch up by doing the “hard yards”, because thanks to our success and expanding support, that phrase is now redundant.

 

[bobbyowenquiff]

Or the ones who say “what’s the incentive for me”? The incentive is watching City live but I’ll give you the background to this.

The club asked us to come up with some ideas around the points system and away tickets, which we discussed as a group and came back with a number of suggestions that we all agreed on. These were the ballot for younger seasoncard holders, dropping points for away games and dropping Platinum. As regards away points, the club's counter-proposal was that they'd like to give points for away games where the selling criteria drop to all seasoncard card holders. That seemed fair enough so we went with that.

On Friday, three of us attended a working group meeting with Danny & Lisa, together with some other club staff representing various parts of the ticketing process. At that meeting, those people (who are closest to the systems) said it would be technically impossible to do that currently with the new system. In doing that, they killed the proposal from the club's more senior managers who weren't close to the day-to-day working of the system. They said it had to be all or nothing and so we had to decide it would be nothing. At some point, we may be able to resurrect that proposal if future system developments permit. The club wanted it, we were happy enough with it but we just can't do it for moment. Also the 18-25 ballot might not be as simple as people think, for technical reasons again, as the system doesn't support ballots.

Now I'm sure that one or two of the people who see conspiracies in everything (I'm not supposed to call them 'loons') will claim the club has constructed this elaborate charade wherby Danny Wilson, Lisa Eaton & Omar Berrada have put their heads together with the IT & ticketing guys and said "Let's pretend we care about the fans by suggesting something that sounds great on paper but we know is impossible to implement". If Elvis turns up to the next meeting riding Shergar then i might think that myself but until that happens I'll continue to believe that it's just a case that people suggesting things aren't aware of the impact of the things they'd like to implement.

I don't envy your task with this ticket issue. You can never please all the people all the time. Has there been discussion on how other clubs manage away allocations? We are not the only club whose demand exceeds supply. I have heard rumours abut United's ballot system and I know they had a big problem with fans who passed their season tickets on after they died meaning they apparently had loads of fans who were allegedly 100 years old! For starters surely everyone agrees that scrapping Platinum is a good idea. Perhaps we should do one step at a time and review it as we go along. I attend most away matches and have done for decades but I recognise that we need to bring new blood into our fanbase. Any business that fails to attract new customers will die in the long-run.

 

[its a Barm]

That’s not correct , a lot of games this season have gone to low points or open sale this season , Cardiff , Southampton , Spurs , Newcastle to name a few

Yes you are correct, sorry I did not expand on my personal circumstances are, I now go to all games with my grandsons and as much as I try I can't bring myself to go to an away without them, the only time I can get them tickets is for a Wembley trip, but I do take your point, and i suppose i was incorrect in my statement.

 

[edinburgh123]

All this penalising people for not turning up is stupid - what is this Big Brother? So, my son should get off his arse and travel 220 miles for a home game midweek and get back in time for school the next day - utter lunacy. And To a degree - same argument for myself although I manage to find work in Manchester for pretty much all home games. The system isn’t perfect (if the points system started 20 years ago it would be great, but it didn’t) but it’s not that bad. Whatever solution we have will fit some people but not others

 

[worsleyweb]

I will be stood out side the away end at goodison in a very posh coat ticketless. Anyone with a spare look out for me.

 

[sam 1980]

When can we expect a final decision and an official announcement from the club on this

 

[cptaidan88]

However, I suppose there’s a wider point that surrounds the concept of loyalty, and the notion that those supporters who traipsed around Lincoln and York in the lower divisions should be ring-fenced

This is our 16th season in the new stadium, and anyone younger than 23 will struggle to remember our last promotion party. They don’t recall York and Lincoln for the same reason that I wasn’t one of the 8,015 against Swindon in 1965.

A whole generation of new supporters are witnessing the most successful Manchester City team of all time, but thanks to the existing system which benefits the fans who were going before they were even born, they’ll struggle for away tickets.

Even worse, they’ll never catch up by doing the “hard yards”, because thanks to our success and expanding support, that phrase is now redundant.

Which is why I think the majority have supported the initiative of a ballot for 18-25 year olds. I think Colin has said one option for discussion is a rolling period of loyalty, which I personally would be supportive of for the same reasons.

"Hard yards" is still relevant though, otherwise every game would be sold out 1st day of sales and oversubscribed, and this isn't the case.

 

[Scaring Europe to Death]

Which is why I think the majority have supported the initiative of a ballot for 18-25 year olds. I think Colin has said one option for discussion is a rolling period of loyalty, which I personally would be supportive of for the same reasons.

"Hard yards" is still relevant though, otherwise every game would be sold out 1st day of sales and oversubscribed, and this isn't the case.

By "hard yards" I was referring to the fact that it's impossible for gangs of younger supporters to replicate what my peer group did from the early 80s onwards, by attending the vast majority of away games, and standing on vast open terraces, after paying at cash turnstiles.
In fact, looking back, it's amazing how many teams took less than 1200 to most away games. even in the top divisions.

That's why the current system is flawed. (even though it benefits me), so I agree with both you and Colin

 

[Deleted member 77198]

A fairer distribution of away points would be something like this.

More points the further you travel.

5 points for the North and Midlands.
10 points for the South, South East, South West, South Wales. Anywhere past the Watford gap.
15 points for European away games. Quite a few games haven’t sold out over the years.
5 additional points for Midweek away games.(Newcastle away being a recent example)

Those fans who are currently behind on points, but buy tickets when they go to low points or on open sale get a chance to make up some points.

I would also give points to fans who turn up to the home PL games. 3 points per game. That’s an additional 57 points a season if you turn up for every home PL game. 100 points if you attend every PL home game instead of the 57 points.

As for platinum, which I have, it should be scrapped. Until it is people including myself will continue to buy it just to make sure I don’t fall behind points wise. Better to reward fans who actually turn up instead of rewarding fans double points for paying £50 extra at the start of the season.

I don’t think that’s fair. Some people cannot book half days off work, some can’t book any random days off work and are just told when they are allowed to have two weeks off. So Newcastle or Southampton away midweek or European away games are an absolute no-no for some people. That’s just rewarding more points to people who can take time off work whenever they want or work for themselves.

 

[Deleted member 77198]

The. club f***ed up.

When they launched the Tunnel Club they didn’t have to include away tickets as an extra incentive to get people/fans to sign up for the Tunnel Club. They could have offered cup final tickets as an incentive instead. Unfortunately they can’t change it now. People have bought into the Tunnel Club expecting an away ticket, for the derby, etc. If they can’t go they will just pass the ticket on to a friend or sell it on.

That ill thought out decision shows that the club put higher spending fans in-front of the bread and butter fans. If you have to point the finger and blame anyone, blame those people at the club who are making these decisions and getting them OK’d by people above them.

You only have to go back to the NS expansion email survey and the prices and incentives the club put forward in it to realise they haven’t learnt anything, or aren’t listening to the fans again. 6000 extra seats aren’t going to be filled at those prices quoted in the email survey.

If there is another season ticket price rise next season are you just going to absorb it once again? Possible 10 season ticket price rises in the last 11 seasons. I hope PB and the other selected City fans make a very strong case against another season ticket price rise on the back of extra TV money, Prize money, numerous new sponsorship deals(I can list them), and a new Puma kit deal. There’s absolutely no need for a season ticket price increase next season.

Good post that though

 

[Manc Born & Bred]

Just found out that for Chelsea away games Their supporter clubs within a 30 mile radius of whoever they are playing get priority over other branches. Don’t know how many tickets are allocated though but seems like a good idea although one could argue that if a branch is based in the north east will they stand a chance of away tickets for all the southern based teams.