“City Matters” fan committee

[Didsbury Dave]

Good luck with it, PB

 

[squirtyflower]

The ballot for all can't be done.
There will be uproar from loyal fans who have gone home and away for years.
Also the club has sold loyalty points with platinum etc.. since we moved to the stadium.
If they scrap a scheme where they have sold points on the provisio it helps your points total for the purchase of tickets, surely they will be obliged to refund everyone who has paid £50 extra a season.
The way i think it should be done if there is a change is as follows: Have different pots of tickets for different sets of fans:

say we get 3000 away tickets it could be split something like this:

A, Existing Loyalty point members get 1200 tickets
B, Supporters club 700 tickets
C, Corporate and staff 500 tickets
D, Ballot (for members who have no loyalty points or cant purchase due to A,B,C being sold out) 600 tickets

Doing it like this, your'e looking after all sections of fans including those with existing points, supporters club and it gives those with no loyalty points the opportunity to purchase tickets.

The numbers may need to be based on a percentage rather than direct number due to changing away ticket allocations.

What you think PB?

I like you thinking.
But why do Supporters Clubs need an allocation here as they can get them through route A if they have the points or route D if they don’t. Your plan gives them three bites of the cherry.
And I wouldn’t give corporate as many as that.

 

[Bluemeanster]

I like you thinking.
But why do Supporters Clubs need an allocation here as they can get them through route A if they have the points or route D if they don’t. Your plan gives them three bites of the cherry.
And I wouldn’t give corporate as many as that.

you gotta look after all the groups who currently get tickets but add the new group for people who can't currently get tickets due to having no or low points. You need a scheme where you have buy in from all groups. Supporters club have 13000 plus members. Thats approx 25% of the attendance at a home game.
25% of 3000 away tickets is actually 750
600 tickets for people who have no loyalty or low point totals is quite a high number of tickets considering.

The supporters club run a lot of coaches to away games, if you remove the allocation to branches you potentially destroy a lot of the away travel coaches. The branches will have no gaurantee they will have enough people on them and therefore wont run them.

Cant see the club giving up the corporate allocation.

 

[Thx_to_Neil_Young]

The ballot for all can't be done.
There will be uproar from loyal fans who have gone home and away for years.
Also the club has sold loyalty points with platinum etc.. since we moved to the stadium.
If they scrap a scheme where they have sold points on the provisio it helps your points total for the purchase of tickets, surely they will be obliged to refund everyone who has paid £50 extra a season.
The way i think it should be done if there is a change is as follows: Have different pots of tickets for different sets of fans:

say we get 3000 away tickets it could be split something like this:

A, Existing Loyalty point members get 1200 tickets
B, Supporters club 700 tickets
C, Corporate and staff 500 tickets
D, Ballot (for members who have no loyalty points or cant purchase due to A,B,C being sold out) 600 tickets

Doing it like this, your'e looking after all sections of fans including those with existing points, supporters club and it gives those with no loyalty points the opportunity to purchase tickets.

The numbers may need to be based on a percentage rather than direct number due to changing away ticket allocations.

What you think PB?

The trouble with this is that those who just miss out on 'A' and will have done many aways over the years and be longstanding season card holders are then lumped together with every other member, hardly a fair system.....

 

[Bluemeanster]

The trouble with this is that those who just miss out on 'A' and will have done many aways over the years and be longstanding season card holders are then lumped together with every other member, hardly a fair system.....

Youre never going to completely satisfy everyone. A system which caters for all groups is the fairest option, but you can't do away with the loyalty points that have been built up.

 

[squirtyflower]

you gotta look after all the groups who currently get tickets but add the new group for people who can't currently get tickets due to having no or low points. You need a scheme where you have buy in from all groups. Supporters club have 13000 plus members. Thats approx 25% of the attendance at a home game.
25% of 3000 away tickets is actually 750
600 tickets for people who have no loyalty or low point totals is quite a high number of tickets considering.

The supporters club run a lot of coaches to away games, if you remove the allocation to branches you potentially destroy a lot of the away travel coaches. The branches will have no gaurantee they will have enough people on them and therefore wont run them.

Cant see the club giving up the corporate allocation.

As I said though
I could be a member of a Supporters club on 21000 points
So I apply for a ballot on my points, and through my Supporters Club

Also of the 13000 people in the branches there are many who are not seasoncard holders so that 25% of attendance is inaccurate

 

[Bluemeanster]

As I said though
I could be a member of a Supporters club on 21000 points
So I apply for a ballot on my points, and through my Supporters Club

Also of the 13000 people in the branches there are many who are not seasoncard holders so that 25% of attendance is inaccurate

The figures are hyperthetical for the purpose of explaining how i think the scheme may work.

The rules and the criteria about what you could apply for would need to be agreed, but i would say you can only apply for one group at a time, and/or if tickets remain in a group after a deadline they can be sold in a different group.

 

[Cheadle_hulmeBlue]

You always bang on about younger fans, but its not only them. As I posted earlier, I was able to get a ticket for pretty much all the away games about 5 years ago, my only away game last year was in Ukraine (and a great time was had).

Despite being eligible for most away games, I often couldn't go because I work shifts and weekends, I also live a long way from Manchester, and every home game is like an away game for me, and so I prioritise those as a season card holder. I've done all the distant away games over the years, but because I could only ever manage 7 or 8 away games a season (and most home games), I fell back points wise each season, and about 5 years ago, it became difficult to get tickets, I then dropped platinum as it wasn't worth the extra £50 as my point got further and further behind the top ones.

I'm now luckily at a position in life where I could do most home and away games (financially and work wise), but only occasionally are my points good enough for away games. My lad is 28 (so part of your younger fans, and he's done the hard years since he was about 7 or 8), and just down to having platinum he's passed my points total, but we go together, so he can get some away tickets now but I can't, and so he's also not going as often.

Something needs to change to benefit ALL groups, not just one or another group, and like PB says those who go everywhere should continue to be the first priority, but we need a system that doesn't allow some fans to buy tickets with no intention of ever going to most, but just keeping their points total artificially high so they can pick and choose the top games, and just sell on to others the ones they're not arsed going too.

No idea what that system looks like, but hopefully we can find some compromise somehow, but for ALL groups not just yours.

I always bang on about younger fans because I am a younger fan.. ...most of the points I’m talking about apply to people around my age group and I can relate to. My bad for doing that. I absolutely agree something needs to be done to benefit everyone and hopefully we come up with a system that does that. The system we have right now means lots of fans whether young or average income for instance can’t go.

However from what I see and has been shown a lot of younger people find it very difficult to actually go to games, in particular away games

 

[Thx_to_Neil_Young]

I The system we have right now means lots of fans whether young or average income for instance can’t go.

However from what I see and has been shown a lot of younger people find it very difficult to actually go to games, in particular away games

I must be missing something, but you seem to be saying that if you're on average income you can't go to aways, so how will changing the current system enable them to go...?

 

[Thx_to_Neil_Young]

Thinking about this, obviously there will be no change this season. However, I believe that we should await the outcome of whether there is a continuation of the £30 max price for away's because if that is scrapped then tickets will become more easy to obtain and any new method should take this into account.

Perhaps PB could inquire at one of the City Matters meetings re the £30 cap?