Atmosphere - 2023/24

[Edghill OG]

It cost me £112 for me and the kids yesterday for SS1 with Cityzens discounts. Ironically that made it a bit more bearable, as I can tell myself I paid '34 quid a ticket' rather than paid £61. What the club has basically got regular matchday fans like myself doing is paying out the cost of a season ticket for half the games. It is a kick in the nuts, especially at this time of year, but we all find ways to justify it to ourselves. For me, it's that a) I missed games when I left Manchester, before coming back, and had less money (so saved back then) b) I want my kids to see as much as possible not just of City, good or bad, but of what may go down in history as our greatest era, and the greatest team and greatest manager the world has seen, rather than look back thirty years from now only having watched it on the telly c) every matchgoing City fan, one way or another, ends up spending tens of thousands over the years on this love affair, whether its on away travel, kits, books, TV, beer, pies, years and years of recurring STs, or inflated matchday pricing.

I do fear that the club is playing with fire in the long term, because having sat all over the ground, I don't actually think there's as many 'new fans' in the ground as some people think. I don't doubt there's a lot of new Insta fans who never actually go to games, certainly a lot of demand for marquee fixtures from touts, scalpers, bots and people who are more fans of the game than fans of the club, but don't get the sense the matchgoing fanbase or the numbers of tourists is growing exponentially. Tickets can be tough to come by because right now we're the best team, with a relatively small ground and a high proportion of ST holders. But if we're going to add 9,000 seats - and remember that Pep won't be with us forever, you'd hope there will come a point where a bit of realism sets in about making prices sustainable.

As usual I agree with you mate. I'm just glad I had the opportunity to go when I was younger as there's no way my step-father could have afforded to take me these days and I'd have been destined to be an armchair fan myself.

As you allude to I'm not that confident the club are increasing the regular matchday goers at all. In fact there's an argument it's reducing with them not re-releasing season tickets in recent years. There's no way everybody has renewed in the past two seasons as there's always churn. The football tourists and those going as a one off treat will have increased as well as our expanding global armchair fan-base. I think relying on these types of fans is rather whimsical and totally reliant on our continued success. Fans that have been alienated have probably taken up new hobbies like golf or watching football at a lower standard. I don't blame people for knocking it on the head altogether. Especially with fiascos like the release of all the tickets at the start of the season and how they conducted the Madrid tickets last year.

To put the pricing into context I think I paid similar for the Champions League semi against Madrid as Burley at home and I think I paid £75 for an FA Cup Final ticket. I know we've historically been a lot cheaper for cup games but it still is a head scratcher.

 

[Jazzyblue]

As usual I agree with you mate. I'm just glad I had the opportunity to go when I was younger as there's no way my step-father could have afforded to take me these days and I'd have been destined to be an armchair fan myself.

As you allude to I'm not that confident the club are increasing the regular matchday goers at all. In fact there's an argument it's reducing with them not re-releasing season tickets in recent years. There's no way everybody has renewed in the past two seasons as there's always churn. The football tourists and those going as a one off treat will have increased as well as our expanding global armchair fan-base. I think relying on these types of fans is rather whimsical and totally reliant on our continued success. Fans that have been alienated have probably taken up new hobbies like golf or watching football at a lower standard. I don't blame people for knocking it on the head altogether. Especially with fiascos like the release of all the tickets at the start of the season and how they conducted the Madrid tickets last year.

To put the pricing into context I think I paid similar for the Champions League semi against Madrid as Burley at home and I think I paid £75 for an FA Cup Final ticket. I know we've historically been a lot cheaper for cup games but it's still is a head scratcher.

Yep. And it's worrying to hear IMB say there will be no new STs next season either. It's beginning to feel like they're being phased out now, with no guarantees being in an OSC will make the difference.

 

[Edghill OG]

Yep. And it's worrying to hear IMB say there will be no new STs next season either. It's beginning to feel like they're being phased out now, with no guarantees being in an OSC will make the difference.

I hadn't heard that mate but it doesn't surprise me. I don't know if there's been any assurances as to how many will be released for the extended north stand? Wouldn't be surprised if that's a disappointing number also or they're badged up as Silvers.

Don't worry mate I'm sure a VR season ticket isn't far off and you can join in with our Asian fanbase and watch it with a headset on from the comfort of your own home.

 

[Jazzyblue]

I hadn't heard that mate but it doesn't surprise me. I don't know if there's been any assurances as to how many will be released for the extended north stand? Wouldn't be surprised if that's a disappointing number also or they're badged up as Silvers.

Don't worry mate I'm sure a VR season ticket isn't far off and you can join in with our Asian fanbase and watch it with a headset on from the comfort of your own home.

VR headset lol. *New and improved with VAR Agitation Mode (cocaine not included).

 

[franksinatra]

That isn't the next step it is right now.

No new full seasoncards have been issued for the last two years and none will be next summer either (confirmed to me by the club in a call about another issue). Any non renewals have gone straight to match day sales and we obviously have a lower number of SC holders than previously. As even CM reps don't know that figure it could be that they have been quietly keeping some non renewals back for several years before too..

I've said it previously but I highly doubt that the total number of SC holders will increase by much when the expanded NS opens as seats vacated by people moving into it will go to match day sales. My thoughts are an overall increase of 2-3000 at most. As an example, Liverpool do publish both their season ticket numbers (and how many are on the long closed waiting list) and they have less than 50% even when you take off the 3000 away allocation. I'm sure the club would love to get close to that sort of percentage.

I'm luckily a SC holder and my advice to anyone who considers not renewing is to think long and hard before doing so as there is little chance of getting one again unless we end up in the National League North :)

Yes I think with the recent success the club realised the fanbase had reached the tipping point where they could reduce the season ticket card numbers and successfully sell all those additional tickets at the highly inflated match going prices.

As a money making model that is obviously great for the club and its what Liverpool do, sell a much higher proportion of match day tickets. As fans it has its benefits and drawbacks.

Match day tickets are ridiculously high and it appears, from speaking to people who have bought them on the exchange, they often come with additional mark ups, like meals etc thereby inflating the cost further.

Benefits, if we do ‘engage’ more fans this would massively benefit us if we do have the inevitable downturn when Pep leaves.

We see this at Old Trafford every week, there fanbase has not stayed massively loyal but the sheer weight of there supporter base, has resulted in when tickets become available others have picked up the slack. We will need that even more once the ground is extended.

Agree about the point in being a season ticket holder. You definitely give it up at your peril but I suppose if the club does want that yearly ‘churn’ the easiest way to go about it is push up prices. I think that will be the next trick in the clubs playbook.

I know this is not popular to say but we have been lucky so far that the clubs interests (success) has aligned with our own aspirations and so the last 14 years have been fantastic.
However, now the following and demand has caught up, I have no doubt the club would happily get rid of all of us if it resulted in greater commercial success. There efforts have not been primarily for our benefit, so it could be a very different club 10 years from now.

 

[Edghill OG]

VR headset lol. *New and improved with VAR Agitation Mode (cocaine not included).

Hahaha. 'VAR Agitation Mode'. I was going to go for a cordless model but I don't know whether lithium batteries could handle that so the device would have to be continually plugged in. You'd have to take it off after 80 minutes and hop on a tram to really capture the authentic 'feel' of being there too.

 

[blue b4 the moon]

Hahaha. 'VAR Agitation Mode'. I was going to go for a cordless model but I don't know whether lithium batteries could handle that so the device would have to be continually plugged in. You'd have to take it off after 80 minutes and hop on a tram to really capture the authentic 'feel' of being there too.

Don't forget a smoke machine in your toilet for half-time too.

 

[Outsider]

Went to the game Sunday as a neutral fan as I’d say my favourite team is Stockport but I enjoy watching the Manchester based teams. The atmosphere was quite poor for a third round draw, the amount of support from the opposition I thought was excellent but they didn’t make much noise although far more than the home support.
Chatting too a few of their fans on way in , a nice bunch they were saying their club as been through a rough time recently and that the footy on show has been atrocious . City fans are giving the Huddersfield fans a hard time on here , yes there may have been some knobs amongst them but the ones I spoke to were spot on and I have a great appreciation of fans of clubs like Huddersfield , I feel they tend to be real football fans and many city older end supporters will appreciate this. The supporters who follow their club when times are hard not just because they are the latest club to be winning everything.

 

[Edghill OG]

Don't forget a smoke machine in your toilet for half-time too.

A truly immersive experience mate. You'd have to log on half an hour before kickoff to fully appreciate the chaos of the turnstiles. Imbeciles having the phone upside down, wrong way round, unable to retrieve the barcode and scanning the wrong person in etc. And from 30 mins in up until about the 55th minute you'd have to keep getting up and down off the sofa for the half-time pinters.

On a serious note as a non-smoker I despise the toilet situation. Surprised it's never been addressed.

 

[jrb]

A truly immersive experience mate. You'd have to log on half an hour before kickoff to fully appreciate the chaos of the turnstiles. Imbeciles having the phone upside down, wrong way round, unable to retrieve the barcode and scanning the wrong person in etc. And from 30 mins in up until about the 55th minute you'd have to keep getting up and down off the sofa for the half-time pinters.

On a serious note as a non-smoker I despise the toilet situation. Surprised it's never been addressed.

It was, but the club gave up in the end.There are staff, young lads, in the toilets, but they don’t seem to enforce the no smoking rule. They just stand and talk to each other.