Empty seats on telly suggestion

[Prestwich_Blue]

Poorly bloke who sits about 4 or 5 seats down from me in 142 attends the game with his Mrs, I reckon they make probably 1 in 3 games

Dad and 2 kids that sit the row in front, so far they have made the Liverpool, United and Everton games this season, sometimes pass their tickets on but most of the time there are 3 empty seats

Do people just struggle to pass their ticket on if they can't make it? I think my seat has been empty once and that was Reading at home where I was literally too fucked to even contemplate getting out of bed

I do think its a bit frustrating the amount of empty seats in our ground, the fact that the club states its a sell out clearly means that people just aren't showing up

In my view, there are two main reasons why we have empty seats despite saying we've sold out.

1) We've got pricing wrong, so that it's often cheaper & easier to buy a season ticket and not use it for games you don't fancy rather than risk paying on a game by game basis.
2) We don't make it easy for people to pass on tickets they can't or won't be using.

In addition, I have a suspicion that there's a lot of tickets in the lower tier of the North Stand that are held back for various reasons (students, groups, complimentaries, etc) and that never get onto the open market.

So you think we should increase season ticket prices?

No - I think we should decrease matchday pricing. We could now afford to drop prices by 15% and would lose very little, probably about £3-4m. and if we developed a decent system for selling tickets on, we could mitigate that significantly.

 

[chris85mcfc]

Poorly bloke who sits about 4 or 5 seats down from me in 142 attends the game with his Mrs, I reckon they make probably 1 in 3 games

Dad and 2 kids that sit the row in front, so far they have made the Liverpool, United and Everton games this season, sometimes pass their tickets on but most of the time there are 3 empty seats

Do people just struggle to pass their ticket on if they can't make it? I think my seat has been empty once and that was Reading at home where I was literally too fucked to even contemplate getting out of bed

I do think its a bit frustrating the amount of empty seats in our ground, the fact that the club states its a sell out clearly means that people just aren't showing up

In my view, there are two main reasons why we have empty seats despite saying we've sold out.

1) We've got pricing wrong, so that it's often cheaper & easier to buy a season ticket and not use it for games you don't fancy rather than risk paying on a game by game basis.
2) We don't make it easy for people to pass on tickets they can't or won't be using.

In addition, I have a suspicion that there's a lot of tickets in the lower tier of the North Stand that are held back for various reasons (students, groups, complimentaries, etc) and that never get onto the open market.

Number 1 is a big issue, If you live 'out of town' and know that you can't make the majority of games, the chances are that if you buy a season ticket in the North Stand you will still get your monies worth even if you just attend United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal and Spurs, and perhaps one or two more.

It is something that really needs to be looked at. I'm not interested in what other teams fans have to say on the matter, and the circling of empty seats did very little in terms of winding me up. But i do find it pretty frustrating when you're sat in the ground and you can see gaps of empty seats in certain areas, the thing is its always the same areas every week.

The question is, when the new stand is unleashed next season, are we going to see this situation worsen? Clearly the club are adamant they have sold 7,500 season tickets (or they have deposits for them), but is this going to mean more empty seats for the majority of games?

I've said countless number of times that if i didn't have a season ticket then i wouldn't bother going at all, just because the prices of individual games seem ridiculous. So perhaps a lot of people are buying season tickets, or sharing season tickets, but without seeing it as a 'necessity' to actually go to every single game

 

[squirtyflower]

In my view, there are two main reasons why we have empty seats despite saying we've sold out.

1) We've got pricing wrong, so that it's often cheaper & easier to buy a season ticket and not use it for games you don't fancy rather than risk paying on a game by game basis.
2) We don't make it easy for people to pass on tickets they can't or won't be using.

In addition, I have a suspicion that there's a lot of tickets in the lower tier of the North Stand that are held back for various reasons (students, groups, complimentaries, etc) and that never get onto the open market.

So you think we should increase season ticket prices?

No - I think we should decrease matchday pricing. We could now afford to drop prices by 15% and would lose very little, probably about £3-4m. and if we developed a decent system for selling tickets on, we could mitigate that significantly.

so why bother with a season ticket then, there has to be a reasonable gap

if they drop the match pricing you would just get tickets for the glamour games and avoid the shit like Stoke, WBA and the scum

 

[Rascal]

Did a little article on this for the Daisy Cutter


<a class="postlink" href="http://www.thedaisycutter.co.uk/2014/12/the-rise-of-the-seat-spotters/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.thedaisycutter.co.uk/2014/12 ... -spotters/</a>


Enjoy

Fantastic effort. I chortled.

Ta pal :)

 

[chris85mcfc]

I'm of the opinion that the reason for the big gap between season ticket prices and individual games, is that they are trying to encourage non-season ticket holders to sign up for a season ticket when the expansion is unleashed

I don't even know what our average ticket price is for an individual game, but id hazard a guess that it is about £40?

£45 x 19 games = £855. That's nearly £200 more than my season ticket.

 

[squirtyflower]

I'm of the opinion that the reason for the big gap between season ticket prices and individual games, is that they are trying to encourage non-season ticket holders to sign up for a season ticket when the expansion is unleashed

I don't even know what our average ticket price is for an individual game, but id hazard a guess that it is about £40?

£45 x 19 games = £855. That's nearly £200 more than my season ticket.

why go from £40 to £45 in your calculations?

my season card works out at about £40 per game
Some match day tickets are about that, although the best games are about £55

if i went to the top 14 games = £720, which is still a saving on my seasoncard and i can stay snug as a bug in the pub

if the differential drops too far you lose the incentive to buy a seasoncard

 

[chris85mcfc]

I'm of the opinion that the reason for the big gap between season ticket prices and individual games, is that they are trying to encourage non-season ticket holders to sign up for a season ticket when the expansion is unleashed

I don't even know what our average ticket price is for an individual game, but id hazard a guess that it is about £45?

£45 x 19 games = £855. That's nearly £200 more than my season ticket.

why go from £40 to £45 in your calculations?

my season card works out at about £40 per game
Some match day tickets are about that, although the best games are about £55

if i went to the top 14 games = £720, which is still a saving on my seasoncard and i can stay snug as a bug in the pub

if the differential drops too far you lose the incentive to buy a seasoncard

Just edited it. I was thinking how much the average ticket would be but ive literally no idea as its years since ive even looked at home ticket prices!

My guess was based on mine being about £35 per game, but like you said if there isn't a big enough saving then it negates the need for a season ticket

I just know i wouldn't pay £57 to watch us play Liverpool, id probably pay it to watch United but having said that id probably just end up watching it at home or in the pub.

They must be trying to encourage people to buy season tickets tho as I think the individual tickets will get more expensive in time, while the season tickets tread water at a reasonable price. If they don't do this then my guess is there will be a lot of empty seats

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

I'm of the opinion that the reason for the big gap between season ticket prices and individual games, is that they are trying to encourage non-season ticket holders to sign up for a season ticket when the expansion is unleashed

I don't even know what our average ticket price is for an individual game, but id hazard a guess that it is about £40?

£45 x 19 games = £855. That's nearly £200 more than my season ticket.

I'd say £40 is the minimum for an adult, rather than the average. City v Arsenal has a minimum price of £57. Sunderland in EL1 where I sit is £49 ,with a minimum £47. Burnley minimum adult price is £48.

I don't think we do it this way but let's say there are 6 Cat A games at £57 (£342), 7 Cat B at £48 (£336) and 6 Cat B at £42 (£252). That's a total of £930 (done in my head) for all 19 matches. Add a couple of quid on for the extra where I sit and that comes to a total of £968 compared to the £705 that I pay. So I could miss 6 games, maybe 7 and still be no worse off.

Drop £10 off the matchday prices and the total for individual tickets drops to £778, which is a 10% premium over the season ticket price. So I could then only miss a couple and still be level.

 

[ped]

what do ,celtic rangers,a c Milan juventes,chelsea Liverpool ,benfica,porto, feyernord,psg ,Marseille,,all have in commen





they all have smaller average attendences then the mighty mcfc

 

[patrickblue]

So many no-shows in the Family Stand today that 1894's attempt at an upper tier display was a disaster and there was a glittering of the coloured paper on empty seats for the entire game.

Hopefully our 7,500 new season ticket holders next season value their STs more than some in our ground, such as the fella two seats from me who has only turned up for the derby and Liverpool game this season, leaving it empty for the rest (except cup games).

Probably me mate, but I aint new, on my 15th year. Sometimes real life and death get in the way.

Before I start to feel guilty, are you in Block 107 and in the 25-35 age bracket?

No, 110 and in the 55- 65 age bracket, otherwise known as an old bugger.