Pretty shocking if we don't get a near 50,000 crowd for this given the prices. Come on Blues. It's decent prices against an iconic European club. Those that need ale have plenty of time to hit in the pubs in town. Let's rock the Etihad.
Don't think it's as simple as that to be honest.
We've had yearly increases to season tickets at an average of circa 10% for about 8 years. We've lost season ticket holders due to that, seems a few have come back this year to snap up the cheap tickets in the new SS lvl 3, but for the most of us we're paying much more than we used to.
A lot of blues have had to cut out cup ties to compensate, many people have made the CL that sacrifice due to the greater cost than the domestic cups and the whole turn off with UEFA. Some have cut out cup ties altogether.
In the context of all that, £30-£35 was never going to see us sell out with us newly expanded as well. Not to mention you have the shocking prices at £80 and £90 in the new corporate lite areas of lvl 2, and that'll take a chunk off the gate also.
For City to sell out these fixtures they have to introduce cheaper tickets. £30-£35 is only great value if you've been brow beaten into thinking £50 is the norm (which it is for our league fixtures, which is a disgrace).
Cup fixtures like this have to be cheaper though. £20 would ensure a sell out, and the place would be rocking. There'd be a greater proportion of actual blues in as well, rather than the usual football tourists we see at these types of games.
Sure the club would lose a few quid, but it's a drop in the ocean at the end of the day. Think of all the positive publicity we'd get as well, we'd be doing it the right way, setting the example for the other big clubs to follow. Instead, we've all too readily followed their's. And we don't have the enormous pool of longstanding plastics to pick up the pieces when the core support are struggling like the other big clubs do. When our core support are stretched, our attendances suffer, as does our atmosphere.
Just have a think back to that night we played Hamburg in the UEFA Cup, that was fucking magic. Many people were naive in thinking that pricing would become the norm, but that showed just what can be done when the pricing is inclusive. The place was absolutely rocking. Best atmosphere we've ever had at CoMS/The Etihad IMO.
Nowadays we have blues celebrating £35 tickets as if the club are giving the tickets away in an act of charity. Shows quite where we're at with ticket prices as far as I'm concerned.
We need to have a reflection on the pricing structure for these games, because it's not getting the most out of numbers at the gate or the atmosphere on a match day - which in turn just turns more people off, especially those without a pot to piss in struggling to justify the regular expense.
