Season Tickets - 2024/25

[Stephen230]

£150 extra for that option?

The pay-as-you-go style Season Ticket is for fans who want the same guaranteed seat for all home Premier League fixtures, with added flexibility. Simple and convenient, fans can simply ‘opt in’ and purchase their ticket three weeks before the respective fixture they do want to attend, removing the need to manage their Season Ticket for the fixtures they can’t.


Why would you need to manage your season ticket or for the club to manage your season ticket for you? If you can’t attend the match you either give your ticket to a family member, a friend, you list the ticket on the seat exchange, or you don’t do anything with your ticket. It’s hardly a difficult task. What exactly are you getting from the club for an extra £150? I appreciate I’m coming across as thick, but I’m really not getting this at all. :-/

Playing devils advocate. And not saying I necessarily agree with this flexi ticket.

But there are hundreds of posts on this forum complaining about people buying season tickets with no intention of going to the lesser games. Leaving empty seats whilst the game is sold out.

People have said this is a particular issue in the cheapest seats, where people are happy to buy a ST just to attend the most popular games.

You can argue that this is the club’s response to that, without doing away with the cheapest prices, as some people have also suggested.

 

[Tim of the Oak]

So 40% of season card holders don’t go to low profile midweek games (Burnley at home). City Matters revelation from Ian Cheeseman’s podcast.No wonder City are trying to look at alternatives including flexi gold. It’s not a panacea but let’s see how it goes.

In addition, the stats revealed that only about 5K of the 100k match day members went to more than a few CL games in the last couple of years. The stats indicate that it wasn’t just tourists at last season’s Real Madrid semi final!

Other interesting info included there being 36,500 season card holders.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

£150 extra for that option?

The pay-as-you-go style Season Ticket is for fans who want the same guaranteed seat for all home Premier League fixtures, with added flexibility. Simple and convenient, fans can simply ‘opt in’ and purchase their ticket three weeks before the respective fixture they do want to attend, removing the need to manage their Season Ticket for the fixtures they can’t.


Why would you need to manage your season ticket or for the club to manage your season ticket for you? If you can’t attend the match you either give your ticket to a family member, a friend, you list the ticket on the seat exchange, or you don’t do anything with your ticket. It’s hardly a difficult task. What exactly are you getting from the club for an extra £150? I appreciate I’m coming across as thick, but I’m really not getting this at all. :-/

The problem is that many people DON'T move their tickets on if they're not using them. In fact only a minority do.

We saw the figures in the City Matters Ticketing sub-committee meetings. We rarely didn't sell out a game (maybe some single seats) but often there were a few thousand ticket holders who simply didn't turn up for games like Watford on a Wednesday night, and the ticket wasn't used.

That -

• Denies tickets to people who want them.
• Deprives the club of the additional revenue that they could have earned by selling the tickets on to those people.
• Makes the atmosphere poorer.

How to maximise the reuse of tickets, via direct transfer and the ticket exchange, was one of the key discussions we had with the club over the four years I was on City Matters. It was clear that you couldn't rely on people doing something explicit to pass on their ticket, hence the move to get them to do something explicit to use it.

 

[Corky]

So 40% of season card holders don’t go to low profile midweek games (Burnley at home). City Matters revelation from Ian Cheeseman’s podcast.No wonder City are trying to look at alternatives including flexi gold. It’s not a panacea but let’s see how it goes.

In addition, the stats revealed that only about 5K of the 100k match day members went to more than a few CL games in the last couple of years. The stats indicate that it wasn’t just tourists at last season’s Real Madrid semi final!

Other interesting info included there being 36,500 season card holders.

View attachment 111644

Also said the capacity was 53k. Doubt he has access to the figures.

 

[jrb]

The problem is that many people DON'T move their tickets on if they're not using them. In fact only a minority do.

We saw the figures in the City Matters Ticketing sub-committee meetings. We rarely didn't sell out a game (maybe some single seats) but often there were a few thousand ticket holders who simply didn't turn up for games like Watford on a Wednesday night, and the ticket wasn't used.

That -

• Denies tickets to people who want them.
• Deprives the club of the additional revenue that they could have earned by selling the tickets on to those people.
• Makes the atmosphere poorer.

How to maximise the reuse of tickets, via direct transfer and the ticket exchange, was one of the key discussions we had with the club over the four years I was on City Matters. It was clear that you couldn't rely on people doing something explicit to pass on their ticket, hence the move to get them to do something explicit to use it.

I get that. But why are the club hoping to charge City fans £150 for managing their season tickets and seats? From what we‘ve seen, the big games always sell out anyway. As for the midweek games, they will struggle to sell out, regardless of the club offering this £150 option. The tickets are too expensive for midweek games against the likes of Burnley and Brentford. There’s no guarantee those games would have sold out even with the club managing the tickets for £150. On top of that, why would fans need to opt in 3 weeks before the fixture to attend it? A lot can happen in 3 weeks before a fixture.

 

[jrb]

The club are already firing out texts and emails on a weekly basis reminding fans to list their tickets on the ticket exchange if they can’t make a match. This £150 charge is just nonsense.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

I get that. But why are the club hoping to charge City fans £150 for managing their season tickets and seats? From what we‘ve seen, the big games always sell out anyway. As for the midweek games, they will struggle to sell out, regardless of the club offering this £150 option. The tickets are too expensive for midweek games against the likes of Burnley and Brentford. There’s no guarantee those games would have sold out even with the club managing the tickets for £150. On top of that, why would fans need to opt in 3 weeks before the fixture to attend it? A lot can happen in 3 weeks before a fixture.

Think of the £150 as a down payment, rather than an additional fee. Obviously if you then only go to 5 or 6 games, it'll work out expensive but if you go to 15 or 16 you'll get better value.

I agree that prices for the less attractive games are too expensive and you're right that things can change in 3 weeks. But that's life and one of the early problems we had at City Matters was that the club wouldn't do something that benefited 99% of fans if there was a risk that 1% might be negatively impacted.

I've said previously that the club has tied itself in knots trying to cover too many bases regarding maximising income, selling seats and managing ticket availability. But the point is that the club can only sell the tickets that are not being used and, in an extreme example, 5k tickets might not be used for a less popular midweek game. Personally, I'd use dynamic pricing or making tickets more readily available, maybe via self-service kiosks at universities or large companies.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

Also said the capacity was 53k. Doubt he has access to the figures.

The figures were regularly shared at City Matters meetings, down to individual games.

 

[jrb]

Let me get this right. Apologies in advance.

The pay-as-you-go style Season Ticket is for fans who want the same guaranteed seat for all home Premier League fixtures, with added flexibility. Simple and convenient, fans can simply ‘opt in’ and purchase their ticket three weeks before the respective fixture they do want to attend, removing the need to manage their Season Ticket for the fixtures they can’t.

So.
You’re guaranteed your seat for all home fixtures. Basically a normal season ticket.
But the ‘onus is on you‘ to opt in to purchase your guaranteed seat 3 weeks before the fixture. So in theory you don’t really have that seat unless you opt in for it.
Because if you don’t opt in three weeks before the fixture for whatever reason, the club then automatically sells your seat.
Is that right? :-/

 

[jrb]

Think of the £150 as a down payment, rather than an additional fee. Obviously if you then only go to 5 or 6 games, it'll work out expensive but if you go to 15 or 16 you'll get better value.

I agree that prices for the less attractive games are too expensive and you're right that things can change in 3 weeks. But that's life and one of the early problems we had at City Matters was that the club wouldn't do something that benefited 99% of fans if there was a risk that 1% might be negatively impacted.

I've said previously that the club has tied itself in knots trying to cover too many bases regarding maximising income, selling seats and managing ticket availability. But the point is that the club can only sell the tickets that are not being used and, in an extreme example, 5k tickets might not be used for a less popular midweek game. Personally, I'd use dynamic pricing or making tickets more readily available, maybe via self-service kiosks at universities or large companies.

Sorry PB. Posted the above before seeing and reading your post.