Season Ticket

[K-Man]

As with most suggestions raised on the forum, they usually carry some very valid points, but if you look back over each question raised (ST's in this case) there are numerous suggestions, block of ten, student, stagger payment, under 16, Tuesday night games, Saturday games.....etc etc. Surely it is totally impractical to solve (or please) everyone!

Ray Johnstone gets his Tuesday night package & is happy but Ste doesn't get his student tickets so is [SwearFilter] off, someone gets the staggered payment and is over the moon but Steve (BA) doesn't get his block of ten and thinks he's being ignored.
And this is just ONE topic of conversation/suggestions. I'm not saying each point isn't valid at all but how many versions can the club be expected to bring in? Add on to that Emma being in the job a couple of weeks while also looking at merchandise, sponsors, corporate.....and on and on.

Thats nothing official (or off Emma) just my opinion.

Staggered payments and Under 16 tickets are already there. A block of tickets and a ticket for mid-week games could be the exact same thing, just a "mini season ticket". Student season tickets makes sense because you're selling student match-day tickets. It really doesn't have to be as complicated or daunting as you've just made out.

That's the problem with the club, they won't think outside the box because either A) they haven't got the capacity to do so without being overwhelmed with all the other things or B) they'd rather not take the risk and stick to what they know. Neither of which helps anyone. You said in your post that it's impractical to please everyone, but the club NEEDS to be looking to please as many people as possible.

More off on a tangent here as it's a wider discussion rather than just a few tiers of season tickets but...

End of the day, we're all core fans who post on here and would turn up whether we had a season ticket, a single match ticket or had to solve a Chinese riddle to get in of a day. The club needs to balance not taking the core support for granted, but also look at what we can do to bring new people in. Stuff like Season Tickets and Match Day tickets in general has always just been viewed as a boring necessity, just price it a quid up from last year and ignore it. These sort of areas are key, but neglected areas, that can bring in new support and with it vital income. Even if it only brings in 1% of additional support, if you can find 10 areas to improve to the tune of 1%, you'd bring in another 150 people a game. At £15 a pop you're talking over £50k a year. Definitely worth the outlay of a bit of thinking outside the box and a few quid on printing.

The club has got so far behind commercially that I bet Emma feels like she's drowning a bit already trying to catch up, shite merchandise deals, no regular or interesting events at the club to get people down on non-match days etc. But there's another hundred little areas like ticketing that will get neglected or given minimal-thought while more pressing things are focused on, that will just leave us further and further behind.

+1 everything is so difficult isn't it ?

[boyliegladbach]

Are we willing to help boost the attendances with a fund for season tickets for those who can't afford one by bunging in a few quid ourselves? A few less beers---- or bars of chocolate in my case. We are all in together after all aren't we?

Or a few less beers and chocolate on the part of the person who can't afford it.
Also
Do the trust keep figures on how many of the season tickets they buy for different causes actually get used.?

[K-Man]

Just had an email from Emma, they're going to add season tickets for students but she also said "This does mean that the single match ticket price will be increased slightly and will match the concession price".

So they've decided they will offer student tickets but are going to immediately put the prices up of single match day tickets for students that they've literally just advertised, so they can charge more for the season tickets. Yeah cos that'll get them shifted won't it! I give up

You just can't make it up can you ? What is the point ? We'll pay £50k for a pathetic kit launch but now charge an extra £2 a ticket for students. You might only get 100 students a game and 20 of them could be new visitors to Holker Street. So for the sake of £5k a season we could now alienate potential new/old fans who could go on to become avid followers for the next 20 years, bringing friends, buying merchandise,money in the bar, corporate.

We might have gone back up to the Conference but we are very much Evo- Stik off the field.

[Zak]

Rigid.

[Jonty]

We are building the club fanbase. How do you get that family of four down from Holbeck, How do you get that group of 10 mates in on a Tueday night. They've got to look at the whole target audience and incentivise tickets all the time, things that don't work- bin it and keep improving. Be ready to bring in ticket deals for Christmas, back to back games, Incentivise for the mid week games that are up against the Champions league and always our lowest gates. etc etc. Four home stubs, - 5th game half price. Etc Got to really focus on this. Putting the gate price up to £17 will not get the floating fans in if we aren't winning 3-0 every game.

We've been having these conversations frequently since 2008/09.

[Ste Story]

Just had an email from Emma, they're going to add season tickets for students but she also said "This does mean that the single match ticket price will be increased slightly and will match the concession price".

So they've decided they will offer student tickets but are going to immediately put the prices up of single match day tickets for students that they've literally just advertised, so they can charge more for the season tickets. Yeah cos that'll get them shifted won't it! I give up

You just can't make it up can you ? What is the point ? We'll pay £50k for a pathetic kit launch but now charge an extra £2 a ticket for students. You might only get 100 students a game and 20 of them could be new visitors to Holker Street. So for the sake of £5k a season we could now alienate potential new/old fans who could go on to become avid followers for the next 20 years, bringing friends, buying merchandise,money in the bar, corporate.

We might have gone back up to the Conference but we are very much Evo- Stik off the field.

I got an explanation that it's because I mentioned to her that last year "Concessions" also covered students so she's decided that because last year they paid the concession price, this year they'll do the same.

My suggestions about a student season ticket was part of a wider suggestion to look at how we can get the likes of the BAE lads/Furness College students/Apprentices/University commuters involved That sort of logic is exactly the problem I'm trying to get at. The thought process of just looking at what happened last year and continuing down that route is no improvement at all, if we're just going to look at last year and do the same again, what hope is there to expect that we'll attract more fans or do better than our 1300-odd attendance from last year.

[K-Man]

You've got to spend money to make money.

I was hoping for a new approach ah well.

[Ste Story]

Please tell me we are not going to say we need another year to get it right.

The whole purpose is to employ someone who knows football and how to work it comercially.

We are years behind almost every club at this level and some below.

I just hope my concerns are unfounded.

#stilllearning

Latest reply is that "new ticketing initiatives will form part of a wider marketing stategy" but given she's only two weeks into the role will be "ready to implement for the 2017/2018 season."

So yeah, looks like we are going to need another year to get it right

Full credit to Emma in that she engaged with me via e-mail and actually discussed the issues with me, albeit we disagreed, so there's definitely improvement there!

[Ste Story]

We are building the club fanbase. How do you get that family of four down from Holbeck, How do you get that group of 10 mates in on a Tueday night. They've got to look at the whole target audience and incentivise tickets all the time, things that don't work- bin it and keep improving. Be ready to bring in ticket deals for Christmas, back to back games, Incentivise for the mid week games that are up against the Champions league and always our lowest gates. etc etc. Four home stubs, - 5th game half price. Etc Got to really focus on this. Putting the gate price up to £17 will not get the floating fans in if we aren't winning 3-0 every game.

We've been having these conversations frequently since 2008/09.

+1 to all that mate.

[Ryan P]

Just had an email from Emma, they're going to add season tickets for students but she also said "This does mean that the single match ticket price will be increased slightly and will match the concession price".

So they've decided they will offer student tickets but are going to immediately put the prices up of single match day tickets for students that they've literally just advertised, so they can charge more for the season tickets. Yeah cos that'll get them shifted won't it! I give up

So the price of a student attending every game will now go up from £184 over a season (£8 x 23 games) to £240 with a season ticket? (ignoring early bird discount)

A very strange decision if you ask me. It would have been better for you if you'd not mentioned anything in the first place, Ste!

[mickmike wilson]

The club is not offering any packages outside of a full 23 game ticket, Moribund. I am unable to attend most fixtures due to a regular weekend engagement. My preferred ticketing arrangement would have been a non-Saturday season ticket and I proposed this idea on the blog last week. The club have ignored my suggestion and unfortunately I and many others have had the option of becoming season ticket holders taken from us. May I again suggest the Barrow AFC board of directors discuss my suggestion at the next board of directors meeting. The season is still 2 months away and there is plenty of time to implement the idea.

Are you being serious here?

[Holkerbird]

Are we willing to help boost the attendances with a fund for season tickets for those who can't afford one by bunging in a few quid ourselves? A few less beers---- or bars of chocolate in my case. We are all in together after all aren't we?

Or a few less beers and chocolate on the part of the person who can't afford it.
Also
Do the trust keep figures on how many of the season tickets they buy for different causes actually get used.?

Don't think U11's will be spending much on beer Al. Well I hope not. Believe it or not there are some people who are genuinely hard up and don't spend money on beer and cigarettes. There's no shame in being poor.
I am just going to buy the season tickets and give them out myself.

[Steeley]

Shame we cant offer student/young person tickets for £5 a go, theres no point spending all this cash to get to the league if no one comes to watch us. Money doesnt seem to be a problem for a lot of things but it seems the extra couple of quid for youngsters and oldies are crucial to the club.....

People will come watch a winning team, more people will come watch a cheaper winning team.

[barrowfan_chris]

Just had an email from Emma, they're going to add season tickets for students but she also said "This does mean that the single match ticket price will be increased slightly and will match the concession price".

So they've decided they will offer student tickets but are going to immediately put the prices up of single match day tickets for students that they've literally just advertised, so they can charge more for the season tickets. Yeah cos that'll get them shifted won't it! I give up

So the price of a student attending every game will now go up from £184 over a season (£8 x 23 games) to £240 with a season ticket? (ignoring early bird discount)

A very strange decision if you ask me. It would have been better for you if you'd not mentioned anything in the first place, Ste!

Was just doing the same calculations haha Ste has [SwearFilter] the students over.

[Ste Story]

Was just doing the same calculations haha Ste has [SwearFilter] the students over.

More like the club has really... Advertised a price for Student tickets then decided to put the prices up because someone had the audacity to request a way of purchasing a season ticket for that group. Absolutely awful way to treat fans new and old IMO.