Gate Prices 2014-2015

[Grecian's The Word]

Sorry, i didn't mean to sound like i was disagreeing. I agree entirely with your post #85.

No apology necessary - and hopefully no offence taken with the added bit about the Echo! - am just of the opinion that 'big' games will be popular whether they are marketed or not - it's the other ones (ie 95% of them) that need some more thought to get people in the ground.

 

[Tree42]

The absolute key thing for the club is to get fans to change when & how they buy matchday tickets. And within this should be a clear and consistent incentive to buy early and commit to attend.

On that basis, there should be little or no increase for a matchday ticket.

Everything else, from team performance to irritating officials, from the quality of facilities to the colour of Tisdale's cap is a red herring when it comes to changing this element of the ticket operation.

As for 'the causal fan won't have any interest in booking early. I can see why the club might want them to commit early but it shows a complete disregard for the interests of the fan', I couldn't disagree more vehemently. The casual fan wants a deal to bring them in. And an incentive does that, putting money right back in to the fan's pocket. How come that's not in their interest?

However, turn up last minute, then the full price is due and the discount disappears. On this basis, many will change and will go for the incentive.

Finally as a real life example of this, Yeovil played a re-arranged game v Watford last Tuesday and had a crowd above 6,000. This was a particularly good attendance for a Tuesday evening. However the crowd was based on 95% of tickets being sold in advance for the original date. Without this, 1000+ and substantial revenue would have been lost.

 

[Tree42]

Sorry for jumping in again. Just seen post #91 and I'm afraid that I'm on the other side of the fence again.

Whether this is viewed as marketing mumbo jumbo or not, but effort should ALWAYS go behind the BIG games and not the minor ones. Those are the games that have a wider appeal and will bring in more casual fans, boosting attendance, revenue and (if sold in advance) data.

For example, big effort made recently for the Portsmouth game but little point pushing Morecambe on a Tuesday night.

 

[manc grecian]

The key things for the club should be to get as many fans through the gate as possible. This will done by playing positive attacking football and scoring goals. Not by offering various amounts of "deals". You could have fever flogging tickets in her skimps on old tiverton rd but people aren't going to turn up if the "product" is ****. As someone pointed out the casual fan turns up when there's something riding on it.

The Yeovil game was called off on new years day so is hardly strong evidence.

 

[Grecian's The Word]

The absolute key thing for the club is to get fans to change when & how they buy matchday tickets. And within this should be a clear and consistent incentive to buy early and commit to attend.

On that basis, there should be little or no increase for a matchday ticket.

Everything else, from team performance to irritating officials, from the quality of facilities to the colour of Tisdale's cap is a red herring when it comes to changing this element of the ticket operation.

As for 'the causal fan won't have any interest in booking early. I can see why the club might want them to commit early but it shows a complete disregard for the interests of the fan', I couldn't disagree more vehemently. The casual fan wants a deal to bring them in. And an incentive does that, putting money right back in to the fan's pocket. How come that's not in their interest?

However, turn up last minute, then the full price is due and the discount disappears. On this basis, many will change and will go for the incentive.

Finally as a real life example of this, Yeovil played a re-arranged game v Watford last Tuesday and had a crowd above 6,000. This was a particularly good attendance for a Tuesday evening. However the crowd was based on 95% of tickets being sold in advance for the original date. Without this, 1000+ and substantial revenue would have been lost.

Sorry, but why does the club want to change fans' behaviour with regard to ticketing? Surely the key thing is to try and fit in with what the 'customers' want?

And I'm not sure the Yeovil example is particularly relevant - their crowd on Tuesday was not really higher or lower than most of their other crowds this season - admittedly a fair bit higher than they had last Tuesday - but presumably that would have been because much of Somerset was under water for most of last week?

I don't doubt your intentions from a marketing perspective - but it seems naïve to think that doing this will encourage people to buy early - I really don't think it will.

 

[rowbotham8990]

What would you rather have - 2,500 people paying 20 quid or 3,500 paying 15? It's simple. Slash the prices for a game or two, make it a quid for U16s, see what happens. You may be pleasantly surprised.

2,500 x £20= £50,000. 3,500 x £15= £52,500

Cutting the price by a fiver isn't going to add 40% to the gate. It would need to be a gate of 3,333 just to bank the same cash figure. In some ways, the club would probably have fewer people paying more. Less policing/stewarding/catering costs, for a start.

 

[Bittners a Legend]

As for 'the causal fan won't have any interest in booking early. I can see why the club might want them to commit early but it shows a complete disregard for the interests of the fan', I couldn't disagree more vehemently. The casual fan wants a deal to bring them in. And an incentive does that, putting money right back in to the fan's pocket. How come that's not in their interest?

I don't know if you are deliberately missing the point but you obviously think fans are stupid. There is no real deal. It is false. ECFC are hiking the price quite significantly and then telling fans they don't have to pay that hike if they book in advance. The problem is that fans already think the prices are high and there is no attempt to actually reduce...just an old and rather transparent trick that isn't going to work when the fan already knows the price. £20 to stand is insane. £17 is far too high.

Also, in my opinion, the key thing for the club is to reduce its off field expenses. Do this and you can instantly afford to make the product cheaper (or improve the produce with more money spent on players) on the back of those savings...unless there are any serious suggestions that for some reason we, whereas other League Two clubs do not, require all these extra off-field staff.

You haven't said anymore yet about the data and how the Club intends to use it because for me that is a real concern.

 

[manc grecian]

Sorry for jumping in again. Just seen post #91 and I'm afraid that I'm on the other side of the fence again.

Whether this is viewed as marketing mumbo jumbo or not, but effort should ALWAYS go behind the BIG games and not the minor ones. Those are the games that have a wider appeal and will bring in more casual fans, boosting attendance, revenue and (if sold in advance) data.

For example, big effort made recently for the Portsmouth game but little point pushing Morecambe on a Tuesday night.

You can count the number of big games on one hand in the last ten years. They don't need to be pushed they sell themselves. It's the Morecambe game that needs some effort put in.

And can we stop saying Portsmouth is a big game. It was two lower league 2 teams playing dreadful football.

 

[Tree42]

The casual fan will be most attracted when...

a) they get an incentive to
b) attend a BIG game and
c) they might come back if the club can keep in contact with them directly

See posts #92 and #93 on how to do this.

The Yeovil game could not be more pertinent. Had they not pushed online advance purchase so hard, then far fewer tickets would have been sold in advance and then a much lower crowd would have turned up for a midweek game in February.

The key point is the amount / percentage of tickets that were sold in advance.

 

[Grecian's The Word]

Sorry for jumping in again. Just seen post #91 and I'm afraid that I'm on the other side of the fence again.

Whether this is viewed as marketing mumbo jumbo or not, but effort should ALWAYS go behind the BIG games and not the minor ones. Those are the games that have a wider appeal and will bring in more casual fans, boosting attendance, revenue and (if sold in advance) data.

For example, big effort made recently for the Portsmouth game but little point pushing Morecambe on a Tuesday night.

Do you think it's mumbo-jumbo?

We haven't played Portsmouth in a league game for yonks, they're a recent Premier League side and recent FA Cup winners - if all the club's biggest marketing efforts resulted in 3,800 fans turning up then I'd suggest it wasn't the most successful marketing effort in history.