Attendances

[Stuart]

Just now, chaddyrovers said:

Season ticketsl holders should get the best benefits..

Ive suggested a few ideas. Have you not seen them? 

Why should they? You are looking at that from a personal perspective. You have a ST so you should get the best benefit.

Someone who can’t afford the outlay of a ST might say “I pay over £20 per ticket why can’t I get a better deal”. If we stop giving ST cash back that goes back into the budget to bring in the numbers by making better offers.

Personally I would reduce prices across the board while Venkys are propping us up. There will be plenty of late teens, early 20s who won’t have any real clue about how bad Venkys have been for this club so they aren’t staying away out of principle, they aren’t getting in the door because it’s cost prohibitive. They will go if it’s a tenner though. If this is our market we need to find a way to get them in the door. Because empty seats add precisely zero to the bottom line.

[chaddyrovers]

8 minutes ago, Stuart said:

Why should they? You are looking at that from a personal perspective. You have a ST so you should get the best benefit.

Someone who can’t afford the outlay of a ST might say “I pay over £20 per ticket why can’t I get a better deal”. If we stop giving ST cash back that goes back into the budget to bring in the numbers by making better offers.

Personally I would reduce prices across the board while Venkys are propping us up. There will be plenty of late teens, early 20s who won’t have any real clue about how bad Venkys have been for this club so they aren’t staying away out of principle, they aren’t getting in the door because it’s cost prohibitive. They will go if it’s a tenner though. If this is our market we need to find a way to get them in the door. Because empty seats add precisely zero to the bottom line.

Reward people loyalty who has backed the club and support the club year after year through season tickets, tickets sales, merchandise, etc

[Stuart]

54 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

Reward people loyalty who has backed the club and support the club year after year through season tickets, tickets sales, merchandise, etc

...and keep empty seats at the numbers they are.

This probably isn’t the thread for you, Chaddy. A good idea might be to avoid this one altogether and create a thread about how loyalty throughout Venkys terrible ownership era should be rewarded. You could start it off with cheaper STs. Maybe one free match for every 10 consecutive years of holding one...?

[JHRover]

I'd like us to try something like Forest did last summer in encouraging the younger element of support. I've no complaints with my ticket price for the season but won't be impressed if it goes up again.

At Forest - 4 to 11 year olds could get a season ticket for £10, 12-17 year olds would be £50, 18-23 year olds £100. 

Fantastic pricing and adults in most areas there are £330 so very similar to ours.

Take out all the conditions, strings, hurdles, just make it cheap for those who are hopefully just getting into the habit of going every week

Note that Forest got theirs on sale in February last year, and the take up was significant. We'll sit back and do nowt until months of potential sales have been lost.

[tomphil]

I think they've missed the boat with it now unless there is a good finish to the season and an interesting summer window so it'll be back to trying to keep hold of what we have again.

We've seen it all before and the time to strike is as mentioned above when supporter engagement across the town is at a peak, no better peak in the last 8 years than a promotion and a huge end of season gate !

[Tom]

Just seen the £99 offer, I don’t think that’s too bad a price to a package which includes 4 Derby games but can’t imagine the take up will be huge but it’s cost the club nothing to try it!

[chaddyrovers]

38 minutes ago, Stuart said:

...and keep empty seats at the numbers they are.

This probably isn’t the thread for you, Chaddy. A good idea might be to avoid this one altogether and create a thread about how loyalty throughout Venkys terrible ownership era should be rewarded. You could start it off with cheaper STs. Maybe one free match for every 10 consecutive years of holding one...?

I never said anything about through Venkys terrible ownership did I? it has nothing to do when them. 

But people who have been season ticket holders year after year should be reward for standing by the club through the good and bad times. 

Yet again Stuart, I have suggested few ideas in the past. A weekend game season ticket for people who cannot make mid week games for various reasons. Kids season tickets for 1 pounds and 10 game season ticket.  

[Sparks Rover]

7 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

I never said anything about through Venkys terrible ownership did I? it has nothing to do when them. 

But people who have been season ticket holders year after year should be reward for standing by the club through the good and bad times. 

Yet again Stuart, I have suggested few ideas in the past. A weekend game season ticket for people who cannot make mid week games for various reasons. Kids season tickets for 1 pounds and 10 game season ticket.  

Season ticket holders do get benefits of away tickets first, fa cup tickets first and probably a few other ones I dont know about.  You are arguing at cross purposes chaddy... loyalty is good, but the new fans are just as important and the ones who decide to go on Saturday morning if the lads bedroom is tidy and hes been good at school.  You really argue for the sake of it...

[chaddyrovers]

Just now, Sparks Rover said:

Season ticket holders do get benefits of away tickets first, fa cup tickets first and probably a few other ones I dont know about.  You are arguing at cross purposes chaddy... loyalty is good, but the new fans are just as important and the ones who decide to go on Saturday morning if the lads bedroom is tidy and hes been good at school.  You really argue for the sake of it...

yes we do get all of them. Plus discount on merchandise through the Club cash scheme which Stuart wanted to scrap. 

the prices are very reasonable IMO. Floating fans have to show some sort of commitment to club and players. 

 

[roversfan99]

45 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

yes we do get all of them. Plus discount on merchandise through the Club cash scheme which Stuart wanted to scrap. 

the prices are very reasonable IMO. Floating fans have to show some sort of commitment to club and players. 

 

Such an attitude is all well and good but is not remotely condusive to increasing attendances. No one has to show anything. Floating fans arent just going to suddenly turn into hardcore with no incentive, same as for any team.

[Mattyblue]

Exactly right Jim. Just common sense really, though one poster didn’t seem to think so yesterday...

Edited February 11, 2019 by Mattyblue

[JHRover]

Boro, PNE, Wigan, Derby and Swansea are all going to be on Sky Sports and are all at unpopular times when crowds are always smaller than 3pm Saturday. That's 5 of 7 remaining home games on TV. Of course it won't be announced until the day or two before in some attempt to hide the news from potential buyers.

[blueboy3333]

I didn't realise most of the 6 will be on TV anyway. The club will be lucky to get sales into double figures. If its him coming up with these deals then Waggott is utterly clueless. 

[JHRover]

40 minutes ago, blueboy3333 said:

I didn't realise most of the 6 will be on TV anyway. The club will be lucky to get sales into double figures. If its him coming up with these deals then Waggott is utterly clueless. 

I suppose we can't really blame the club for games like Middlesbrough being on TV, but I can and do blame the club for allowing fixtures such as Leeds and Preston, which would be two of the most popular all season for home fans, to be played at noon and as a direct result of that shift enable Sky to broadcast it via the red button and deplete the number of home fans turning up.

I'm still waiting, after several years, to see a proper explanation as to why Leeds and Preston have to kick off at noon when Man Utd and Liverpool can be at 7:45pm midweek and I'm still to see anyone from Rovers acknowledge that moving kick off to that time might just have some sort of negative effect on the numbers turning up to watch.

[blueboy3333]

9 minutes ago, JHRover said:

I suppose we can't really blame the club for games like Middlesbrough being on TV, but I can and do blame the club for allowing fixtures such as Leeds and Preston, which would be two of the most popular all season for home fans, to be played at noon and as a direct result of that shift enable Sky to broadcast it via the red button and deplete the number of home fans turning up.

I'm still waiting, after several years, to see a proper explanation as to why Leeds and Preston have to kick off at noon when Man Utd and Liverpool can be at 7:45pm midweek and I'm still to see anyone from Rovers acknowledge that moving kick off to that time might just have some sort of negative effect on the numbers turning up to watch.

I'm not blaming them for the TV. I'm questioning Waggott's competence in trying to attract people into the ground. I thought the 6 deal was poorly thought out anyway, the fact that most games will be on Sky makes it pointless. Just make a couple of games a tenner. 

 

[Mattyblue]

At Cat A prices for a 12pm red button. And with nothing riding on it, I would imagine we’ll sell very few, if any more than normal.

[JHRover]

Lets be honest, for many PNE fans Rovers away is probably THE game of this season. Probably the easiest to get to, best day out, in similar fashion to our game at their place being THE game for many Rovers fans when the fixtures come out. Certainly more so than a trip to Wigan or Horwich shopping park.

As such many Preston fans will pay the price of Category A tickets and an early kick off to go to the game. It isn't quite the same mentality for Rovers supporters going to Ewood. It isn't THE game, it isn't a day out on the ale or a family trip like it will be for PNE supporters.

It is a strange phenomenon. When we went to Deepdale with a full away end there were only about 12000 home fans on, not much more than usual, yet previously they've brought 6000+ to Ewood. This time round I'd be surprised if it was that high as the novelty wears off a bit but I'd still expect them to bring 4,500-5,000 which is 50% of their usual home crowd.

That's the issue - for the away team in these games fans will generally put up with the inconvenience as it is the big day out for them, friends and family. One game in the calendar they were always going to go to. Like us at Rochdale and Bury last season - highly anticipated away days where you go and every Tom, Dick and Harry is there for the day out.

Move it to noon and the away crowd may diminish slightly, keep it at 3pm and it will still be several thousand. Keep it at 3pm and the home crowd (actual numbers of bums on seats and not the official figure) will be a lot higher than at noon. People just have a different attitude to home games than big away days.

[MCMC1875]

Off topic slightly.

Noticed on Saturday that Blues Bar prices come down at 6pm eg a pint of Fosters costs £3.80 before 6pm and £3.20 after 6pm. So fans are being fleeced during matches.

[K-Hod]

Serves people right for buying Foster's.....

[Guest]

9 minutes ago, MCMC1875 said:

Off topic slightly.

Noticed on Saturday that Blues Bar prices come down at 6pm eg a pint of Fosters costs £3.80 before 6pm and £3.20 after 6pm. So fans are being fleeced during matches.

Basic business practice surely?

Increase price when demand is high and reduce as and when demand does.

[Stuart]

4 hours ago, blueboy3333 said:

I didn't realise most of the 6 will be on TV anyway. The club will be lucky to get sales into double figures. If its him coming up with these deals then Waggott is utterly clueless. 

The most worrying thing is that Waggott thinks these are “deals” in the first place. So if they don’t get the uptake they’ll think, ‘fans don’t respond to deals’.

An early bird reduction (on last year’s prices) advertised and in sale at at the Oxford game was what was needed but they instead tried to cash in on the feelgood factor of promotion for short term game rather than getting bums on seats and looking longer term. In a business context short-termism is the modus operandi of people looking to impress their bosses and add to their CV prior to a career move. Pretty incongruous with the long term approach which seems to be peddled of Manager and recruitment strategy.

It will be interesting to see what price next year’s season tickets go on sale at. Last season prices started from £319 at early bird, and £349 after. That’s quite a hike. A similar arrangement this year will be £389 after early bird.

In theory that will now be the starting price in the BBE so it’s likely we will break through the psychological £400 barrier after the early bird. Maybe Waggott will go for a £379 early and £399 late for the BBE to avoid that one?

That takes us to £17 per game which probably pushes walk-ons up towards £25-£27.

Let’s see if Waggott does anything other than “set ambitious targets for ST sales” [and bemoan the lack of commitment from fans]?

[Stuart]

26 minutes ago, Mellor Rover said:

Basic business practice surely?

Increase price when demand is high and reduce as and when demand does.

That’s exactly what it is. Business.

It certainly doesn’t encourage fans to drink in there instead of elsewhere, let alone increase attendance. Although the 800 fans a week who happily pay the surcharge are probably delighted at the match-tax on beer. Presumably after they’ve jovially handed over their £2 (is it now?) for the privilege of getting in to buy food and drink. Maybe they need to start charging people to go into the club shop as well...?

[Hasta]

13 hours ago, Tom said:

Just seen the £99 offer, I don’t think that’s too bad a price to a package which includes 4 Derby games but can’t imagine the take up will be huge but it’s cost the club nothing to try it!

The offer itself isn't bad.

 But with 5 of the 6 games either on Sky or behind the red button I think the point is that even those pushing fnobody believes it will work in increasing attendances for those game, even those pushing for more price-led deals.

[Hasta]

5 hours ago, JHRover said:

Boro, PNE, Wigan, Derby and Swansea are all going to be on Sky Sports and are all at unpopular times when crowds are always smaller than 3pm Saturday. That's 5 of 7 remaining home games on TV. Of course it won't be announced until the day or two before in some attempt to hide the news from potential buyers.

Bolton is on Easter Monday so, as it's not a Saturday game, I'm guessing that will be available as well?

Edited February 11, 2019 by Hasta

[Mattyblue]

34 minutes ago, Hasta said:

Bolton is on Easter Monday so, as it's not a Saturday game, I'm guessing that will be available as well?

Not sure with Bank Holidays as our NYD game with West Brom wasn’t.