Attendances

[Mattyblue]

Rotherham also on sale. Category C. But that’s still £22 in the Blackburn End (£25 on the day), £24 in the Jack Walker (£27).

Doesn’t look like we’ll see a single promotion to try and ride the goodwill around the club in 2018.

[Hasta]

Not seen this mentioned on here. Came across it whilst looking if Preston tickets had been announced yet.

Firework display after the QPR game taking place from behind the Riverside stand. Season ticket holders can move to JW stand for the match and for a better view free of charge. All other Riversides will be moved into the DE lower after the game if they want to see the display.

Should also get a good view from The Fox or The Fernhurst after the game. 

https://www.rovers.co.uk/news/2018/october/celebrate-rovers-birthday-with-football-and-fireworks/

 

[Stuart]

8 hours ago, Hasta said:

Not seen this mentioned on here. Came across it whilst looking if Preston tickets had been announced yet.

Firework display after the QPR game taking place from behind the Riverside stand. Season ticket holders can move to JW stand for the match and for a better view free of charge. All other Riversides will be moved into the DE lower after the game if they want to see the display.

Should also get a good view from The Fox or The Fernhurst after the game. 

https://www.rovers.co.uk/news/2018/october/celebrate-rovers-birthday-with-football-and-fireworks/

“To mark the club’s 143rd birthday (November 5th) and Diwali (November 7th), the Hindu Festival of Lights”

So nothing as simple as, y’know, bonfire night.

[PeteJD13]

Bolton have launched a half season ticket starts boxing day works out at 15 quid a game wonder if we will launch something similar. Might be something Waggott could consider rather than whinging in the press

Edited October 23, 2018 by PeteJD13

[HowieFive0]

86  live football games on British TV this week alone ..one week ! And this does not include IFollow games that maybe available ..

[perthblue02]

2 minutes ago, HowieFive0 said:

86  live football games on British TV this week alone ..one week ! And this does not include IFollow games that maybe available ..

There is a decent article in the guardian about this 

https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2018/oct/22/live-tv-football-premier-league-champions-league-football-league

[MarkBRFC]

It's complete overkill, but it will only keep rising.

If the 3-5pm blackout stays in tact I can see Sky/BT showing every premier league game around them times before long.

They could do something like -

Friday 745pm

Saturday 11am, Saturday 1pm, Saturday 530pm, Saturday 745pm

Sunday - Noon, 215pm, 430pm, 7pm

Monday - 8pm 

People keep saying the bubble will burst one day, but I don't think it ever will.

[DeeCee]

Simon Jordan was on Talksport last night saying that there should be live games televised at 3.00pm Saturdays, as that's the way to make money!

He obviously has got money as his trigger rather than football.

[tomphil]

I'm not even sure putting a live 3pm on would make that much difference anymore to be honest. Clubs of our ilk would be affected when it's our turn just the same as we are now for a tv game. In fact if the tv was involved the club and the suits and all their morals about non existent potential bother would soon tell the police to shove it and not move the kick off if it was Leeds. The crowd would be bigger than Saturday as well i'd wager.

How many would swerve their own clubs game to watch a run of the mill Prem fixture at 3pm on a Sat ?   Not many I don't think.

 

Edited October 23, 2018 by tomphil

[SIMON GARNERS 194]

6 hours ago, PeteJD13 said:

Bolton have launched a half season ticket starts boxing day works out at 15 quid a game wonder if we will launch something similar. Might be something Waggott could consider rather than whinging in the press

I wonder if they have even thought about it yet...but we're having a firework display.

[Paul]

2 hours ago, tomphil said:

I'm not even sure putting a live 3pm on would make that much difference anymore to be honest. Clubs of our ilk would be affected when it's our turn just the same as we are now for a tv game. In fact if the tv was involved the club and the suits and all their morals about non existent potential bother would soon tell the police to shove it and not move the kick off if it was Leeds. The crowd would be bigger than Saturday as well i'd wager.

How many would swerve their own clubs game to watch a run of the mill Prem fixture at 3pm on a Sat ?   Not many I don't think.

 

To my way of thinking fans either want to watch their team live or not.

Personally I stopped watching any football on TV years ago. It's just a very, very poor experience.

If I want to see a game I buy a ticket and go. The only game I can recall not being able to get a ticket for was last season at Fleetwood.

[tomphil]

8 minutes ago, Paul said:

To my way of thinking fans either want to watch their team live or not.

Personally I stopped watching any football on TV years ago. It's just a very, very poor experience.

If I want to see a game I buy a ticket and go. The only game I can recall not being able to get a ticket for was last season at Fleetwood.

Yes I think we've more or less reached the point where armchair fans are armchair fans, part timers are part timers and hardcore as usual will nearly always turn up or still buy STs which mean they are there in spirit having paid already.

Part of the Saturday ritual for match attenders now is maybe watch the lunchtime game then go to your own then watch the tea time game after so one in the middle is no big deal, wouldn't be to me anyway if I was going to Rovers i'd go I wouldn't choose Everton v Newcastle instead because it was raining.

The saturation point means you take live tv games for granted now but most fans main focus is their own team or at least it should be.

[Paul]

28 minutes ago, tomphil said:

Yes I think we've more or less reached the point where armchair fans are armchair fans, part timers are part timers and hardcore as usual will nearly always turn up or still buy STs which mean they are there in spirit having paid already.

Part of the Saturday ritual for match attenders now is maybe watch the lunchtime game then go to your own then watch the tea time game after so one in the middle is no big deal, wouldn't be to me anyway if I was going to Rovers i'd go I wouldn't choose Everton v Newcastle instead because it was raining.

The saturation point means you take live tv games for granted now but most fans main focus is their own team or at least it should be.

I think you're correct with this, quite a few of the people around me at Ewood will talk about the lunchtime TV fixture.

I feel we have gone way, way, way beyond saturation point. For me we are overwhelmed with coverage, most of it banal, unintelligible, irrelevant and delivered by commentators incapable of forming a full sentence or speaking in anything other than meaningless phrases. The extent of the media coverage is such I consume none - years ago the first page I read in the newspaper was football.

I may sound old school, I can assure you I'm not, but I am old enough to remember grainy black white images of the Kop or Stretford End on wet, steamy November evenings. That was exciting, those were BIG games which caught the imagination of every fan.

Shoving 87 games at me does nothing to change that.

I'm looking forward to 9.45pm

Edited October 23, 2018 by Paul

[Leonard Venkhater]

19 hours ago, SIMON GARNERS 194 said:

I wonder if they have even thought about it yet...but we're having a firework display.

A bonfire of the vanities!

[unsall]

On 23/10/2018 at 10:20, PeteJD13 said:

Bolton have launched a half season ticket starts boxing day works out at 15 quid a game wonder if we will launch something similar. Might be something Waggott could consider rather than whinging in the press

Why’s he whinging, all he said was he thought we would have sold a few more season tickets, of course half season tickets will be offered, are you trying to say Bolton are more savvy than Rovers, I don’t think so, seems to me every few weeks they are owing money to someone.

[PeteJD13]

1 hour ago, unsall said:

Why’s he whinging, all he said was he thought we would have sold a few more season tickets, of course half season tickets will be offered, are you trying to say Bolton are more savvy than Rovers, I don’t think so, seems to me every few weeks they are owing money to someone.

No I'm saying Bolton have noticed crowds are down and are trying something to get fans back at an affordable price it works out at 15 quid a game starting with the boxing day fixture. I think its a good idea and any initiative to get more bums on seats at an affordable price should be applauded.

[only2garners]

On 21/10/2018 at 14:28, blueboy3333 said:

is the fans forum just some kind of jollies club were fans get to mingle with important people at the club in exchange for never asking any difficult questions?

Of course it isn't.

The Forum is just coming up to it's 20th anniversary in early 2019. Below is a post from this message board which Phil Lloyd, the first Chair of the Forum made in 2011 outlining how it came about.

The membership of the Forum attempts to offer a voice for all strands of Rovers support and brfcs.com has been represented for about the last 10 years.

Mattyblue is right that the club had been planning another cut-price home game a la Oxford - we were first told about it at the meeting on 22nd May. At that time they were awaiting the fixture list to choose an appropriate game. At the last meeting in September it was still stated that they planned one but clearly this has not yet happened. It will of course be on our agenda for the next meeting on 12th November. We will also no doubt be having a more general discussion about attendances and this whole thread is useful in getting some ideas to discuss.

Attendances and ground atmosphere have probably been the items we have talked about most in my time on the Forum - I have been a member and Secretary since 2007. We had a long discussion at the last meeting in September.

In other news the club have just announced the date for the next Supporter Consultation Meeting - Thursday 22nd November. I think this is timed to be just after the next trip to India during the November international break.

 

A number of people have raised questions, on this and other threads, about the origins of the Fans Forum at Rovers. This short summary isn't intended to be comprehensive, but should answer a number of the points that have been raised.

The Forum was very much the brainchild of John Williams. He invited a number of people to be members of the Forum back in early 1999 (I think)- these included representatives of the Supporters Association (BRSA) and the Disabled Supporters Association (BRDSA). As for the other members of the original Forum, the common denominator seemed to be that they had written in to JW (then the Chief Executive) to raise specific points, proposals or concerns about the football club, and usually had been invited in for a meeting with John to discuss things face to face - this was JW's normal approach to anyone who seemed genuinely to have the club's interests at heart.

I believe the intention of the Forum was to establish a dialogue with a range of supporters with different views (note, not necessarily a representative cross-section of supporters). Membership of the Forum was never fixed and people left if they wished (or failed to attend a run of meetings), and were co-opted on, typically at the invitation of JW. For example, the early Forums felt it important to have an Asian fan at the meetings, and this was done: similarly the newly-established Lancaster branch of the Supporters Association was represented in those early days, and brought a different perspective on the club.

To quote from a letter I have seen, sent by John Williams to the then Chairman of the Forum (Phil Lloyd) in late 1999: "I am very happy that the Forum acts as a sounding board for the Club's ideas, this was, after all, one of the main reasons for setting it up." Later in the letter he says: "I will from time to time submit new names for inclusion on the Forum...this will ensure a freshness of views and exchanges, although clearly we don't want the numbers such that the Forum becomes unmanageable."

Representation from BRFC has always varied, according to availability and also in relation to the issues being discussed (as has been stated elsewhere, playing issues have always been off the agenda of the Forum), such as safety matters, marketing, pricing, catering, ticketing, stadium "atmosphere", new playing strips, media, etc. John Williams himself attended several of the early meetings, as did Ken Beamish and ALan McColgan and later Nick Hall (then the Club's Marketing Manager) - when Tom Finn joined the club, he too was sometimes present as the senior club official.

From the fans' side, I don't have a definitive list of those who were involved right in the Forum's very early days (so apologies for any errors or omissions here), but I am fairly sure that they included Jimmy Leaf, Duncan Gardiner, Guy Wignall, Pauline Perkins and Tony Shaw (BRSA/BRDSA), Jim Catlow and Vicky Watkin (Lancaster branch), Phil Lloyd (who at that time wrote the "Down by the Riverside" column in the Lancashire Telegraph), Neil Duckworth, Bill Toland, Ian Ferris, Paul McKenna, Susan Samme, David Slater and Martin Haworth.

Clearly the Forum and its remit have developed and grown over the past 12 years, but it has become an established channel of communication between the club and its supporters and it is interesting that, despite it being something that JW conceived, brought into being and personally supported along the way, the new owners chose to include some of its current membership in the visit to Pune, which will hopefully being them a little closer to the fans and their feelings and opinions.

I hope this is all of some help by way of the background to the Fans Forum.

[Mattyblue]

What I would like asked is - 

Are the club going to actually use the ‘local promotion’ rule, it can be used up to 4 times a season and means we can still charge top whack to sizeable away followings, whilst making it cheap for ours.

So instead of doing crap promotions like ‘bring a friend for a...’ for a night match in the middle of winter (I.e last season against Bury and Fleetwood), why not attractive afternoon fixtures like Sheff Wed in December or West Brom on NYD. 

For me, it’s a no brainer, you can still grab the near £30 from the away fans, whilst making an ATTRACTIVE fixture accessible to ours, get folk back in the habit in a decent atmosphere and crowd.

Edited October 24, 2018 by Mattyblue

[Paul]

4 hours ago, PeteJD13 said:

No I'm saying Bolton have noticed crowds are down and are trying something to get fans back at an affordable price it works out at 15 quid a game starting with the boxing day fixture. I think its a good idea and any initiative to get more bums on seats at an affordable price should be applauded.

Same price as a Rovers ST then. Obviously we are competitive in our pricing.

[blueboy3333]

Just now, Paul said:

Same price as a Rovers ST then. Obviously we are competitive in our pricing.

That will depend on how many they sell. 

[Paul]

Just now, blueboy3333 said:

That will depend on how many they sell. 

True.

[Scotland1]

19 minutes ago, Paul said:

Same price as a Rovers ST then. Obviously we are competitive in our pricing.

What one game comparison? Villa and Leeds was £29/31 quid to watch before WAT (Waggot Added Tax). 20 is plenty for the PL away teams but we are paying high 20s or 30 quid to watch Rovers at Ewood? Think it’s pricey personally.

[47er]

6 hours ago, only2garners said:

The membership of the Forum attempts to offer a voice for all strands of Rovers support and brfcs.com has been represented for about the last 10 years.

Attendances and ground atmosphere have probably been the items we have talked about most in my time on the Forum - I have been a member and Secretary since 2007. We had a long discussion at the last meeting in September.

In other news the club have just announced the date for the next Supporter Consultation Meeting - Thursday 22nd November. I think this is timed to be just after the next trip to India during the November international break.

 

I believe the intention of the Forum was to establish a dialogue with a range of supporters with different views (note, not necessarily a representative cross-section of supporters).Clearly the Forum and its remit have developed and grown over the past 12 years, but it has become an established channel of communication between the club and its supporters and it is interesting that, despite it being something that JW conceived, brought into being and personally supported along the way, the new owners chose to include some of its current membership in the visit to Pune, which will hopefully being them a little closer to the fans and their feelings and opinions.

I hope this is all of some help by way of the background to the Fans Forum.

I've ben asking about the Forum and what it might do about the various ideas that have been suggested on here. I said "there must be some posters on here who are members of the Forum" or words to that effect.

And nobody responded and you're the Secretary!

So, will you be raising the matter of pricing and the various options people have listed on here at your next meeting with the club.

Any chance of you posting their responses?

Edited October 24, 2018 by 47er

[Paul]

2 hours ago, Scotland1 said:

What one game comparison? Villa and Leeds was £29/31 quid to watch before WAT (Waggot Added Tax). 20 is plenty for the PL away teams but we are paying high 20s or 30 quid to watch Rovers at Ewood? Think it’s pricey personally.

I don't think you've read the relevant post. It's an ST comparison not one match. PeteJD13 posted this:

"Bolton have launched a half season ticket starts boxing day works out at 15 quid a game wonder if we will launch something similar. Might be something Waggott could consider rather than whinging in the press"

A Rovers ST is £349 for 23 games which is £15.17 per game. So Rovers are competitive locally and have been offering this price, with an ST, for the whole season.

If people are paying per game it's expensive. I'm comparing  STs with the Bolton half ST offer. We are competitive and I'd expect our half ST offer to be very similar.

It can't be criticised until we know what the offer is.

[Paul]

Just had a look at the 2017/18 half ST price. £170 for 13 games started on Boxing Day - £13/match.

My guess is it will work out at £15 or 16 this time, probably £199.

Depends when it starts really. I think we will have played 12 home games by Christmas. The half ST will only cover 11 matches so might be cheaper but still around £15/match

Edited October 24, 2018 by Paul