Attendances: A cause for concern

[Mattyblue]

There will always be a load of empty seats as there are 20,000 to go at in home areas (no DEnd or BBE Upper) and we only have around 7,500 ST holders, and as you just won’t get 6/7000 plus buying match day tickets every week - we are a ST heavy fan culture at Rovers, the disaster that was the summer’s ST sales campaign comes home to roost, again.

Edited December 14, 2021 by Mattyblue

[Gav]

12 minutes ago, BigUts said:

Just been on to get my match tickets for Brum on Saturday, and I must say there are a LOT of empty seats on the map. Hopefully there will be a big up-tick in ticket sales as Saturday looms akin to the Nobbers game.

Traditionally its a poorly attended weekend for football and has been for many years, the last Saturday before Christmas and all that. I tried to buy a number of tickets yesterday and computer said no, bit like I tried to buy a number of shirts recently, computer said no, frustrating, but I'll call them later today and persevere. 

[Mattyblue]

Here’s hoping that half STs have done well, there will never have been a better PR sales period running up to Christmas for them…

Edited December 14, 2021 by Mattyblue

[JHRover]

53 minutes ago, J*B said:

 

A few points on this -

1) There's no such thing as freedom of speech in the UK.

2) I know of at least two Ribble Valley football teams that have had tickets through this scheme - their demographic is very much 'white British'. It's not certainly a scheme devised to be 90% ethnic children. 

3) In the 2011 census, 28% of people within Blackburn with Darwen identified as 'Asian/Asian British'. When you attend Ewood, would you say that 28% of attendees fit this demographic? I wouldn't - I would guesstimate much closer to 5%. Therefore this demographic is hugely under represented and I commend Rovers for doing more to get it closer to 28%. 

4) The key to building back attendances is to get kids hooked whilst they're young. I'm sure that we can all agree that we don't give two damns what ethnicity or religion these kids are from as long as it benefits the club. 

In relation to your number 3 - I'm not really interested in the demographics of BwD because that is increasingly irrelevant to our attendances and support base.

Perhaps you or someone else will have some statistics as to what % of our paying attendance live outside of BwD boundaries. I bet it is a very substantial portion, and it is only going to increase over time as  more and more people move out to different areas and rarely visit Blackburn.

Your 28% figure for BwD is only really relevant if we start and finish our efforts at the artificial boundaries of BwD. If we are doing that we might as well give up as the club won't sustain itself on that.

There really needs to be an acceptance and embracing of the fact that a massive portion and increasing portion of our support lives in neighbouring boroughs and the club needs to start treating those boroughs as its catchment area.

I think it is a disgrace how the club appears to have surrendered any interest in Hyndburn and the massive Rovers supporting population there seemingly for no reason other than it might upset Accy Stanley.

I couldn't care less what ethnicity anyone is but think it is very short sighted and ignorant of the realities of our support and very unambitious if the extent of our efforts is focusing on the relatively small population of BwD when really this club is much more than a Blackburn town club.

[only2garners]

8 hours ago, glen9mullan said:

Maybe a controversial post, but this has bugged me for weeks and In a world of free speech, I think I need to write what I think, rather than just think it

Firstly its fantastic we are trying to get more and more kids to come to the game, putting the travel on too is fantastic and will be costing rovers to do this.

My concern is, why is it 90% ethnic children?

How many paying adult tickets to the asian community has this generated?

We offer so much support/handouts to the non paying asian community, not just match tickets but significant sponsorship to events like Eid in the park etc.

We live in a society where football is not affordable to many demographics, however we do appear to be particularly targeting the ethnic community which is great and needed, provided we start seeing their parents catch the bug, and start buying match tickets. Ultimately paying supporters aid the paying of the bills, perhaps offering child tickets to paying supporters is an easier route, or rolling this out to all children. 

Can't help but think the guy running this is loving the attention from the asian community and the other side of the population is clearly being ignored.

Initiatives like this must be "inclusive" for all, or clearly miss the target and create divide. 

Ignoring/taking for granted the paying supporter is not sustainable. I've gone from 4 season tickets in my house (wife and Kids) to just my own. This will not change, until I see a different attitude towards the paying supporters.

What are the club doing to get back the 75,% loss of attendees from my home and other homes like mine?

Why have the club not considered things like?

First adult season ticket full price, if the wife comes second season ticket 10% off. If you bring the kids too then there is a family ticket. Its not rocket science to put together family packages or pricing initiatives to entice you to buy more

Glen - one thing that you may not be aware of is that this initiative is actually generating income for the club, not costing. I'm sure that it will be a tiny amount but there is income coming in. I don't know where from - it may well be sponsorship rather than from the recipients of the tickets, but it is income generating.

[Giant]

Just a thought about attending games; if double vaccination is not a defence for Omicron, what is the point of using the COVID passport to give entry to venues unless you are triple dosed? Surely a flow test taken the day of the game is better evidence that you aren’t going to be spreading the virus in the stadium.

[magicalmortensleftpeg]

1 hour ago, Mattyblue said:

There will always be a load of empty seats as there are 20,000 to go at in home areas (no DEnd or BBE Upper) and we only have around 7,500 ST holders, and as you just won’t get 6/7000 plus buying match day tickets every week - we are a ST heavy fan culture at Rovers, the disaster that was the summer’s ST sales campaign comes home to roost, again.

The summer was where the damage was done, not helped by the apathy following last season. I’m not convinced that reduced match day ticket prices would do too much based on games like this weekend. Tickets are £25 and we’re a top 4 side right now yet as it stands we’ll do well to get over 10k home fans on.

[Mattyblue]

Still £30 in the JWU, but yes generally cheaper than PNE/Hudds.

People do seem to struggle to realise that if ST sales drop in the summer, match day ticket sales just won’t take up the slack each week as only a finite number will buy for a standard fixture.

[J*B]

39 minutes ago, magicalmortensleftpeg said:

The summer was where the damage was done, not helped by the apathy following last season. I’m not convinced that reduced match day ticket prices would do too much based on games like this weekend. Tickets are £25 and we’re a top 4 side right now yet as it stands we’ll do well to get over 10k home fans on.

I’m fortunate enough to be able to afford a £25 ticket if I want one. But unfortunately the poverty level in Blackburn means that a £25 ticket 2 weeks before Christmas is just far too expensive. Every year it’s the same - the people of Blackburn can’t afford to spend £25 this close to Christmas on non essentials. I’d have priced it at £20 for an adult ticket and an additional £1 to bring an U16 with you. 

[Wheelton Blue]

Part of the problem IMO is a lack of choice of where to sit.

Take a family of 4 with a couple of young kids, for example, wanting to go to an ad hoc game.

The BBE may be deemed as too racous, the Riverside devoid of decent facilities.

That just leave the JW Upper to go at, which for Birmingham would come in at £76 just for match tickets, and quite easily a £100 day out.

[tomphil]

1 hour ago, Giant said:

Just a thought about attending games; if double vaccination is not a defence for Omicron, what is the point of using the COVID passport to give entry to venues unless you are triple dosed? Surely a flow test taken the day of the game is better evidence that you aren’t going to be spreading the virus in the stadium.

The flow tests that probably don't detect the variant.

You couldn't make it up, especially the new bit about now needing TWO pfizer doses to be safe from Omicron.

Just in time for recommended doses 3 and 4 in the UK.

Just wait till the Kean Variant kicks in, no doses will remove that !

[chaddyrovers]

4 hours ago, Wheelton Blue said:

Part of the problem IMO is a lack of choice of where to sit.

Take a family of 4 with a couple of young kids, for example, wanting to go to an ad hoc game.

The BBE may be deemed as too racous, the Riverside devoid of decent facilities.

That just leave the JW Upper to go at, which for Birmingham would come in at £76 just for match tickets, and quite easily a £100 day out.

Whilst I understand and agree on the pricing being wrong on single match day ticket and it started with the cost of season ticket in the summer and had it been cheaper where it was between £250 to 300 per season ticket then you could have match day ticket prices at £15 to 20 per game for single match day ticket price with Kids under 12 match day ticket price being a pound. 

There is so space around where I sit in Blackburn end and i have seen different people sit near me and we have several discussions about why they don't commit to season ticket and a couple of reasons is price and other is be available to come. 

I would support a family ticket for family of 4 or even a parent and child season ticket. 

[SIMON GARNERS 194]

😳

You really would hope we could manage to break the 12k mark for a Club in our position come Saturday.

12k eh? ....hits home hard now much damage has been done.

[magicalmortensleftpeg]

1 minute ago, SIMON GARNERS 194 said:

😳

You really would hope we could manage to break the 12k mark for a Club in our position come Saturday.

12k eh? ....hits home hard now much damage has been done.

It’s games like these where we see the scale of the situation. No ticket deals, not a local derby. Just a mediocre game with averagely priced tickets. You’d hope that being in great form will entice a few but it will be nowhere near the PNE gate (regarding home attendance). 

[Mattyblue]

It will ‘entice a few’ walk ons, certainly more than if we were 12th, but it all goes back to my mantra of lost ST holders.

Say we still had 10,500 ST holders and 4,000 match day tickets got bought (which is the upper end of what gets bought here weekly and would be a good effort a few days before Xmas) plus say, 1,500 away fans - that would be a healthy 16,000 crowd.

But when you only have 7,300 ST holders, even with that 4,000 and 1, 500 it’s a much less healthy looking 12,800.

The damage was done in the summer and we will pay for it all season unless an absolute shed load of half STs have been sold…

[Hasta]

I say it every time but 5% off your ST if you had one last year, 10% off if you had one for 2 years etc.. up to 20% off for 4 years.

I would definitely have renewed to keep my loyalty discount instead of taking a season out to see how COVID and Waggot affected this season like I have done. 
 

[RevidgeBlue]

2 hours ago, Mattyblue said:

It will ‘entice a few’ walk ons, certainly more than if we were 12th, but it all goes back to my mantra of lost ST holders.

Say we still had 10,500 ST holders and 4,000 match day tickets got bought (which is the upper end of what gets bought here weekly and would be a good effort a few days before Xmas) plus say, 1,500 away fans - that would be a healthy 16,000 crowd.

But when you only have 7,300 ST holders, even with that 4,000 and 1, 500 it’s a much less healthy looking 12,800.

The damage was done in the summer and we will pay for it all season unless an absolute shed load of half STs have been sold…

Imo the damage was actually done the summer before last when Waggott removed the affordable seating and raised prices by up to 25% for a season when no-one could attend.

Then,  the fact that they had to give incentives for those you bought last season meant these headline prices were locked in for good.

I'm actually surprised in all the circumstances and the dross we witnessed on the pitch last season we made it to 7,300 ST'S. Shows the resilience of the fan base.

Then he compounds it even further with the ludicrous match day pricing...........

 

[AAK]

11 hours ago, Mattyblue said:

There will always be a load of empty seats as there are 20,000 to go at in home areas (no DEnd or BBE Upper) and we only have around 7,500 ST holders, and as you just won’t get 6/7000 plus buying match day tickets every week - we are a ST heavy fan culture at Rovers, the disaster that was the summer’s ST sales campaign comes home to roost, again.

Exactly, what do people not get about this! Well said, Matt.

[AAK]

9 hours ago, Mattyblue said:

Still £30 in the JWU, but yes generally cheaper than PNE/Hudds.

People do seem to struggle to realise that if ST sales drop in the summer, match day ticket sales just won’t take up the slack each week as only a finite number will buy for a standard fixture.

They should never have close the Darwen end to home fans. So what if there was only 800-1000 max at anytime. It generated atmosphere, and at times like now, people like that, the ones who like a song song and will be encouraged by some positivity for the first time in years (I’m not counting that joke of a season in league 1), they will come In some decent numbers, but now you look at ewood and it’s dead, no atmosphere at all, it’s simply boring. 

[JonnyP]

I came over from Ireland for the Coventry game, was surprised how expensive the ticket was. Now I sat in the JWU with my father who is a season ticket holder. But I remember paying less for tickets when we were in the prem. 

To be fair I do think that being a season ticket holder is a big commitment. your committing to 23 games a year, my old man is retired so he has the time to go every weekend and hasn’t got any other commitments. But you might find that over the pandemic people with families have taken on new hobbies or activities that they have committed to or just prefer to do and have decide we will occasionally attend games rather than committing to a ST. Also some may have been financially affected by the pandemic n paying out for an ST just isn’t financially viable at the moment.

Football is entertainment at the end of the day n is one of the first thing sacrificed when times are tough.

[tomphil]

22 minutes ago, AAK said:

They should never have close the Darwen end to home fans. So what if there was only 800-1000 max at anytime. It generated atmosphere, and at times like now, people like that, the ones who like a song song and will be encouraged by some positivity for the first time in years (I’m not counting that joke of a season in league 1), they will come In some decent numbers, but now you look at ewood and it’s dead, no atmosphere at all, it’s simply boring. 

To be fair from where sit the BBE end has sounded livelier this season than for a long time not just the Sheff U and PNE fixtures which obviously stand alone.

Agree on the DE though.

[lraC]

1 hour ago, RevidgeBlue said:

Imo the damage was actually done the summer before last when Waggott removed the affordable seating and raised prices by up to 25% for a season when no-one could attend.

Then,  the fact that they had to give incentives for those you bought last season meant these headline prices were locked in for good.

I'm actually surprised in all the circumstances and the dross we witnessed on the pitch last season we made it to 7,300 ST'S. Shows the resilience of the fan base.

Then he compounds it even further with the ludicrous match day pricing...........

 

Which adds no weight to the argument that it’s the fans fault, attendances are down. Some people simply have no idea. 

[RevidgeBlue]

38 minutes ago, lraC said:

Which adds no weight to the argument that it’s the fans fault, attendances are down. Some people simply have no idea. 

I've said previously that changes at the Club are in the offing and I expect improvements in this respect (pricing) in the New Year.

The Club will be chopping the legs off any positive efforts made by the commercial department if players are sold in January though.........

[Wood26]

I am going away for 6 months in January, happy to handover my season ticket if someone wants it for rest of season (free of charge). Be nice if someone who has unfortunately been priced out for what ever reason to have it. JW upper. DM me if you want it.

[DeeCee]

3 hours ago, Wood26 said:

I am going away for 6 months in January, happy to handover my season ticket if someone wants it for rest of season (free of charge). Be nice if someone who has unfortunately been priced out for what ever reason to have it. JW upper. DM me if you want it.

Nice gesture, hope you get parole.