Empty seats

Quoted from ska face

Been thinking a bit about this, and the more I think about it the more complicated it becomes. That’s without having balance sheets and budgets to worry about too.

Whatever’s in place, I think it could only work if compo is dished out once tickets are resold rather than released. Otherwise you’re looking at guaranteed ST income potentially fluctuating week to week, you could have every ST release their seats one week and suddenly you’ve got 5500 lots of fivers or credits to dish out.

You couldn’t really do it as a flat single rate, it would have to be based on the value/category of the ST - if you’ve paid £70 for a kids’ ST and it’s resold every week, you could end the season in profit. Morally though, if the seat is sold as a ST and then sold again once released, the club will have made twice the income for the same thing, so a decent whack should go back to the ST holder.

Then if you’ve got an adult ST, and the seat is resold as a concession, how much is that worth? Averaged out, an adult ST is worth £14.78 per game (most stands), that seat could be sold as cheap as £5, total revenue from that seat then is £19.78, less than the standard £20 matchday price.

Like I said, complicated.

It only makes sense, to me at least, to compensate season ticket holders for reselling their ST seat once we've sold the same number of seats as we have total home seats. Otherwise you're giving someone a fiver or whatever simply because someone paid for their season ticket seat instead of another non-ST seat that the club would get the full £22 for. I don't know how it makes sense for the club to do that. Like you say, complicated

Problem somewhat solves itself when we go down to 4k-odd ST holders next year

Any system for reallocation of ST seats will need to:
i) make it worthwhile for the ST holder to take the time to release it, and
ii) make it worthwhile for the club to implement it.
Both will require an online ticketing system which is fit for purpose - probably a 'bespoke' system will be needed (cost?? ).

As ska face has pointed out, it gets complicated - and the simpler ideas (such as this one) may be open to abuse.

** My Asian keyboard cannot do the pound symbol, so I'll use the dollar symbol instead.**

For simplicity, let's say pay on the day is $20 and the cost of a ST works out at $15.

When a ST holder releases a seat, it becomes available for sale at $15.

IF sold, the ST holder gets a $5 discount on next season's ST. The club pockets an extra $10.
If it's not sold the ST holder gets zilch (apart from a nice 'thank you' email from the club informing the holder that it wasn't sold
and that the "your next season's ST discount" remains at $X).

If the ST holder chooses not to renew next season...either the discount is lost, or the discount can be applied to the cost of
items from the club shop (perhaps?).
Having a discount available will provide an extra incentive for the holder to renew next season.

The obvious snag is that customers who may have rocked up at BP to pay $20 on the day will choose a reallocated ST seat.
With the cost-of-living crisis, I would expect many to be tempted to go for a reallocated ticket - on a first-come-first-served basis.
That would suit the club to the extent that all season ticket seats are likely to be occupied first, solving that issue - and encouraging
people to book early, which is also to the club's benefit.

Looking ahead, and assuming GTFC continues to thrive, we will get close to selling out BP on a regular basis - in which case the
early sales of all reallocated seats will make little difference. Once they've all been sold it will be Hobson's choice thereafter.

There's probably pleny of holes in the above, but I offer it as a suggestion for discussion.

Well, I'm going to save them (the illustrious new owners of gtfc) the cost of the stamp warning me to release my seat........I'm not renewing after watching this seasons woeful home games.
I'll go in the osmand end and pick and choose games.
So crack on suits.

I have missed a couple of games this season and released my seat on both occasions, but no takers as yet.

Have to say it's a slightly long winded process to do it and should be made simpler. I've asked around my group if they have ever released their ticket when not attending and all have said no; that they didn't even think about it and didn't know how to if they did.

Maybe the club just need to make the fans more aware of the option and make it simpler to do. I'm no computer expert but couldn't they have a separate and obvious link on the OS without having to log into your account and find it?

Out of interest, I just looked at the seating plan in my block of the Upper for the game on Saturday, and it is showing all seats sold except 2. I know that on Saturday, there will be way more than 2 empty seats, so prime positions are going to waste for the casual fan. I know there will probably be availability in other stands for the game, but they won't be as good seats as those in the Upper.

The fact this issue keeps coming up is a poor reflection on the club to be frank.

Last night we can forget about, was always going to be a low crowd.  But for numerous games this season we've had virtually no tickets available to buy yet huge gaps in the stands, most with white reserved stickers on show.

To me this is part of a larger problem that the club aren't recognising that access to good tickets is an issue.  Quite rightly they're happy to take the £300+ from anyone in July, that's nice money in the bank to have.  But it's a huge wasted opportunity to get even more money in and a proper full house most weeks.

No doubt it's a complicated matter, I get that there has to be relative value attached to the resale (not the release).  But this is the type of thing where I'd expect to see a return on investment from the extra office staff.

Sadly, I think the pending downturn in season tickets this summer will more or less solve this problem.  I've been reluctant to see this season as one of a missed opportunity, but on many fronts it's hard not to see it as that.

Quoted from Poojah

Fewer attendees than season ticket holders at last night’s match. Brentford have taken pretty drastic action with their policy for next season’s season tickets - miss four games without making your ticket available for resale and lose your seat for the following season:

[img]https://www.northstandchat.com/attachments/fpfw70kxsaazmnd-jpeg.157464/[/img]
That’s a little too draconian for my liking, but surely we should be looking at a more effective, incentive based solution for next season. Even something simple, like a few quid credit to spend at the club would help, wouldn’t it?

I think ST holders should be able to do what they want with their seats (except sell them to away fans) but Brentford are concerned about the 1000 seats left empty at every home game.

The club don't have an issue with STs being passed between friends to make sure they are used which is what I have done, mainly favouring Town homes games over those of the Bees. Failing that they ask that fans make their seat available on the ticket exchange so it can be resold. If it is done by 10am on the day of the game there is no yellow card whether the seat is sold or not.

If it is sold, then the ST holder's account is credited with the appropriate amount after the game has been played. That is more generous than the Town deal.

It hasn't been an issue for me anyway this season as there haven't been any home clashes but I missed Leeds at home to see Town at Newport. That may be the only home game I miss.

I'll probably miss two Town home games this season which isn't bad considering how poor most of them have been. One was to chalk off the Emirates when Town played at home to Colchester. I still felt guilty on the morning of the game but was glad I made that call in the end!

The issue at GTFC, but not elsewhere, is that we have 100s of restricted and poor view seats (the Trust were meant to be counting them) - so whilst GTFC doesn't want to pay STH for released seats whilst these are still available, some may be put off from going at all, and others, like me, whinge about only being able to get restricted view seats together when prime seats are empty. I will never make more than 10 home games per season, I won't buy a ST - I don't see the point, I'd rather support the club through other means  - Trust / 1878 membership and other initiatives if 1878 come up with them. So for now tough sh!te for me - we go for restricted views if that's all we can get. Still, it's a source pride to be able to say you are in the oldest stand in the EFL...

Quite a few angry responses here, but isn't the original post pointing out what Brentford are doing? I don't think there's any form of penalties about to be imposed on GTFC ST holders if they don't release a seat so why are some posters getting so aggressive?

Aside from the other side of the ticketing issue when wanting to purchase away or big Cup game tickets, has there been any issue at all in terms of wanting to release your ticket?

I see that some are discussing the 'what if's' of either a hypothetical scenario similar to Brentford, or possibly in reference to Brentford but I don't think the Club are in danger of wasting stamp fee's on anyone because it isn't being brought in here.

Quoted from Poojah

Fewer attendees than season ticket holders at last night’s match. Brentford have taken pretty drastic action with their policy for next season’s season tickets - miss four games without making your ticket available for resale and lose your seat for the following season:

[img]https://www.northstandchat.com/attachments/fpfw70kxsaazmnd-jpeg.157464/[/img]
That’s a little too draconian for my liking, but surely we should be looking at a more effective, incentive based solution for next season. Even something simple, like a few quid credit to spend at the club would help, wouldn’t it?

I 100% totally disagree with the position that Brentford have taken. They get subsidised, through their current league status, to the tune of £millions yet feel they have to penalise ST holders for not attending 4 games! However they dress this up as trying to get a full house for home games, to my mind the underlying reason is greed , which , IMO was the whole basis for forming the Premiersh*t in the first place. By all means encourage ST holders to make their seats available if they can't attend but to penalise them for just not turning up smacks of profiteering to me.

For those that want to buy an ST simply to help the club out, is there an opportunity to purchase a "Virtual" seat thus not taking up a physical seat but still provide the donation?