Better than some of the comments in this thread where people have forgotten they were even given a £50 discount for loyalty!
It's not a crime to have a bad memory. Not everyone has a brain like @JLWBigLil. It would have cost nothing to remind everyone about last year's discount. It would even have been good, from a PR perspective.
Possibly. Wouldn’t want to disagree too much. Nothing wrong with having a bit of a breather before you go hell for leather on the internet either though
If we were reminded of a discount for last season a lot of people would have gone absolutely batshit mental.
Wasn’t that £50 really a partial discount for people that forked out for a season behind closed doors last season? I don’t think the club could afford the sort of discount that would compensate people that have sat through every game this season.
I didn't use a voucher though did I? I renewed my ticket and was charged an amount. The amount to renew this year is now higher. No voucher involved
You’re arguing semantics there in that post. It was essentially a discount voucher, but if you want to call it a discount without a voucher then the post still stands.
Meanwhile at the Kwik-E-Mart Hello sir, how may I help? You said there was a price freeze, but this is £50 more expensive than last time. That's right sir, a price freeze. How can it be a price freeze if I'm paying £50 more? It's only £50 more than you actually paid sir, not £50 more than we wanted to charge you. eh? You see sir, last time we wanted to charge you what you are paying this time. But last time you'd just spent a year buying something that we never gave you, so we had to give you a discount. A discount? Oh yes sir, a wonderful discount. After you'd paid for a year of nothing, we gave you a £50 pound discount for the next year, so you paid for two years but received one, minus the discount. But we didn't want to give you that discount. You didn't? Oh no sir. We wanted to charge you what you are paying this year. So we're freezing the price we wanted to charge you last year and charging it to you this year. A price freeze. You're very lucky sir. Am I? Oh yes sir. And don't worry about that discount because now we're taking it back! Taking it back? Yes sir, as well as charging you what we wanted to charge you last year, we're also not giving you a shirt! We lent you the discount for a year and now we're having it back, with interest. Doh! But at least you have the price freeze! eh? Thank you, come again.
In the spirit of being fair and even-handed. These are the prices I've paid for my adult ST in the East Stand Upper for the last 9 years. 13/14 £340 14/15 £370 15/16 £370 16/17 £370 17/18 £370 18/19 £390 19/20 £390 20/21 £249 (Covid, iFollow access) 21/22 £340 (£390 - £50 loyalty discount) Can't really complain about £390 next season. As I said above, it feels like bad comms to me. The club really should have sold this as "after the turmoil of the pandemic and the special pricing adopted during this period, our early bird prices will be reverting to the level charged in 2018/19 and 2019/20. Mindful of the financial pressures experienced by many, if not all, of our supporters, our prices have been held at the level charged 4 years ago, despite inflationary impacts on the club's running expenses." It's the way you tell it. "Price freeze" is not the way to describe something that's a bit more complicated.
Completely different business model. Pizza Express are a global restaurant brand that serves pizza to millions of transient customers in thousands of towns and cities across the world. Barnsley Football Club is a community based business, at a single fixed location, who strive to retain the same small group of supporters over generations. To stick with the analogy though, let’s extend it for completeness. Scrap season tickets. There aren’t any at Pizza Express. Instead, people visit Oakwell maybe two or three times a year, whenever they get a discount voucher, or maybe a works do or birthday, or if they’re working away and it’s on expenses. If they have a $hit experience though, they probably won’t go again. Next time they will get tickets to a different Club instead. We’d be non-league, or extinct, within 10 years. They can say it’s a price freeze against previous seasons. They can say it’s a price freeze against new sale prices from last season, even though that still wouldn’t apply to many fans. What they can’t do is tell me I’m getting a price freeze on last season. I’m not. I’m paying 20% more than I did last season. No interpretation there. It simply isn’t a price freeze. It just feels like more poor PR, to add to the pile. When trust is already minus zero, things like this just do not help. And they’re completely avoidable. Just get the comms right. It won’t stop me renewing. I can afford the extra £50. But it’s not a price freeze. For me.
I’ll pay it anyway, just thought I’d be paying what I did last season with the word ‘freeze’. Paying £10 more without a shirt is a bit rubbish, and after the season we have had it’s really rubbish. We deserved plenty last season paying full pops for nothing, but I appreciate that the covid no fans situation wasn’t the clubs fault Anyway, I’ll still be going, and will pay it. It’s still decent value even for league one.
That’s a pretty lengthy post. I don’t think the community bit matters or that it’s football vs. global retail. Product A cost me x last year because I was given a one off loyalty discount. Product A is costing me x the following year, which is the same price as the previous year, but I no longer have the one off loyalty discount. Because, as I knew at the time last year, it was a one off loyalty discount based on an unprecedented situation and year. A reward I wouldn’t continue to get every season ongoing. Whether you take that analogy to Pizza Express, Glastonbury, or any industry, that’s what has happened in black and white. Could they have worded it better? Maybe. But then you can’t always predict a reaction like this when you don’t see it in the same way.
You could always add to the discussion with a bit more detail? Just a thought like. The likes keep on coming as well (that's not in reply to you).