...putting aside all other issues besides cost for BFC's woes, is not the concept of the 'Season ticket' now a bit outdated? The reason I say this is because people nowadays are often busy/working hours are longer and more variable i.e. no longer are most people 9-5 Mon-Fri workers and there are many more distractions/jobs that stop people being able to attend every game. It doesnt take many missed matches to make a season ticket an unattractive proposition. Instead, why dont they sell books of vouchers... 5, 10, 15, 20 and full season each one progressively more discounted that the holder can use for ANY league match?
You start by saying you think that the concept of a season ticket is outdated and end by saying that you feel a ticket for the full season should be sold. That's exactly what a season ticket is. In actual fact you aren't saying that a season ticket is outdated at all, merely that you believe the club should offer part season tickets alongside season tickets and on that one I very much agree with you. However there are a few problems with this. If 5,000 people buy a 5 match ticket, 8,000 buy a 10 match ticket, 3,000 buy a 15 match ticket and a further 5,000 buy a 20 match ticket with your standard 6,000 buying a full season ticket and every one of those people decided that Leeds was the game they wanted to go to how would they all fit into the ground? With that in mind I don't think that simply 'buy a 10 match ticket and turn up to any 10 matches' would work, there would have to be more to it than that, i'm sure it is possible but it would require some thinking and planning from the club and there we have the sticking point.
Its not that hard If you want to guarantee a particular seat buy a season ticket if you want to buy discounted tickets you pay for 5 , or 10 and have to convert them into match tickets for the games you want in advance - in the unlikely event a game is sold out its first come first served - but obvously people with advance purchase should have an oppertunity before general sale I think its a great idea but it wont happen
Think they've tried the £50 for 3 matches thing before (or something like that) and it must not have worked...although the current lot don't have a clue so it might have done. I honestly think Rowing and his chums are so bad that they'd cause a branch of Tesco to close down at Christmas if they were in charge.
Durrr!! You dont sell (or have available at any given time) more vouchers sold than seats available in the ground (less a percentage for away fan allocation and statutory requirements for 'on the gate'). It should be relatively easy to keep track of those sold vouchers used so they can 'top up' by selling more voucher books as the season progresses. As regards 'Season tickets' there is no contradiction. Some people may be able to attend all home games so they sould have that option (again at the highest discount rate) Stop looking for all the negatives and think it out before you dismiss any new ideas. The current system is really poor and is one factor killing the club .
Re: Might be a bit radical BUT.....PS ..The voucher would be the equivalent of 'pay at the turnstile' but no cash is handed over. Sooo..... the only issue is the same seat is not guaranteed. 'Best seats are allocated on a 'first come first served' basis. That is one of the incentives to get a season ticket rather than a 20 voucher book apart from the small extra discount per game. Any half decent computer system could track the ticket/voucher sales to ensure no more tickets/vouchers than seats are available at any one time. Bear in mind that unless the gates are near full capacity then the 'too many vouchers used for 'big' games situation' is not likely to happen anyway.
When I'm not hungover I'm going to sit down and put some proper analysis together on all the connotations of season ticket and matchday ticket pricing and present it to the club. You'd like to think they would have already done a lot of this and they have much more detailed information to analyse but I really don't think they have bothered to look at it properly.
Perhaps they shpuld start with a survey of existing, recently lapsed and past lapsed STHs (although they probably haven't a clue about the latter). They could ask questions relating to cost of tickets and schemes along the lines of what I put above. Only with information ...err market research, focus groups anyone???...can they have a strategy for revenue generation. Currently they are like a rudderless ship and all these discount and pricing schemes seem to be based on guessworkand simply dont work.
They just need to employ some of the basics of consumer marketing to actually build a relationship and understanding of what their consumers actually want. And then provide it. Its not rocket science and the club could use marketing interns from local universities to help improve the marketing of the club for little additional cost.
