I was talking to a few footballing friends at work about ticketing and, couple with the big crowd on Saturday, it got me thinking how we could get more people through the gate consistently.
We came up with four key considerations:
- Any schemes can't undermine season ticket holders.
- You have to balance the cost of a higher attendance with the ticket prices; e.g. police, stewards, gate staff, etc.
- Any offer has to focus on fan retention, rather than just one-off discounts, etc.
- Can offers apply to away fans and is it detrimental to a club to have a big away attendance when playing at home?
Bradford seemed to have got the balance right a few year ago, making the most of their big support from their spell in the Premier League to keep attendances up with cheaper season tickets. I don't think that we could afford to gamble by doing something like this, our fan base isn't big enough, but there must be a way of innovating that would allow us to swell our gate receipts.
With a season ticket, the price per game for an adult is £16.50, compared to a £20 normally. With this in mind, there could be a few options:
- Ratcheted discounts; say saving 50p a ticket on a cumulative basis up to a maximum saving of £2.
- Batch discounts; like the old green memberships (I don't think these still exist?) where you can make a saving by picking 4, 6, 7, etc., games to go to. Discounts could be on a similar ratchet system to the above.
- Family discounts - often offered anyway.
- Packages for away fans - programme, drink, food, etc. More to engage support with the FanFests?
- How do we engage with the local community? Offers for schools, clubs, etc.
- Packages for Argyle fans travelling long distances. What could be the potential for the club putting on a coach offer for London fans, for example?
I suppose the ultimate question is whether, giving the relatively tight margin between a match day ticket and season ticket price, there is enough room to really incentivise people to keep coming back or coming from further afield. It'd be interesting to see what other people think might work and whether there actually could be a workable ticketing incentive.
:scarf: :scarf: :scarf:
We came up with four key considerations:
- Any schemes can't undermine season ticket holders.
- You have to balance the cost of a higher attendance with the ticket prices; e.g. police, stewards, gate staff, etc.
- Any offer has to focus on fan retention, rather than just one-off discounts, etc.
- Can offers apply to away fans and is it detrimental to a club to have a big away attendance when playing at home?
Bradford seemed to have got the balance right a few year ago, making the most of their big support from their spell in the Premier League to keep attendances up with cheaper season tickets. I don't think that we could afford to gamble by doing something like this, our fan base isn't big enough, but there must be a way of innovating that would allow us to swell our gate receipts.
With a season ticket, the price per game for an adult is £16.50, compared to a £20 normally. With this in mind, there could be a few options:
- Ratcheted discounts; say saving 50p a ticket on a cumulative basis up to a maximum saving of £2.
- Batch discounts; like the old green memberships (I don't think these still exist?) where you can make a saving by picking 4, 6, 7, etc., games to go to. Discounts could be on a similar ratchet system to the above.
- Family discounts - often offered anyway.
- Packages for away fans - programme, drink, food, etc. More to engage support with the FanFests?
- How do we engage with the local community? Offers for schools, clubs, etc.
- Packages for Argyle fans travelling long distances. What could be the potential for the club putting on a coach offer for London fans, for example?
I suppose the ultimate question is whether, giving the relatively tight margin between a match day ticket and season ticket price, there is enough room to really incentivise people to keep coming back or coming from further afield. It'd be interesting to see what other people think might work and whether there actually could be a workable ticketing incentive.
:scarf: :scarf: :scarf:
