[Albion] Carabao Cup Fourth Round: Charlton - 3rd allocation of tickets

[Uh_huh_him]

I'm sure I read somewhere (possibly this thread) that all tickets had been sent out by the 7th December which was 2 weeks ago. I fail to believe that the every other bit of mail that has been sent to me in that time has made it to my local sorting office (which I've had quite a bit for reasons I won't go in to) apart from some tickets which have got to travel 20 miles up the road.

Oh and for anyone using the online duplicate request you need to find your transaction number which can be found by clicking on your name in the top right and going on the tickets tab.

Just all seems a bit suss to me. Given that it's currently raining and I'm feeling slightly under the weather not sure I can be bothered now. I'll see how I feel after this lemsip.

Sorry I assumed you were joking.

The club haven't failed to mail the tickets. The strikes/Xmas mail/Recent weather have caused a massive backlog in unsorted mail.

The point you are missing is how mail sortation works.
I work in the industry so know a bit about this, but still it only really occurred to me today.

DSA providers (UKMail/Whistl etc) supply the mail from Printers across the country, into the correct RM distribution centres, ready sorted into the right orde for RM to prepare for delivery by the postie.
Items distributed by this method will be delayed by the strikes, but in general will be delayed by a predictable amount of time.

At this time of year, parcel post goes through the roof and a lot of it has guaranteed delivery terms so will be prioritised at each sorting office.

Anything that has been dumped into a post box or handed to RM for them to sort (our tickets) is going to have huge delays.
Strikes/SNOW /XMAs period have all combined to make this period, the absolute worst time to send unsorted mail.

 

[Comrade Sam]

See you all at 17:45!

 

[Guinness Boy]

Yeah same problem here - you can get it from your account details on the ticket site (under Tickets section)

My guess is that someone at the ground will be printing off tickets in readiness for 17:45 - so the quicker people register, the quicker the queue will go down.

You would certainly hope that this will operate similar to a gig or theatre box office where they are pre-printed and stored in alphabetical rows based on surname of lead ticket holder.

Anything else will be mayhem.

 

[Uh_huh_him]

I'm thinking the same. I've received Christmas cards that are franked last Friday, but not my tickets yet.

My guess is you are more likely to get stuff received after the strike days than you are stuff that was caught in a backlog, during the strike days.

 

[Paulie Gualtieri]

You would certainly hope that this will operate similar to a gig or theatre box office where they are pre-printed and stored in alphabetical rows based on surname of lead ticket holder.

Anything else will be mayhem.

Their owner loves a guitar so hope the inner workings of gigs has been ingrained into his operatives.

N.B he has sacked quite a few people around the club recently though!

 

[Arthur]

Sorry I assumed you were joking.

The club haven't failed to mail the tickets. The strikes/Xmas mail/Recent weather have caused a massive backlog in unsorted mail.

The point you are missing is how mail sortation works.
I work in the industry so know a bit about this, but still it only really occurred to me today.

DSA providers (UKMail/Whistl etc) supply the mail from Printers across the country, into the correct RM distribution centres, ready sorted into the right orde for RM to prepare for delivery by the postie.
Items distributed by this method will be delayed by the strikes, but in general will be delayed by a predictable amount of time.

At this time of year, parcel post goes through the roof and a lot of it has guaranteed delivery terms so will be prioritised at each sorting office.

Anything that has been dumped into a post box or handed to RM for them to sort (our tickets) is going to have huge delays.
Strikes/SNOW /XMAs period have all combined to make this period, the absolute worst time to send unsorted mail.

No need to be patronising.

In the bundle of mail my postie mate brought round this morning it had two hand written christmas cards, three letters from my insurance company and one from Sussex police.

On top of that someone in one of our WhatsApp group who lives in the same town got her Everton away ticket yesterday so the club are able to send out some tickets.

 

[Uh_huh_him]

It's not like Charlton can't use the blanks or ink and toner etc. for later games though.
There was always going to be a much larger than usual number collecting because of the strikes, I understand they want to minimise the number but compressing the time available to deal with the problem doesn't seem like a sensible trade off.

Yeah sure - but I'm guessing like most businesses they run stock levels at an appropriate level.
Charlton have 3 home games over a 9 day period all potentially requiring duplicate tickets at higher levels than normal.

That's likely to have pushed them beyond their usual contingency measures.
It may be essential to keep the number of tickets to a minimum.

I can see an argument for it, tbh.

 

[Uh_huh_him]

No need to be patronising.

In the bundle of mail my postie mate brought round this morning it had two hand written christmas cards, three letters from my insurance company and one from Sussex police.

On top of that someone in one of our WhatsApp group who lives in the same town got her Everton away ticket yesterday so the club are able to send out some tickets.

I wasn't being patronising.
I genuinely thought you were joking by suggesting the club hadn't sent out tickets deliberately.

As I mentioned above the way post comes through to all of us is going to be haphazard.
My guess is that the distribution dates for the Charlton tickets happened to be the absolute worst dates this year to push unsorted mail into the postal system.
4 strike days- Snow and Christmas have combined for this to be a clusterfuck.

 

[Lincolnshire Seagull]

Wow - sorry to gloat - mine just arrived now. Nearly gave the postie a kiss, but he's got a horrible bushy beard

 

[Titanic]

Post has arrived this morning... no joy

 

[Sid and the Sharknados]

Yeah sure - but I'm guessing like most businesses they run stock levels at an appropriate level.
Charlton have 3 home games over a 9 day period all potentially requiring duplicate tickets at higher levels than normal.

That's likely to have pushed them beyond their usual contingency measures.
It may be essential to keep the number of tickets to a minimum.

I can see an argument for it, tbh.

Based on what I've read on here from their supporters, I'm not sure Charlton can be trusted to run anything at an appropriate level.
If they've got three home games in close succession, all of which are likely to be affected by a postal strike, they should be prepared for the eventuality that they have to print off a lot of replacement tickets. That's entirely predictable, it shouldn't have anything to do with their normal contingency measures.
Leaving it to the morning of the game and hoping the post sorts itself out at the last minute isn't a solution.

 

[studio150]

You would certainly hope that this will operate similar to a gig or theatre box office where they are pre-printed and stored in alphabetical rows based on surname of lead ticket holder.

Anything else will be mayhem.

Although most gigs and theatres these days are etickets. You never know football may catch up one day.

 

[Uh_huh_him]

Based on what I've read on here from their supporters, I'm not sure Charlton can be trusted to run anything at an appropriate level.
If they've got three home games in close succession, all of which are likely to be affected by a postal strike, they should be prepared for the eventuality that they have to print off a lot of replacement tickets. That's entirely predictable, it shouldn't have anything to do with their normal contingency measures.
Leaving it to the morning of the game and hoping the post sorts itself out at the last minute isn't a solution.

This situation really isn't business as usual, so I'm not surprised some drastic measures have been put in place.
The club could not have known there was an issue until it became clear that a high proportion of tickets posted on 6th had not arrived within 1 week of posting.

The guidelines from Royal Mail indicated there would still be enough time for 1st class post sent on 13th to arrive in time.
Clearly that hasn't been the case and the clubs are reacting to the situation as best they can, given 1 week to organise an appropriate response.

 

[hampshirebrightonboy]

I used the website to request a reprint of the tickets but did not receive an email.
Does not appear to be anything recorded in ticketing history either.
Anyone that has done the same - Is it the same for you?

 

[jcdenton08]

Barber out

 

[Guinness Boy]

Although most gigs and theatres these days are etickets. You never know football may catch up one day.

It has for home tickets TBF. Whether a League One or Two team needs the same process as a Premier League team is also a question. And you know that there would be people on here going "what if I don't have a smartphone, what if I've lost my charger" etc etc.

But, I largely agree with you. Posting out 6000 paper tickets over Christmas with strikes on is madness. A QR Code would have solved all these issues.

 

[Deleted member 37369]

When I go to Worthing games I order the ticket online and add the ticket to my Apple Wallet which is then scanned at the turnstile!!

If a NLS team can do it ....

 

[Uh_huh_him]

It has for home tickets TBF. Whether a League One or Two team needs the same process as a Premier League team is also a question. And you know that there would be people on here going "what if I don't have a smartphone, what if I've lost my charger" etc etc.

But, I largely agree with you. Posting out 6000 paper tickets over Christmas with strikes on is madness. A QR Code would have solved all these issues.

Yeah I agree with this.
Even worse was continuing to sell approximately 500 tickets after the last mailing date.
The queue was already 500 strong, before the mail issue had even been identified.

 

[timbha]

people are frustrated and anxious about their tickets and need someone to blame. I’m still not sure what the Albion (and Charlton) could do to cater for this perfect storm. The root of the problem is that Royal Mail have failed to do what they were paid to do because the Postman went on strike. It’s also their busiest time of the year not helped by bad weather.

Bearing in mind many of us have only paid £10 for the ticket our expectations of Charlton or Albion developing a QR code at short notice for this single match is a little fanciful.

Let’s hope we all get in on time and win.

 

[nicko31]

When I go to Worthing games I order the ticket online and add the ticket to my Apple Wallet which is then scanned at the turnstile!!

If a NLS team can do it ....

It really ain't rocket science especially with the prevelance of smart phones and software on the market. Guess more of a Charlton problem