[Albion] Club selling your seat, is this right?

[Victor Chandler]

That's awful. I hope your son's anxiety issues start to abate.

But I'd be inclined to let the club know.

Firstly, because there clearly is an issue with people having season tickets and not making their seat available if they cant attend. You patently have a reason why you might not be able to attend at short notice, but the outcome (two empty seats) on the face of it is indististinguishable from someone choosing not to go.

Secondly, because our club really does care about supporters. It clearly does, time and again. They might be able to help you, or your son. There might be things they can do to help him feel less anxious coming to games. My experience is that they go above and beyond when they are made aware of issues.

You shouldn't have to tell them. You don't have to. But it could help and I'm sure they would want to.

Good luck with this. Its tough being a parent.

Well said. Great post. Supportive, practical, caring, sensitive but above all kind.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Talby said in post 519 that he was hospitalised and yet you’re lecturing him on commitment?

I'm not lecturing him on anything, he said supporters give the club money, I said they give something back i.e. a discount to reward people for their committment. Being hospitalised has nothing to do with this as the club have stated there are options available should you be seriously ill....and from experiece this has been backed up with actions and support far in excess of what I would have expected.

 

[Jovis]

So what happens for the Villa game when the exchange doesn’t open? Evening game, during term time…will all the no shows be getting an email?

 

[Clive Walker]

It’s shitty whichever way you look at it. We’ve paid our dosh and should be able attend or not. Maybe making sharing tickets easier and cheaper for all parties.

 

[Guinness Boy]

If you tolerate this, then your children will be next.........

At first you got a card that could be passed to someone else, so long as discreetly, if someone else couldn't go. It was a Godsend. I went with my son in the Championship, my mate who lived round the corner and his son and we met a big group of mixed adults and kids at the ground. In the Championship there were regular evening games which not every child could make due to bedtimes. So one of the cards would be a (paid) upgrade to an adult. Every now and again a kid would be grounded / sick / have something else to do. So another kid got to use the card for free and got a taste of top level Championship football. If an adult was working away in the week we could usually put a bum on the seat. And because of this my son is an Albion obsessed young adult with his own STH and six to ten aways a season.

Then the card was removed and you had to have a phone.

Then your name was put on your ticket when you went away and random ticket office collections became the norm.

Then the emails about absence started.

What's next?

We're constantly told how well run the club is, how we're different, how we're a community club, how we're data driven. But here we're using data as a sledgehammer to crack a nut. If you've missed 'x' games you get an email. Period. No empathetic human reaction. No attempt to see what your absence rate since we entered the Premier League was or if you were a ticket user at Withdean, which would flush out the majority of the two team Terrys just using the ticket for the odd match. A blunt instrument targeting sick pensioners, kids with anxiety and people whose work dictates they may be called in at the last minute.

If you want to really know where we are, it's siding against Premier League regulation and therefore two democratically elected governments and the majority of football fans and with the likes of Baroness Brady, the Saudi PIF and the government of Abu Dhabi.

 

[Joey Jo Jo Jr. Shabadoo]

So what happens for the Villa game when the exchange doesn’t open? Evening game, during term time…will all the no shows be getting an email?

If you list your ticket on the exchange you’re covered regardless of the ticket selling or not, or the exchange not even opening.

 

[Simster]

Talby said in post 519 that he was hospitalised and yet you’re lecturing him on commitment?

You do your argument no good with this sort of overstatement. HT is doing no such thing - he's pointing out that a season ticket offers a discount in return for commitment. There's quite clearly no lecture there whatsoever.

My opinion is this: the problem is that the club is at its most successful point in history and now has to walk a fine line between maximising ticket availability for supporters/new fans unable to commit every week and not upsetting those who make the season ticket commitment. With a finite number of seats available, it simply has to weed out those STHs who are in a position to skip games and leave their seats empty. It's not just about maximising revenue, it's also about maximising availability for new and casual fans. (How else do you expect these people to become the STHs of the future if you're not giving them the chance to attend?)

There's a lot of emotive stuff understandably being written on here about very specific circumstances, and the club does need to be aware of these situations and have procedures in place to sensitively handle those like @PILTDOWN MAN's son. But those very specific examples shouldn't prevent the measures that they are now trying to put in place. The new rules appear very fair to me (75% of attendance, 24 hours notice etc), but they do need to treat absence with kid gloves for this season as those rules haven't been implemented yet.

 

[Paulie Gualtieri]

So what happens for the Villa game when the exchange doesn’t open? Evening game, during term time…will all the no shows be getting an email?

Nothing will happen if the exchange doesn’t open

 

[Weststander]

So what happens for the Villa game when the exchange doesn’t open? Evening game, during term time…will all the no shows be getting an email?

If it’s their 5th (or is it 4th) no show, yes.

It was noticeable that the Amex was rammed at evening fixtures during term times in the closing months of 2022/23, as we closed in on European football. Showing the potential.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

I'm not lecturing him on anything, he said supporters give the club money, I said they give something back i.e. a discount to reward people for their committment. Being hospitalised has nothing to do with this as the club have stated there are options available should you be seriously ill....and from experiece this has been backed up with actions and support far in excess of what I would have expected.

I take on board what @Simster said, and apologise for my previous post saying lecturing, but a bit of common sense will tell you that if you become seriously ill, telling the club is the last thing on your mind.

 

[chaileyjem]

If you've missed 'x' games you get an email. Period. No empathetic human reaction. No attempt to see what your absence rate since we entered the Premier League was or if you were a ticket user at Withdean, which would flush out the majority of the two team Terrys just using the ticket for the odd match. A blunt instrument targeting sick pensioners, kids with anxiety and people whose work dictates they may be called in at the last minute.

"targeting ? " . Yes. We've evidence on this thread of several examples of generic emails that some have rightly , given their personal situation, have reacted badly too.
We've also a lot more evidence of NSC users - dozens and dozens of them on other threads sharing how the club have gone out of their way to help the old, ill and families with ticketing issues with patience and success.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

"targeting ? " . Yes. We've evidence on this thread of several examples of generic emails that some have rightly , given their personal situation, have reacted badly too.
We've also a lot more evidence of NSC users - dozens and dozens of them on other threads sharing how the club have gone out of their way to help the old, ill and families with ticketing issues with patience and success.

Again, these were not generic emails but specific to the person, and sometimes with inaccurate information from the club.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

I take on board what @Simster said, and apologise for my previous post saying lecturing, but a bit of common sense will tell you that if you become seriously ill, telling the club is the last thing on your mind.

Fair play and apology accepted although there was no need.

I totally understand the situation with being seriously ill. But this isn’t really the point because the club do, and will listen in such situations but you do have to tell them. It doesn’t have to be the minute you are ill, but getting in touch and talking to them is beneficial. Sadly, there are to many people out there who will, and do, take the piss…so this is about protecting the vulnerable as much as it is clamping down on piss takers.

@Couldn't Be Hyypia put it very eloquently.

 

[Guinness Boy]

"targeting ? " . Yes. We've evidence on this thread of several examples of generic emails that some have rightly , given their personal situation, have reacted badly too.
We've also a lot more evidence of NSC users - dozens and dozens of them on other threads sharing how the club have gone out of their way to help the old, ill and families with ticketing issues with patience and success.

Like I said, a club that's so good at data analysis should be much better equipped to tell people who just have an ST for a few big games and those who've had difficult circumstances in a certain period. A review of attendance over the Premier League life of their ticket would do it.

 

[chaileyjem]

Again, these were not generic emails but specific to the person, and sometimes with inaccurate information from the club.

yes. understood.

 

[Guinness Boy]

Fair play and apology accepted although there was no need.

I totally understand the situation with being seriously ill. But this isn’t really the point because the club do, and will listen in such situations but you do have to tell them. It doesn’t have to be the minute you are ill, but getting in touch and talking to them is beneficial. Sadly, there are to many people out there who will, and do, take the piss…so this is about protecting the vulnerable as much as it is clamping down on piss takers.

You shouldn't have to tell them. It's dead easy to tell those who've had a ticket for years but only ever check in against Man Utd, Liverpool and Arsenal against those who've had a block of absence or scattered one game absences but went to Wolves on a Monday night.

 

[chaileyjem]

Like I said, a club that's so good at data analysis should be much better equipped to tell people who just have an ST for a few big games and those who've had difficult circumstances in a certain period. A review of attendance over the Premier League life of their ticket would do it.

Agreed. And a review of data to establish performance would look at perhaps more than 1-2 anecdotes to conclude how a club is dealing with issues like ticketing and whether they are being empathetic with fans that have health, financial or similar problems that are preventing them attending games.

 

[Couldn't Be Hyypia]

It’s shitty whichever way you look at it. We’ve paid our dosh and should be able attend or not. Maybe making sharing tickets easier and cheaper for all parties.

That is the better argument.

But again - as I understand it (and I really miss the days when you could discretely share your season ticket) - the issue is the d1ckheads who share their ticket with known trouble-makers and away fans getting tickets. If there is no control, there is no control. This is a wider argument, but I can see why the club would want (a) a full stadium and (b) to be able to control access to the ground.

 

[portlock seagull]

Stupid to contest it? Even if you’ve a genuine reason?

Yes - because you’ve been told to put up for sale and if you don’t (for a quarter of games, that’s 25%!) then they retain the right to withdraw. As other posters have written and has been made dozens of times on this thread alone, nobody is going to hit that number without bloody good reason other than indifference or incompetence. The former we want rid of, the latter is stupidity and I’d also say we want rid of those STHs also. Now, what on earth is so hard to understand about that? Anyone who doesn’t is most definitely stupid. In fact they’ve done bloody well to complete a STH application if so all things considered.

 

[amexer]

I would guess that 1901 always sells out when renewal arrives because they are rightly allowed to pass ticket on. Some of these new people like the experience and take out 1901 membership when available. Certainly I and am sure others have introduced people to take out STs after they enjoyed the experience when a ticicket was passed to them. This of course no longer happens now these potenial people have to become members and pay match day prices for inital experience. Also didnt help when I persuaded someone to come along who doesnt have a moble and paid i think £3.50 to print a ticket at home.