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Paul Barber - Empty Seats - Detailed Response from the man himself



As some of you will know, I don't contribute much to this forum apart from my usual ramblings about how many tickets we have sold etc.
The number of empty seats is a favourite subject of mine and at my quieter times, I often have a look through and see what's left. I do this also as I love going to the Amex when it is full and the recent patches of emptiness have done nothing for the atmosphere.

I stated a thread a couple of days ago about ticket prices and made a comparison to Sunderland. It got a few responses, but the response that shocked me was the chap who basically had to shell out fifty quid to bring a mate to the Amex.

So, I put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and sent an email to Paul Barber this morning. In it I rattled on about what a super fan I was (yawn yawn) and how I think I know best (yawn yawn) and suggested a number of ideas for getting more bums on seats.

Well, within 5 minutes I had had a reply from the man himself. He was travelling but would respond later.

And just now, the full response dropped into my inbox. As you can see, some ideas where a no no. Some may be considered. He did refrain to pass comment the price of the premier league fixture or the example of the chap who had to spend £50 brining a mate, but he responded and responded well. From what I can see PB is doing a good job and I'm delighted to get such a fast, personal and detailed response to my email. Hat's off to him.

First is the email I send, followed by his response.

> Hi Paul,
>
> I hope you find the time to read my email. I'm not a nag, nor a
> persistent emailer/complainer, but I really thought you might like an
> insight to my views on the cost of visiting the Amex and the experience
> as a whole.
>
> By, the way. I regard myself as the perfect fan. From my youth, watching
> on the terrace at the Goldstone to holding a season ticket at Withdean.
> Myself and both my lads now have season tickets in the family stand and
> we thoroughly enjoy our Amex experience every time.
>
> It's perfect - nearly. For me the disappointment is seeing vast swathes
> of empty seats. There is nothing like the Amex completely full, but
> sadly, this is something we have been a very long way off experiencing
> this year.
>
> You can have your plaudits. We know we get the best gates in the
> championship and I think are 10th in the whole of the football league,
> but that does not mean things can't improve.
>
> I have long defended the Albion's match day pricing, but I can no longer.
>
> Did you realise it's £5 more to watch the Albion play Leicester than it
> costs to watch Liverpool in the Premiership this weekend? These are the
> lowest prices for both games by the way.
>
> Did you also realise that at the Bolton game, the lowest possible price
> for 2 season ticket holders to introduce a friend to the Amex experience
> was £50? (2 x £6 to move the STH's to another area of the ground and
> £37.50 for the ticket, with booking fees)
>
> I realise it's a difficult juggling act. We have FFP to consider and
> whilst empty seats don't earn any money, match day prices cannot be too
> cheap as not so many would want to buy season tickets - I get all that.
>
> But. Nobody buys a season ticket for their first football game. So when
> you consider for a couple to attend for the first time, they would have
> to spend £65 (for all but grade C games, including booking fees) for the
> lowest priced seat) we are going to find it hard to attract new blood.
> The kids / family pricing is excellent, but surely it's narrow minded to
> just target one demographic of new supporter?
>
> I might be wrong, but my guess is that the club has about 7000 tickets
> to sell on a match by match basis? And from what I have seen this
> season, we have only managed to shift close to 4000 (Milwall, due in a
> big part to the away support) once, and for most game, much less.
>
> So, how do you go about shifting these seats, without devaluing the
> season ticket?
>
> A) Make Block E1H the youth block. Make pricing the same as the senior's
> rate for every league game. The rate could be extended too all under 21
> years and up to 25 for those in full time education. This is the least
> popular part of the ground. Also, it has to be a good thing to have a
> block of punters between the family stand and some of the more vocal,
> less desirable noise that comes from some away followings
>
> B) Scrap the booking fees. They are out dated, possibly soon to be
> outlawed and are extremely unpopular. The good publicity leading to
> extra sales and general good feeling among supporters will surely out
> weigh the small financial hit to the club. Even Ryan Air are killing
> booking fees. Need I say more?
>
> Don't just scrap it for online sales. Scrap it for the shop sales -
> encourage punters in to spend their money on merchandise. Scrap it for
> the phones. The club must earn a fortune from that dam 0844 number anyhow.
>
> C) For games where there is clearly going to be spare capacity.
> Introduce a scheme for Season ticket holders to bring a friend for £20
> (fiver for kids). Let those STH's in full areas relocate for that game
> to another area without charge, so they can sit together.
>
> Idea C cannot fail! It values the season ticket holder as only they can
> bring someone. The value of the ticket is still no cheaper than a pro
> rata game rate for a STH and will bring bums on seats.
>
> D) Keep promoting season tickets. A half season ticket is a great idea.
> But why stop there? After the Forest game next week, there is going to
> be over 3 weeks until our next game. Sell a 17 match season ticket! All
> I hear are moans about pricing, only for STH's to gloat about the value.
> The answer to them is buy a season ticket! I know the club are selling
> pro rata season tickets now, but it ain't easy to find out about it
> online.
>
> E) Match day sales at the stadium. Now I know part of the planning
> dictated all games had to be all ticket, but surely this can change?
> Planning can be changed. Not for all games, but where it's clear it will
> not be a sell out and no history of trouble, it's a no brainer.
>
> F) Finally, lets have a mobile friendly number to call when we chose to
> spend our money. 0844's or anything starting 08 are expensive to call
>from mobiles as they are rarely included in bundled minutes and rates
> are usually as high as 50p per minute. The ticket office staff are
> great, but at popular times, a 30 minute wait is not unusual. A £15
> phone call to buy a ticket is not a good experience. 0300 numbers are
> the way forward, and something my own business is introducing next
> month. My guess is that a good proportion of first timers will call to
> buy their ticket, as they may also have other questions to ask about the
> most appropriate area of the ground or transport. Lets encourage them to
> call rather than slapping a penalty on their phone bill for doing so.
>
> The away fans would really benefit. As someone who attends 75% of away
> games, it's not always possible to make plans in advance. I have had
> fond memories of waking up Saturday morning and making a snap decision
> to go half way across the country for a game.
>
> It would also benefit home fans. The club could even charge extra for
> match day sales, earning more revenue, but also using it as leverage to
> buy in advance.
>
> If the club really can't get around the planning, then rather than a
> paper ticket you can print out, make it so that the barcode is sent to a
> smart phone. At least then a ticket could in theory be bought online
> whilst at Falmer station at 1430 on Saturday and you could just walk up
> to the turnstile. Have a facility for away fans to do the same.
>
> I hope you got this far and that some of my suggestions would be
> considered.
>
> I feel I am on the pulse with all things Brighton. As well as attending
> games, I have introduced many new season ticket holders over the past 3
> years, am a Friend of the Albion (not because it makes business sense,
> but because it's another way I can support the club I love) and I'm
> always chatting to fans, home and away and am fairly active on various
> Brighton message boards. So, please feel free to ask at any time for a
> real fans view on things
>
> My family have been rewarded for our support. On Tuesday my oldest boy
> will proudly be walking out with the team against Sheffield Wednesday.
> He is so excited. My only regret is there will be so many empty seats to
> great him.
>
> Finally, if you have got this far and have time to reply, do you have
> any objection to me posting this email on North Stand Chat?
>
> Thanks again for reading and keep up the great work
>
> Colin

And the response.......

Dear Colin

Further to my earlier note, thank you, once again, for your email which I
have now had time to read properly. It's always very encouraging to
receive such constructive feedback and I'm grateful to you for taking so
much time to set out your thoughts. Thank you also for your - and your
family's - great support for the club. It is very much appreciated.



Firstly, I would like to assure you that the sight of empty seats is
something that disappoints us too; this is of course our first full season
of having a capacity of a fraction over 30,000 seats. It has inevitably
raised some new challenges in terms of filling every seat for every game,
and particularly as just three years ago our crowds at Withdean averaged
just about 6,000.

The transformation is therefore phenomenal by any standards so we do have
to have temper our disappointment with some perspective, not least as we
secured the Championship's highest average attendances last season and I
believe we're already occupying top spot again this year. Like you,
however, we are not satisfied with this and in the Financial Fair Play
(FFP) environment, every pound of profitable revenue is extremely valuable
to us.

You are also right in thinking we now have significantly more match
tickets to sell - although after our visitor's allocation and variable
segregation lines are considered, it is thankfully not close to 7,000
tickets! - but nevertheless we do need to attract new people to the Amex
and, as you may have heard me say, one of our key strategic aims is to
develop and build our fan base, particularly amongst younger audiences.

Indeed,a lot of the ideas you have suggested are things we have also
thought of and are planning for through our marketing, supporter services
and ticketing teams. I will however respond to each of your points below.
Block E1H is priced to reflect block W1A on the opposite side of the
stadium. Currently, we do have good numbers of tickets available in E1A
and E1G where the lower priced family area tickets are available. Despite
occasional suggestions to the contrary, we do not hold back our lower
prices tickets. We do however release some lower (and higher) priced
tickets back for sale as and when they are returned to us by sponsors and
other commercial partners, sometimes quite close to the match itself.

We are currently working with the local universities on a promotion for
the Sheffield Wednesday game and our marketing team continue to build
relationships with both Sussex and Brighton Universities. It is difficult
for us to now introduce a youth price for 21-25 year olds when we have not
made this available to season ticket holders who commit upfront to every
league game. This season we have also introduced the C grade match
pricing, with a £25 adult price and a £10 under 18 price, this is cheaper
than the prices we were offering behind the goal last season.

I understand that booking fees are unpopular and we have tried to keep
these as low as possible, particularly online. However, over the last
couple of seasons, our charging structure meant we made unsustainable and
significant losses on booking fees reflecting the contract with our
ticketing software supplier. Indeed, each ticketing transaction we fulfil,
regardless of whether it is for a match ticket sale (for example a seat
move or season ticket sale), costs us money.

In addition, we incur costs for accepting credit/debit cards, printing and
postage, as well for other ticketing system and administration elements.
We must reduce our costs and drive greater efficiencies to support FFP and
I'm afraid scrapping fees for phone or in person sales is not efficient
for us as it is a slow booking method which requires staffing. We need to
drive sales online and to reduce our overheads. We hope that the
introduction of print and home tickets and the lower booking fees will
help this.

Regarding season ticket holders (STHs) bringing friends, this is something
we are looking at. We do give supporters the option to move but it is a
time consuming process that we are currently unable to offer online and we
can not support the number of phone calls or personal visits we would get
if we promoted this widely. We are therefore looking at ways we can
encourage STHs to bring friends but in a way that does not then cause
large amounts of administration and this may mean incentivising bringing 2
friends so they can sit together and close by their season ticket holding
friend (rather than in the seat next door). We still have work to do on
this as the process needs to be right.

With regards the ongoing sale of season tickets we have introduced a lower
price for fans that want to buy all the way up to the Bournemouth game on
1 January. We will not be reducing the price after every league game, but
we will have certain break points in pricing. We do also have outbound
sales call programmes - including activity to new ticket purchasers after
the recent Bolton game - and we made some additional new season ticket
sales off the back of this campaign.

As ever, we do also expect half season tickets to be popular. The
visibility of this offer is something I will pass on to our Marketing
team, but it's worth noting that a lot of this promotion is mailed
directly to specially targeted groups of supporters as we continue to
benefit from increased knowledge and mining of our supporter databases and
better segmentation of the information available to us.

On match day ticket sales, we are not able to promote these (too heavily)
due to planning and transport considerations. This is frustrating but we
are opening talks with local authorities to see how we can secure more
flexibility. I do believe we miss opportunities to sell tickets to casual
followers of the club because of the current restrictions. However, a
further consideration for us is our own operation as few modern day
football clubs are operationally geared for high levels of match day
ticket sales. We have very few ticket sales windows and those we do have
are often busy with collections and queries. Again, we are looking at
various technological solutions.

We are also looking at getting a mobile sales unit out and about in the
surrounding area - city centre, train station and other locations with
good footfall - to help sell more tickets both on match days and in the
run up to match days - you will even find it at the Shakedown Festival
this weekend! On the subject of the 0844 phone number, the expense of this
number does depend on your network provider. Our preference is, as I said
before to drive more sales online. We are a long way behind other clubs in
this regard and we do need sell a much higher percentage of tickets online
to become more efficient.

Finally, please rest assured (and you will see reference to some of this
in my Sheffield Wednesday programme notes) that we are continually looking
at different promotions, incentives and segments to expand ticket sales -
without damaging the integrity of our pricing or the value we provide to
season ticket holders - or to bring new audiences to the Amex for the
first time. This is a complex process and a long term game. We have come a
long way in a very short space of time but we are well aware we have much
still to do. Hopefully, these notes give you a flavour of some the
challenges we face but also some of the things we plan to do. Please feel
free to share the note with fellow supporters if you feel it is valuable
to do so.

Your continued support for the club, and that of so many like you, is very
much appreciated by all of us here.

Kind regards, Paul



Paul Barber
Chief Executive
 








severnside gull

Well-known member
May 16, 2007
24,540
By the seaside in West Somerset
you dont have to be a fan of all he says and does to be impressed by the man....... an asset to the club in my opinion. :thumbsup:
 






dejavuatbtn

Well-known member
Aug 4, 2010
7,183
Henfield
The current problem with on-line sales is that they only offer sections of the ground at a time, and these seem to be seats in the front rows or in less favoured positions etc. That's why people prefer to phone the ticket office to negotiate a better seat.
 




PWA

European Tour 2023/24
Jul 23, 2011
1,467
West Sussex
I went for the Albion job and he turned me down personally in an email so I applaud the man.
 




Notters

Well-known member
Oct 20, 2003
24,869
Guiseley
I stopped reading at D). They've been advertising pro-rata season tickets throughout every match. Id be well annoyed having to read that if I were Barber.
 


Mackenzie

Old Brightonian
Nov 7, 2003
33,533
East Wales
Like the idea of mobile ticket sales......a few ticket windows at Brighton station would do well.
 














severnside gull

Well-known member
May 16, 2007
24,540
By the seaside in West Somerset
Whatever you think about the things he implements on behalf of the club, as far as I can tell everybody who has sent him any correspondence has had a detailed, thought-out reply, and he must earn respect for that (but I'm sure he won't in certain quarters).

I read all through that reply from PB - did he actually say anything? ???

QED .......... and the very next post :lolol:
 


I stopped reading at D). They've been advertising pro-rata season tickets throughout every match. Id be well annoyed having to read that if I were Barber.

That's great - but my emphasis is on new fans. Their first port of call will be the website. If there is any info on Pro Rata season tickets here then I missed it.

Those being advertised to are already in the ground and I would have guessed, bought a ticket. However, I have not seen these adverts. They certainly are not on the wall in front of where we take a pee. They are the only ad's I see at the Amex.
 


Creaky

Well-known member
Mar 26, 2013
3,842
Hookwood - Nr Horley
QED .......... and the very next post :lolol:

PB has my utmost respect! As far as I can tell he is a very astute business, financial and marketing man - part of those jobs often requires statements that at face value appear to be informative whilst actually making zero commitment. The email reply to the OP fits this requirement perfectly and illustrates just how good PB is at his job.
 


maltaseagull

Well-known member
Feb 25, 2009
12,986
Zabbar- Malta
I read all through that reply from PB - did he actually say anything? ???

It was a detailed response that said thank you very much for your ideas, we are either already doing it ,planning to or cannot implement them.

However full marks to both the OP and to PB for the thought and effort.

To be fair there are not many organisations that would respond in such detail. You would usually get a "thank you for your feedback we will consider all your suggestions"
 




dougdeep

New member
May 9, 2004
37,732
SUNNY SEAFORD
It sounds to me like he said thank you but we know best.
 


bennibenj

Well-known member
Mar 6, 2011
2,063
Sompting
What a brilliant email to PB and also a superb response.

He is doing a job and tbh, he is doing it well. He is very easy to approach in both written or verbal form. Like someone else said, a real asset to the club. All interactions I have had with him, I have felt like he answered all my questions and that he has taken the time to read what I have said.
 


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