I had a chance to speak to Paul Barber last night about the ticket sales process today and he openly shared his frustrations with me. Frustrations of the process that the club are working within, and frustrations at some of the more direct criticism that is levelled against the club on this subject. The key points discussed are below, some of which were covered in Paul's email to NSCer Giraffe which has already been published here.
- The club do not hold back cheap tickets to try and force people into buying more expensive seats. They do, however, intentionally release blocks in sequence for reasons of operational efficiency. Any block that has had even one ticket sold has to be fully staffed and this costs. As such the club will only release a new block when earlier block(s) are close to full. This approach clearly makes sense.
- There are a LARGE number of tickets that are reserved club sponsors and partners as well as to the Football League and club scouts etc. These tickets are paid for, in the same way any fan pays for a ticket but, on occasion, they go unused. The club won't know this in advance - the first they'll know is when club officials see the empty seats as we do. However, the club are working with these groups to have seats returned to the club for re-sale as quickly as possible when it is known that they won't be used. It is when this return takes place that we see extra tickets become available.
- Probably most significantly, the ticketing system is still not at a level, technically, that the club are happy with. Manual intervention is often required to keep things ticking along. The club have put processes in place to provide greater monitoring so that remedial actions can be taken. The club signed a long term agreement with its ticket service provider prior to the Amex opening and has been working closely with the supplier ever since to improve the quality of the service provided to supporters. This is an ongoing process and, whilst there have been improvements in the last couple of seasons, Paul and his team readily accept that, like most ticketing platforms, it is not a perfect system.
The single line that stuck with me though, was when Paul said he wanted to sell as many tickets as he can so Oscar has spending money in January (if needed). Amen to that.
Ultimately, it was a constructive discussion which left me in no doubt that the club are trying very hard to achieve what we all want - as many bums on seats as possible.
- The club do not hold back cheap tickets to try and force people into buying more expensive seats. They do, however, intentionally release blocks in sequence for reasons of operational efficiency. Any block that has had even one ticket sold has to be fully staffed and this costs. As such the club will only release a new block when earlier block(s) are close to full. This approach clearly makes sense.
- There are a LARGE number of tickets that are reserved club sponsors and partners as well as to the Football League and club scouts etc. These tickets are paid for, in the same way any fan pays for a ticket but, on occasion, they go unused. The club won't know this in advance - the first they'll know is when club officials see the empty seats as we do. However, the club are working with these groups to have seats returned to the club for re-sale as quickly as possible when it is known that they won't be used. It is when this return takes place that we see extra tickets become available.
- Probably most significantly, the ticketing system is still not at a level, technically, that the club are happy with. Manual intervention is often required to keep things ticking along. The club have put processes in place to provide greater monitoring so that remedial actions can be taken. The club signed a long term agreement with its ticket service provider prior to the Amex opening and has been working closely with the supplier ever since to improve the quality of the service provided to supporters. This is an ongoing process and, whilst there have been improvements in the last couple of seasons, Paul and his team readily accept that, like most ticketing platforms, it is not a perfect system.
The single line that stuck with me though, was when Paul said he wanted to sell as many tickets as he can so Oscar has spending money in January (if needed). Amen to that.
Ultimately, it was a constructive discussion which left me in no doubt that the club are trying very hard to achieve what we all want - as many bums on seats as possible.
