Reading v Aston Villa information.

[SpaceCruiser]

why should someone with 1,000 points possibly lose the chance of a better sighted seat or whatever,

All seats have a good view at the Madejski, and if you are really bothered about what you seat you want then buy a season ticket.

I disagree that all seats have a good view. The ones at the bottom makes it hard to sometimes see through the body of players to see what is happening on the far side. It is my opinion that the higher up you are, the better view you have.

[Wycombe Royal]

I have got a season ticket thanks - and my ticket for Villa - doesn't stop me standing up for my fellow supporters though - rather than having an "I'm alright Jack" type of attitude.

I was answering your point but I was talking about people in general, not you specifically. And your community spirit is commendable.......

why should someone with 1,000 points possibly lose the chance of a better sighted seat or whatever,

All seats have a good view at the Madejski, and if you are really bothered about what you seat you want then buy a season ticket.

I disagree that all seats have a good view. The ones at the bottom makes it hard to sometimes see through the body of players to see what is happening on the far side. It is my opinion that the higher up you are, the better view you have.

I know people who prefer to sit at the front, I don't know why they do though as I agree with you on the view fromthose positions.

But I do not have sympathy for anyone who has a 1000 points who has had to sit in the front row and might get wet because someone who has 50 points has taken the seats further back.

And I also checkedthis morning andthere were still some groups of seats near to the back in the North Stand as well as Upper West and that is over 2 days after they went on general sale.

This argument is quite frankly ridiculous. If tickets had sold out then HB, etc, might have a point, but they haven't.

Why make the sale of tickets more complex if there is no need to? I am someone who believes in simplifying things wherever possible in order to reduce time and costs spent on a process and that is what the ticket office did in this instance. The level of ticket sales has justified their approach but stillsome want to criticise them. I suppose it makes sense though as peoplecan'tcomplain about the team quite so much at the moment so need to direct their frustrations elsewhere.......

[Hoop Blah]

Would be interesting to know how the lines should have been drawn to ensure no one felt 'mistreated'.

Presumably 1 point below whatever Hoop Blah has should have been given priority !!

Having been a STH for about 20 years I had no problem with getting my ticket thanks.

I've no idea where the cut off point should've been. Give me a extract from the customer database and I'll let you know though...

WR, it's not a case of getting a ticket, it's a case of using the system in place in the way it's been advertised and the way it's been used to falsely increase demand for games by 'selling' loyalty points associated to them.

As I said earlier, it's a matter of giving those loyal fans a choice of where to sit, and a bit of security in being able to get a ticket, before the masses get them on general sale.

I suppose one benefit here is that it's finally given STH's a benefit to stumping up at the start of the season!

[Wycombe Royal]

WR, it's not a case of getting a ticket, it's a case of using the system in place in the way it's been advertised and the way it's been used to falsely increase demand for games by 'selling' loyalty points associated to them.

As I said earlier, it's a matter of giving those loyal fans a choice of where to sit, and a bit of security in being able to get a ticket, before the masses get them on general sale.

I suppose one benefit here is that it's finally given STH's a benefit to stumping up at the start of the season!

Just because a system is in place it does not mean it has to be used. It only needs to be used where necessary and they took the decision that demand would not be sufficient to need to use it. Everyone who wants a ticket has got one and to be honest I have seen anyone complain on here they they have a seat in a place they didn't want. There are however a few comments from people who secured seats pretty close to where they wanted them.

If getting wet was such a concern why is it that there are more seats available still at the back of the stands (which is where I prefer to sit)? And yes there are still tickets available nearly 3 days after they went on general sale........

I suppose one benefit here is that it's finally given STH's a benefit to stumping up at the start of the season!

Along with still a cheaper average match price and the same seat for all matches (in the place you want it) - that is biggest benefit in my opinion and it seems to be the one that people are most worked up about.

[SpaceCruiser]

As I said earlier, it's a matter of giving those loyal fans a choice of where to sit, and a bit of security in being able to get a ticket, before the masses get them on general sale.

EXACTLY. I want to be confident that I can get a ticket before the plastics. It's all about before they go on sale at all that you need to be assured that you have a good chance of getting a ticket against several thousand, seeing that the membership count far exceed the number of tickets available.

[Wycombe Royal]

As I said earlier, it's a matter of giving those loyal fans a choice of where to sit, and a bit of security in being able to get a ticket, before the masses get them on general sale.

EXACTLY. I want to be confident that I can get a ticket before the plastics. It's all about before they go on sale at all that you need to be assured that you have a good chance of getting a ticket against several thousand, seeing that the membership count far exceed the number of tickets available.

And you could. If the TO thought demand was going to be an issue for this match they would have used the points system. But they called it right.

And "plastics" what are they? Another stupid term created by football fans......

[Royalshow]

Jokes at the only part of the ground not sold out yet being the north east corner where that see you next tuesday of a drummer is!

[sam158_uk]

Everywhere is sold out except from B18 block in the north stand approx 200 seats left i reckon!!

[Sun Tzu]

I think people are stretching the reasons for the Royalty Points scheme. I can't recall it was ever advertised as being intended to give anyone specific priority over exactly where they sit. My understanding was that it was a scheme to allow people who had been to most games to book first.

Looking at the description on the OS you could interpret it a bit differently as it does talk about tickets being allocated fairly.

Personally I tend to agree with Wycombe that everyone who wants one has got a ticket so messing around with a more complex selling process seems to be unnecessary for this particular game. it also seems unlikely that many people who bothered to buy on Day 1 will be sat somewhere totally unacceptable to them.

I seem to recall that past games where the system has been applied more rigidly have led to plenty of complaints - people not able to sit with mates who had fewer points, people who couldn;t get to many games but still considered themselves 'hardcore' fans etc etc etc. There will always be 'issues', for this game it seems to have worked OK.

[SLAMMED]

If you sit in the front few rows, in the east at least, you get wet for a start if it rains.

If you got a seat at the back and you were older and maybe slightly more infirm than the youngsters who tend to stand at the back, you wouldn't be very happy either.

Is that why you sit in the middle.

[Ian Royal]

I think people need to get a grip and quit moaning personally.

One seat is much the same as any other. There would have been a priority order had the selling window been longer, the only legitimate complaint is negated because there are still tickets left so no supersmashingfabulous fan has missed out to a dirtyhorridnastynewbie.

If you have nothing to complain about. Shut the oxf*rd up. People who complain on behalf of others are usually kunters of the highest order in my experience. Which is pretty extensive.

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

I defy most people to sit in Row A of the North to be able to see the South goal area well.

As for available seats surely it must seem that the drummer puts people off sitting anywhere near him, time to take his drum and ram it where the sun done shine.

[Royal Lady]

I think people need to get a grip and quit moaning personally.

One seat is much the same as any other. There would have been a priority order had the selling window been longer, the only legitimate complaint is negated because there are still tickets left so no supersmashingfabulous fan has missed out to a dirtyhorridnastynewbie.

If you have nothing to complain about. Shut the oxf*rd up. People who complain on behalf of others are usually kunters of the highest order in my experience. Which is pretty extensive.

Charming! Weren't you concerned earlier in this thread that you might not get a ticket or two?

[Ian Royal]

I think people need to get a grip and quit moaning personally.

One seat is much the same as any other. There would have been a priority order had the selling window been longer, the only legitimate complaint is negated because there are still tickets left so no supersmashingfabulous fan has missed out to a dirtyhorridnastynewbie.

If you have nothing to complain about. Shut the oxf*rd up. People who complain on behalf of others are usually kunters of the highest order in my experience. Which is pretty extensive.

Charming! Weren't you concerned earlier in this thread that you might not get a ticket or two?

A little. And I got four. Points wouldn't have helped me. I've got 350, the rest of the people I'm taking far fewer. I'd have blatantly been lumped into general sale anyway.

If I hadn't got tickets, I might have just about had a tiny bit of justification to whinge. But then it's fairly easy to get tickets isn't it... It took me about 10 minutes of trying. And that included the time it took to do the purchase!

[Seal]

There should always be priority for ST holders no question.

The fact we can't sell out the remaining, what, 12,000* seats with a day to go before the biggest cup match in 80 years means all other arguments re: tiers and priority are completely pointless.

I'm absolutely with WR here. The first priority for any football club is to sell the damn ground out. It's like a plane - empty seats = lost money. Tiering and priority are only necessary when you have surplus demand. At the moment, for whatever reason, we don't. It's a shame but that's how it is. And anyway, I got 4 tickets, exactly where I wanted to sit (Mid & back of North Stand) without any fuss so it's not as though an organised fan would end up in row A anyway!



*Back of a fag packet calculation - 24,000 seats less (I'm guessing) 8000 ST holders + 4000 Villa = 12,000.

[Hoop Blah]

Perhaps if we looked after our more loyal and traditional fan base a bit better in the past we might have more demand?

I know plenty of really hardcore fans that have drifted away from the club over the last ten years or so. Some of those are due to other circumstances, but some if purely down to losing patience with the way the club, and football in general to be fair (because it's not just our problem), has changed over recent times.

[Sun Tzu]

Perhaps if we looked after our more loyal and traditional fan base a bit better in the past we might have more demand?

I know plenty of really hardcore fans that have drifted away from the club over the last ten years or so. Some of those are due to other circumstances, but some if purely down to losing patience with the way the club, and football in general to be fair (because it's not just our problem), has changed over recent times.

It's a tricky one isn't it !

It's a very good job we have changed in some ways. I'd probably had enough of us bumping along as a lower league club with the odd couple of seasons in the second tier as the most we could hope for. The club doesn;t get everything right but to be fair and realistic the time at the Mad Stad has been infinitely better in terms of organisation than it ever was at Elm Park. I think the shambolic nature of things there get forgotten.

I can;t recall the 'loyal and traditional' fans being looked after particularly well back then. I well remember having to get up at ridiculous times of the morning to go and queue in the cold on Norfolk Road to get tickets for big games, or seeing harebrained schemes to 'prioritise' ticketing being disasterous (anyone remeber the one where you had to buy a programme at one game to get a voucher for a big game ? Nice idea to boost programme sales except chancers rolled up and just bought up the programme stocks without even going to the game and then got hold of tickets despite not even being fans !

How could 'loyal and traditional' fans be better looked after ? I would guess the mian issue is ticket prices. Football is overpriced and has been for years. We've struggled to find some kind of middle ground between being part of the adventure and staying solvent and I'm not too sure whether knocking a fiver of match tickets for every game in recent years would have meant we would never have made the Prem, or would have ended up bust. It would be interesting to see what alternative models there would have been for running the club that would have ensured this nebulous set of missing fans would have bought into.

Are there any answers ?

[Royal Lady]

How you were never approached by the Club to be part of it's marketing team, I just don't know.

[Maguire]

One seat is much the same as any other

No it isn't.

[Sun Tzu]

How you were never approached by the Club to be part of it's marketing team, I just don't know.

What a silly comment. Although how predictable !!