1500 Season Tickets Available

[papereyes]

According to official statistics the missing 1500 are as follows :

534 ......... bought a plaque, a brick, new home/away kit, another brick etc
303 ......... refused to fund the devil that is the Premiership
230 ......... decided they would never ever witness a better season
185 ......... blamed new labour for taxing them too much
82 .......... decided swindon was better value
69 ........... lost all their money in a Basingstoke betting scam
41 ........... were found to be illegal immigrants
28 .......... were sent to Iraq
11 .......... were sent to jail
7 ............. were sent to bed (with no tea)
5 ............ parkinsons
3 ............. now work in Bangkok massage palours
2 ............. became Cruise ship entertainers

Damn, outed.

[philM]

On Monday with ONLY 301 points or more... that's them all gone on Monday then...

I suspect not or the club would have done the banding differently. People are going to be pi$$ed off if they can't get through and then lose out the next day to others with points in the next band down. They should be able to work it out to give them a fairly even workload each day. I reckon (hope) it'll go down to around the 200 point.

You are crediting them with doing some sort of stats analysis... I am not so sure... I have 740 points and had hoped to be able to get a season ticket easily, I now find myself 'competing' with all those on far less points...

Just whilst I am here.... I had a ST last year but wanted to move my seat, so didn't renew and decided to take the gamble that I would get a new seat.... I'll let you know if it worked.....

I think you will be ok. Most of those applying with over 300 points are going to be chancing-a-move ex-STHs - so not very many.

The cutoff last year was 50 points IIRC, so the people that missed out then (who will make up the majority of the 1500) will have around 2-300 points max by now.

[ArfnipIsARoyal]

In response to my earlier query, just incase anyone else is in the same situation (only just recieved contract from Zebra) season tickets have been put on reserve for anyone who has applied through Zebra and they are not included in the 1500 if you dont have confirmation yet. This may also mean that if anybody is to be turned down a few more may become available. So this 1500 is people who simply havent renewed at this stage

[Man Friday]

Ditto Royalphil. Except that there's two of us who have given up our season ticket in the hope of getting better seats and we wish (need) to sit together. I'll let you all know how we get on! (We'ge both got over 300 points)

[davis69]

Ditto Royalphil. Except that there's two of us who have given up our season ticket in the hope of getting better seats and we wish (need) to sit together. I'll let you all know how we get on! (We'ge both got over 300 points)

not be funny but do we really want to know how you get on with your season ticket.

[Spotters Badge]

IIRC didn't we have 18000 sth last season?

As long as my maths is right that would mean 2500 didn't renew and the club are holding back 1000 for more corporates or for community giveaways

[RoyalBlue]

So...1500 have been priced out. They will be replaced. But at what level do we feel we will no longer be able to replace those who fall by the wayside?

Considering the club has set the first level of royalty points at 301, I'd imagine they're expecting the tickets to go fairly quickly. As such, I'd imagine the level you question is actually a fair way down the sliding scale of points.

And are those who have dropped out possibly those who are on pensions or benefits but who have loyally stood by the club in less prosperous times?

And does the club give a flying one as long as cash keeps rolling in?

Going by the responses on here, those that are not renewing are from a wide cross section of the population of RFC fans and not just those who have "stood by the club in less prosperous times". And, no, the club probably doesn't "give a flying one" as a football club is now a business. That's life so get over it.

But being a business should work both ways. i.e. not expecting money for nothing, acceptance that customers have a right to complain when they don't get good service/value for money and no coming cap in hand for donations should the business hit hard times.

Those who live by the sword should expect to die by the sword but in reality football is not a real business (no other business enjoys so many customers with such blind loyalty) and only wants to be treated as a business when it suits it.

And those remarks are aimed at top level professional football as a whole and not just/specifically RFC.

I'm sure that there are a wide variety of reasons why people haven't renewed. Sadly those that I know personally have been price related. They scrimped and saved to make sure they could afford the first season at Premiership level but can no longer justify football featuring so high up on household expenditure when they are on limited incomes.

I'm also sure people have dropped out every year since season tickets were introduced but I would also suggest it is a pretty safe bet that the proportion of people in that particular category has increased since the massive price hikes of a year ago.

[Behindu]

IIRC didn't we have 18000 sth last season?

As long as my maths is right that would mean 2500 didn't renew and the club are holding back 1000 for more corporates or for community giveaways

Depends whether that 18000 included corporates as well

And perhaps the extra 1000 are being made available for match day sales - which would open up tickets to more people than last year, including those who couldn't afford a ST.

[philM]

IIRC didn't we have 18000 sth last season?

As long as my maths is right that would mean 2500 didn't renew and the club are holding back 1000 for more corporates or for community giveaways

Depends whether that 18000 included corporates as well

And perhaps the extra 1000 are being made available for match day sales - which would open up tickets to more people than last year, including those who couldn't afford a ST.

As the "missing" 1000 are seats vacated by last season's not-renewing STHs then that would mean selling match day tickets dotted around the E/W/N stands, rather than only in the South stand. Doesn't seem likely. Also less certain re revenue.

If they are to be new corporate seats they wouldn't really work either as a bunch of single seats scatted around the ground, (unless they have grabbed all the "more than two/three together" non-renewals and decided to sell them as Corp!)

Surely not?

[weybridgewanderer]

maybe we are planning on running 1000 more buses and need all these seats for the bus drivers?

[riverroyal]

Perhaps we are going to give away fans the whole of the south stand if we dont sell all the season tickets.

If we sell the additional 1,500 that will be 17,000 season tickets; you could give 4,000 to away fans and 3,000 to Reading fans pay on the day.

Sounds daft but Reading know that 80% of the matches they could easily sell 4,000 away tickets.

[The 17 Bus]

IIRC didn't we have 18000 sth last season?

As long as my maths is right that would mean 2500 didn't renew and the club are holding back 1000 for more corporates or for community giveaways

Depends whether that 18000 included corporates as well

And perhaps the extra 1000 are being made available for match day sales - which would open up tickets to more people than last year, including those who couldn't afford a ST.

As the "missing" 1000 are seats vacated by last season's not-renewing STHs then that would mean selling match day tickets dotted around the E/W/N stands, rather than only in the South stand. Doesn't seem likely. Also less certain re revenue.

If they are to be new corporate seats they wouldn't really work either as a bunch of single seats scatted around the ground, (unless they have grabbed all the "more than two/three together" non-renewals and decided to sell them as Corp!)

Surely not?

It is easy for the club to sell the odd seats now, 1000 extra per game should have no trouble selling for most games, and £35 for a Plat game last season is £5 more than average seat for a st, and the new prices have not been released yet, I could see Platinum games go up this cominfg season. Also the clubs up are a bigger draw than the clubs down, so a couple of extra gold games, or whatever it is.

[The 17 Bus]

Perhaps we are going to give away fans the whole of the south stand if we dont sell all the season tickets.

If we sell the additional 1,500 that will be 17,000 season tickets; you could give 4,000 to away fans and 3,000 to Reading fans pay on the day.

Sounds daft but Reading know that 80% of the matches they could easily sell 4,000 away tickets.

I hate that idea even more, but it could be right, making ticks for home fans scarcer, so when the extension is done it could mean eveb more ST sold, or of course it could back fire and mean less, who would want to be making the decision.

[Behindu]

As the "missing" 1000 are seats vacated by last season's not-renewing STHs then that would mean selling match day tickets dotted around the E/W/N stands, rather than only in the South stand. Doesn't seem likely. Also less certain re revenue.

Why doesn't it seem likely ?
It's no different for the club and would mean people had a choice of where to sit. Seems a very likely prospect to me, with the added economic benefits outlined by 17.

[PieEater]

You are crediting them with doing some sort of stats analysis... I am not so sure... I have 740 points and had hoped to be able to get a season ticket easily, I now find myself 'competing' with all those on far less points...

I really hope they do have these stats otherwise they are creating stress for everyone including themselves.

[Behindu]

They seemed to work out the bands for away tickets pretty well for much of last season.
Should be fairly easy to work out how many non STH have how many points, big unknown will be how many are playing games with changing seats...

[Symposium]

The cutoff last year was 50 points IIRC, so the people that missed out then (who will make up the majority of the 1500) will have around 2-300 points max by now.

No, 100 points.

[Behindu]

Perhaps we are going to give away fans the whole of the south stand if we dont sell all the season tickets.

If we sell the additional 1,500 that will be 17,000 season tickets; you could give 4,000 to away fans and 3,000 to Reading fans pay on the day.

Sounds daft but Reading know that 80% of the matches they could easily sell 4,000 away tickets.

I hate that idea even more, but it could be right, making ticks for home fans scarcer, so when the extension is done it could mean eveb more ST sold, or of course it could back fire and mean less, who would want to be making the decision.

I'm fairly certain that there isn't a plan to give the whole South Stand to away fans, although I guess if they do cut the number of ST by 1000 then it gives a little more flexibility. However I think that the games where 4000 away fans would be certain to attend are also the ones which we would easily sell out to home fans - so there seems little point.

[Stranded]

There is no way we will give travelling fans 4000 tickets. It just will not happen.

[West Stand Man]

You are crediting them with doing some sort of stats analysis... I am not so sure... I have 740 points and had hoped to be able to get a season ticket easily, I now find myself 'competing' with all those on far less points...

I really hope they do have these stats otherwise they are creating stress for everyone including themselves.

But if there are fewer than 1500 people eligible for the first tranche it doesn't matter does it? You will have just as fair a chance of getting a ticket. Perhaps you should stop complaining and get in the queue?