Season Tick Renewal - What's Going On!

[zummerset]

I think the answer Weybridge is yes..some nobbers would like that... standing is some windy concrete shithole with the rain leaking through the roof watching hoofball and pissing on the terraces.

But like you I am not one of them and thank god the club is run as a business that is reasonably solvent

[weybridgewanderer]

roof? who said anything about the ground having a roof?

[zummerset]

EP used to have a roof.. if you could call it that - feckin useless - I think it just chanelled the rain and wind more effectively over the great unwashed

[West Stand Man]

The club's attitude towards its most loyal supporters is absolutely disgraceful. This sort of treatment is the exact reason why I gave up my season ticket of twelve years during the summer and no longer watch the team play. I now coach a team in the Reading Football League and the enjoyment and involvement far outweighs anything that modern football can offer. I still consider the club "my team" and follow with great interest from afar but enough is enough and I must say I do not miss the Mad Stad matchday experience one jot.

Oh how I long for an "AFC Reading" to be born in the ilk of AFC Wimbledon and FC United of Manchester, where real passionate fans can watch a team that represent them and they can feel very much a part of by owning a stake and having their say. Perhaps a pipe dream yes, but just imagine standing up drinking a beer and watching YOUR Reading team play without being hassled by safety stewards. A real club for real fans.

But so long as Reading fans continue to offer up their hard earned cash to support the club its never going to happen.

And what annoys me the most is these happy-clappy splastics that phone in BBC Radio Berkshire and preach that if you don't renew when the club demand then you are not a real fan! JUST FCUK OFF!

What unmitigated tripe. All of it. If you feel so strongly about the need to drink a beer and relive the 70s then go to see Reading Town play - it will feel a bit lke watching AFC United of Reading. In the meantime leave the rest of us to enjoy being real Reading FC fans watching the club through the best couple of decades for us.

[Wimb]

The club's attitude towards its most loyal supporters is absolutely disgraceful. This sort of treatment is the exact reason why I gave up my season ticket of twelve years during the summer and no longer watch the team play. I now coach a team in the Reading Football League and the enjoyment and involvement far outweighs anything that modern football can offer. I still consider the club "my team" and follow with great interest from afar but enough is enough and I must say I do not miss the Mad Stad matchday experience one jot.

Oh how I long for an "AFC Reading" to be born in the ilk of AFC Wimbledon and FC United of Manchester, where real passionate fans can watch a team that represent them and they can feel very much a part of by owning a stake and having their say. Perhaps a pipe dream yes, but just imagine standing up drinking a beer and watching YOUR Reading team play without being hassled by safety stewards. A real club for real fans.

But so long as Reading fans continue to offer up their hard earned cash to support the club its never going to happen.

And what annoys me the most is these happy-clappy splastics that phone in BBC Radio Berkshire and preach that if you don't renew when the club demand then you are not a real fan! JUST FCUK OFF!

What unmitigated tripe. All of it. If you feel so strongly about the need to drink a beer and relive the 70s then go to see Reading Town play - it will feel a bit lke watching AFC United of Reading. In the meantime leave the rest of us to enjoy being real Reading FC fans watching the club through the best couple of decades for us.

^^^^ well said.

Honestly people need to stop living in the past, if your 'dream' came to fruition and 'AFC Reading' stormed up the leagues on the back of a few thousand fans supporting them, how long would it be until you were back in an all seater stadium with stewards and the club needing to charge you significant money to stay afloat? Oh but because 'the fans' own it it'd be ok to fork over that money wouldn't it?

Honestly what do people believe the club is trying to do here? Is there some sort of belief that the club is fleecing fans to take out large sums of money for themselves?

If you want to blame anyone for an early ticket renewal, then go and blame the Shunts and Litas of this world, mediocre players who get paid the equivalent of 60-70 season tickets EVERY WEEK. A player on £10k a week, will take up £520,000 per year before bonuses etc, which is around 1400 season tickets. by that ratio you're looking at season tickets supporting what 7 first team players basic wage over a season, NOT including all the various bonuses etc etc.

if you think Championship teams are getting a boatload of TV money then give over. Seriously the problem isn't so much the club fleecing it's fans, it's the club doing what they NEED to do to keep fans happy in the long term because of the thousands of where's the money gone mongs and those fans that demand Madejski out because he won't sanction £1.4 million on Charlie F**king Austin.

I don't think ST renewal issue has been handled well by the club and they should certainly allow fans to pay a retainer fee or a deposit to secure tickets up till the usual June deadline. However I can 100% see WHY the club is going down this route and see them as a victim of football finance rather then the villain of the piece.

[PieEater]

Bollocks, the club has decided that they'd rather piss off their loyal supporters by threatening them in the hope of more renewals. I can't believe the club is in such dire financial straits or it's for cash flow as we should have some of the Sig cash left, so it's simply because some smart marketing person believes that's the best way to exploit his market.

Well put me on the "proven wrong" pile.

[RoyalBlue]

Returning to the club's response to RL; what a surprise that Yam Yam Howe has just repeated the standard club line!

He has not done RL the courtesy of responding to her main grievance - that season ticket holders who can't renew by the earlier date will now face losing the seats that many chose at the time the club moved to the Mad Stad, nor of addressing her very sensible suggestion of a £50 non-refundable deposit for those who can't renew by deadline but would like to retain the right to renew for their existing seat until say the end of June.

It would seem that he and his colleagues care precious little about what STAR or individual supporters think.

Given this, I would urge those who are still contemplating renewing, in order to retain their choice of seat, to keep their money for their own benefit until the very last moment of the deadline. There's then just a chance that a combination of this and people who aren't going to renew at all will create some element of concern back in the Mad Stad's ivory towers, as the rate of renewals drops dramatically below what the club were hoping for, and prompt a late rethink .

[Row Z Royal]

What's the difference between £400 on 4th June and £400 on 28th April?

[Royal Lady]

What's the difference between £400 on 4th June and £400 on 28th April?

The whole month of May and a few days either side?

[Svlad Cjelli]

Been away for a few days and may have missed this, but the various people I've spoken to all say that the club should have done one of two things here :

- make this an financial incentive to renew, rather than an ultimatum. i.e. renew before 28th April and save £25 per ticket (the "early-bird" discount that other clubs do) but still keep ST seats reserved until a date in May or whenever

- allow people to pay a small sum (£10-£20) to keep their ST reserved after 28th April - so there's an incentive to renew and the seats of those who won't renew get freed up earlier.

I really can't conceive of what the club is trying to achieve from this current plan, though.

[TFF]

I really can't conceive of what the club is trying to achieve from this current plan, though.

success © Paul Collins RFC

[Royal Lady]

I really can't conceive of what the club is trying to achieve from this current plan, though.

success © Paul Collins and Nigel Howe RFC

[Hoop Blah]

Dirk, I assume it's some idiot under pressure to justify his Job Title by being creative and trying to increase (or more likely minimise the expected decrease) renewals.

My biggest concern is that it signifies a growing concern for the finances of the club. It smacks of desperation to me.

We've had our best few years of season ticket sales recently so I don't see why the club should really be going out of their way to stir things up unless they're desperate for the 'extra' cash.

[Svlad Cjelli]

I actually think it's quite possibly a cock-up - someone was told to introduce "early-bird" season tickets with an earlier renewal date but didn't understand this properly. An now it's happened they'll hopefully be looking for a way out, but the problem is that the more people who make a big song and dance about it only strengthens their resolve ... no one likes being made to look wrong in public or to climb down.

BTW I have absolutely no inside knowledge on this - I just can't believe that the club would have brought something in like this without realising that the value of extra income from this would be massively outweighed by the loss of goodwill of the people who are their loyalist customers.

[PieEater]

More to the point,if you push people this way and if they walk away they aren't coming back in a hurry.

[Svlad Cjelli]

More to the point,if you push people this way and if they walk away they aren't coming back in a hurry.

And one of the basic tenants of marketing is that it's way, way, cheaper and easier to sell more to your existing customers than it is to attract new customers.

[Royal Lady]

And as I have said in this thread before, I, personally, can't understand why the club think they'll sell MORE season tickets anyway - who is going to want to buy a ST this season that didn't want to last season? It's not like we're about to go up or anything. The tiny bit of research I've done, just via google, has shown that those clubs who are selling STs earlier - have a far better inducement to its potential customers by way of pricing structure and, as in the case of Palace, still keep the ST seat until June anyway - for those who can't or won't renew any earlier.

[Svlad Cjelli]

And as I have said in this thread before, I, personally, can't understand why the club think they'll sell MORE season tickets anyway - who is going to want to buy a ST this season that didn't want to last season? It's not like we're about to go up or anything. The tiny bit of research I've done, just via google, has shown that those clubs who are selling STs earlier - have a far better inducement to its potential customers by way of pricing structure and, as in the case of Palace, still keep the ST seat until June anyway - for those who can't or won't renew any earlier.

The only advantage I can see is that they have a longer selling period of released seats - there will be some people not renewing whatever happens and so releasing ST seats which might be quite saleable. Putting the released seats on sale in May rather than late June will be good for business.

But see my solution a few posts above for a way out of this - let people pay a "reservation fee" of £10 a ST to have their seat held until later. That's pure profit.

[Royal Lady]

And as I have said in this thread before, I, personally, can't understand why the club think they'll sell MORE season tickets anyway - who is going to want to buy a ST this season that didn't want to last season? It's not like we're about to go up or anything. The tiny bit of research I've done, just via google, has shown that those clubs who are selling STs earlier - have a far better inducement to its potential customers by way of pricing structure and, as in the case of Palace, still keep the ST seat until June anyway - for those who can't or won't renew any earlier.

The only advantage I can see is that they have a longer selling period of released seats - there will be some people not renewing whatever happens and so releasing ST seats which might be quite saleable. Putting the released seats on sale in May rather than late June will be good for business.

But see my solution a few posts above for a way out of this - let people pay a "reservation fee" of £10 a ST to have their seat held until later. That's pure profit.

I know - I suggested £50 in my email and letter to the club - even more profit!!

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

Not as much profit as £400 tho is it.