Twenty’s Plenty

[Pandoras Box]

Apologies if there is a thread on this already but I couldn’t find it.

Having just forked out a disgraceful £66 for two Bristol City tickets on Good Friday, it occurred to me that seeing as no other f....ers wish to join in with our highly commendable approach, isn’t it time we kicked it into touch?
Many other clubs are happily charging over £40 a ticket and I just get the feeling we are being taken advantage of by giving their fans a nice cheap away day.

If the average away crowd at the Madejski is 800? We are losing revenue of a possible £368k a season (@ £40 per ticket). Surely this would be useful to fund one of our loanees that we would like to keep?

As I say, the idea was highly commendable - but if you are one of only a couple doing it, you’re just shooting yourself in the foot.

[windermereROYAL]

I wrote to the club on this very issue last year regarding Leeds utd, didn`t even have the courtesy to reply . it should only apply to teams that do likewise or cheaper.

[Old Man Andrews]

Where does stooping down to the other clubs level get you? We should be at the forefront of trying to change the ticket pricing and indeed Ipswich gave up cheap tickets this season in direct response for us doing it for them. Just because other clubs are greedy bastards doesn't mean we need to be.

[Hound]

I think the club should make much more of a big deal about it tbh. I had totally forgot about it. Its a very good initiative

[Jackson Corner]

It’s been mentioned several times here. When you think of the money involved in football even at this level and we are not a big club by any means, then there is no reason why other clubs can’t do the same. Reading the Brentford forums prior to the game Saturday they were singing our praises for the fair pricing and plenty of extra fans came because of the ticket prices. I would like to go Friday but the KO time and the price has put me off.

[Pandoras Box]

Where does stooping down to the other clubs level get you? We should be at the forefront of trying to change the ticket pricing and indeed Ipswich gave up cheap tickets this season in direct response for us doing it for them. Just because other clubs are greedy bastards doesn't mean we need to be.

It’s OK being the holier than thou martyr St Reading of Madejski but those charging higher prices really don’t give a toss. At the end of the day this is a business and a difficult one.
Basic economics of supply and demand will tell you when the prices are too high for people to bother.
As to your point - it gets you more revenue and otherwise you look like the knock down Primark of the championship (those not taking part are not going to change their revenue whatever you believe).

I see the allocation for Bristol has gone up to 2600 so it shows people are willing to pay a higher price.
So, in a like for like attendance, they will have pocketed nearly £34k more than us for just one game.
I’m sure our club could make good use of that type of extra revenue - even if it was donated to a good cause.

As many Leeds/Villa fans have posted on twitter, they will follow their team whatever the price- they aren’t thankful.
In fact many said, our price was the price you would expect to pay at a tin pot club.
Ipswich mainly lowered prices as they were bottom of the league and the travel cost and time are high from Reading. If they had charged their normal price - hardly anyone would have gone.
And surely, if we were that bothered about the number of away fans turning up, we wouldn’t have halved the allocation for the likes of Leeds, Millwall and offered a permanent area for Club1871?

[Lower West]

Having just forked out a disgraceful £66 for two Bristol City tickets on Good Friday, it occurred to me that seeing as no other f....ers wish to join in with our highly commendable approach, isn’t it time we kicked it into touch?

I've kicked away games into touch. Am going Friday as haven't been away since QPR\Millwall.

A good away following makes for a better atmosphere inside the Madstad. Restricting to half the South Stand is a good compromise.

[Elm Park Kid]

Personally I don't believe that two wrongs make a right. It's wrong to charge away fans those kind of prices full-stop.

Anyway - why do people get so upset by the way that Chinese billionaires are spending their own money? If we have FFP issue in the future then maybe we need to question these things, but until then I couldn't care less.

[Jagermesiter1871]

I personally think its highly commendable of the club and the fact other clubs aren't reciprocating makes it even more so. If other clubs want to rip off and exploit fellow football fans then it's them who should be ashamed and who should change.

Fairplay to the club. Equally it may just be that someone at the club did the economics and calculated that if you drop ticket prices by X you see Y increase in demand which leads to Z increase in spending on beer and that the ΣZ >ΣX.

[Silver Fox]

Where does stooping down to the other clubs level get you? We should be at the forefront of trying to change the ticket pricing and indeed Ipswich gave up cheap tickets this season in direct response for us doing it for them. Just because other clubs are greedy bastards doesn't mean we need to be.

Spot on, if we should be doing anything about this campaign it's shouting it from the rooftops to hopefully shame some others into reciprocating

NB I fully appreciate the likes of Leeds have no shame so this won't really work

[Don't Panic]

Isn't there some rule about charging the away fans the same as the home fans for an equivalent seat?

Ergo, if we put up our prices for the away fans, our prices also increase drastically. I think (happy to be corrected) Bristol fans are paying the same price of us, so isn't it more for home fans to complain about than the away fans?

[Lower West]

Some clubs resort to anything to fleece their own fans.

A football club shop has been criticised for rebranding a £1 Easter egg and selling it for £7.

Bristol Sport, based at the Ashton Gate football stadium, is selling Cadbury eggs with Bristol City, Bristol Bears or Bristol Flyers cardboard covers on.

The same egg, without the printed sleeve, can be bought from many supermarkets for between £1 and £3.

Bristol Sport has declined to comment and the eggs are now no longer available from the online shop.

[Jerry St Clair]

Where does stooping down to the other clubs level get you? We should be at the forefront of trying to change the ticket pricing and indeed Ipswich gave up cheap tickets this season in direct response for us doing it for them. Just because other clubs are greedy bastards doesn't mean we need to be.

^^^^^^ This

Football fans are thick, parochial twats sometimes. We excuse poor treatment of other fans on the basis of petty rivalry and the result is that, as a collective, we all get treated like shit.

[Forbury Lion]

The club should at least discuss this with the FA, If we are undercharging for tickets because we feel it is the right thing to do then they should at least give us some extra leaway with Financial Fair Play to cover the loss of revenue/profit from taking this stand.

[Nameless]

The club should at least discuss this with the FA, If we are undercharging for tickets because we feel it is the right thing to do then they should at least give us some extra leaway with Financial Fair Play to cover the loss of revenue/profit from taking this stand.

Agree in theory but if FFP is about stopping clubs running up debt then ‘leeway’ would be to allow us to run up debt, which would be counterproductive.
Perhaps if, as we are told, the Yongge’s want to invest more but can’t because that woukdn’t Count as income for FFP purposes there could be a compromise where we agree with the EFL (don’t think the FA are relevant) how much revenue we are losing by our ticketing policy and then allow the Yongge’s to make up the difference by effectively paying for the lost ticket income. That’s what happened when they subsidised Man U tickets, fans paid some, Yongge’s paid Man U the difference.

[notloyalenuffroyal]

For me the logic comes in charging the clubs that charge us more and then using that to subsidise the away ticket price.

E.g. Home fan tickets at Reading (without loyalty discounts etc) = £23-£35

Therefore if we stick a pin somewhere between, £27, for any clubs that do not match twenty is plenty, then every £7 above the twenty is plenty can go to subsiding the away tickets.

If Brizzel bring 1500 fans that is quite a bit of dosh that would then make the away ticket price cheaper. £7 x 1500 = £10,500

So, If we matched away attendance...

£10,500 above twenty is plenty taken from Brizzel

£32 ticket at Brizzel x 1500 = £48,000

£48000-£10,500 = £37,500

37,500 divided by 1500 attending = £25 a ticket!

Possibly my maths is crap, but seems logical and a bit fairer.

Admin nightmare though!!!

[RoyalBlue]

Where does stooping down to the other clubs level get you? We should be at the forefront of trying to change the ticket pricing and indeed Ipswich gave up cheap tickets this season in direct response for us doing it for them. Just because other clubs are greedy bastards doesn't mean we need to be.

Maybe there's a middle way. £20 quid for supporters from clubs that operate on the same basis and £25 (I believe that matches our non-member/pay on the day rate) for supporters from those that don't. That would make the point without unduly hammering travelling fans.

[gazzer, loyal royal]

i seem to remember that you have to charge home and away fans the same amount for the same view. So I assume that if we were to raise prices in the South Stand we would have to raise it in other areas of the ground for home fans too.

Happy to be corrected if this is utter drivel

[Nameless]

i seem to remember that you have to charge home and away fans the same amount for the same view. So I assume that if we were to raise prices in the South Stand we would have to raise it in other areas of the ground for home fans too.

Happy to be corrected if this is utter drivel

You have to charge comparable prices for comparable facilities so it's not just the view, otherwise Newcastle would be paying away fans to attend.
At the moment we match our ED member prices for members of visiting clubs, it is possible for away fans to be paying more than £20.
If we abolished £20 we would have to still charge the equivalent of what we charge home fans, which would probably mean a rise in match day tickets for ED stand.
I don't think we could justify charging away fans more than home fans, the issue has to be getting other clubs to charge our fans fair prices. I don't think there are rules stating you can't charge away fans LESS than home fans so Leeds, for example, could charge us £20 and their fans £50. Or they could just tell us to take a running jump.

[tidus_mi2]

Charlton win the play-offs, they were always good for tickets prices weren't they?