11762 season tickets renewed

[Southbank Old Boy]

If you haven't got a ST by now, it's tough titties.
You lot had plenty of time, bunch of moaning procrastinators.
Get a ticket on the day, or beforehand or watch the highlights on SKY/The Championship/Meridian etc etc etc

The STAR representative didn't know anything about this until last week and their about as close to the goings on at the club. I can imagine there are fans out there that wanted tickets but were waiting until later in the close season to make their purchase.

Not allowing them, or anyone else who wants to put money into the club, to buy a season ticker seems a very odd way of promoting your business and in this case trying to win over new and old fans alike.

[Ian Royal]

"The customer is always right" is the biggest load of inaccurate bollocks ever said.

The customer is usually an ignorant fool who doesn't know what they are talking about.

Other clubs cope. Ours can't. That to me suggests the problem is with the club, not with fans being "unreasonable" in thinking they should be able to buy a season ticket.

I do know someone who works in the ticket office (albeit not that well) and he's said on a number of occasions that he doesn't have much confidence in the management as it appears to be run to make their life easy, not to help the supporters.

That may well be true, but that doesn't change the fact that well known phrase is a huge pile of steaming turd.

[Maguire]

"The customer is always right" is the biggest load of inaccurate bollocks ever said.

The customer is usually an ignorant fool who doesn't know what they are talking about.

Other clubs cope. Ours can't. That to me suggests the problem is with the club, not with fans being "unreasonable" in thinking they should be able to buy a season ticket.

I do know someone who works in the ticket office (albeit not that well) and he's said on a number of occasions that he doesn't have much confidence in the management as it appears to be run to make their life easy, not to help the supporters.

That may well be true, but that doesn't change the fact that well known phrase is a huge pile of steaming turd.

I don't think you understand what is meant by "the customer is always right". It's not supposed to be literal.

[The 17 Bus]

"the customer is always right" is used by higher management to try to get staff lower down the scale to do as they are told.

If the customer is always right, why do electrical chains try to sell insurance with goods.

If the customer is always right why is asking for lower prices not allowed at Tesco, they seem ok to demand discounts from suppliers, time they got used to customers demanding them from them too.

if the customer is always right why is football so expensive to watch?

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

"the customer is always right" is used by higher management to try to get staff lower down the scale to do as they are told.

If the customer is always right, why do electrical chains try to sell insurance with goods.

If the customer is always right why is asking for lower prices not allowed at Tesco, they seem ok to demand discounts from suppliers, time they got used to customers demanding them from them too.

if the customer is always right why is football so expensive to watch?

As the post before said, it's not meant to be literal. It's just that you have to accept that customers pay your wages and therefore their view needs to be taken very highly or you risk losing them as a customer.

Now it's true that customers will often ask for things that are completely unreasonable, but I can't see any way in which a customer wanting to buy a season ticket today would be an unreasonable request. Yet despite that, the ticket office have decided they can't cope and won't let anyone do so.

[Dirk Gently]

Channel 4 have just released a survey showing the season ticket sales of all clubs in the top two Divisions (except 9 who didn't respond) so you can see how RFC's sales compare.

http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/sports/football+fans+defying+the+credit+crunch+channel+4+news+survey+shows/2357492

[Southbank Old Boy]

That's odd, it would appear from that those most clubs are still selling tickets.

They must be lightyears behind the way Reading do things if they think people won't have got their cash out already. Why are they wasting all that time and effort and "risk" on selling tickets to people at this time of year!

[STAR Liaison]

OK guys I have clarified the position by talking to the ticket office manager:

You can still buy season tickets.

The deadline was put in to encourage people to buy before the tickets went on general sale but it will not prevent a sale now if you want. It may just mean that you may have to be a bit more flexible about where you sit.

They don't like issuing an ST for a seat where a match ticket has already been sold as if the ST holder goes to that seat they will be accused of double selling the seat (like anyone ever thinks the TO makes mistakes ). In other words they understand that not everyone plays it fair so they try to avoid giving anyone the opportunity to screw things up.

But, as ever, go talk to them as they will help sort you out if they can.

[Southbank Old Boy]

Well that makes some sense at last.

Thanks "star"

Nice to see the club admitting that they were misleading the fans all along for their own gain though

[The 17 Bus]

It is also odd that the club say we sold 16-000 last season http://www.readingfc.premiumtv.co.uk/pa ... 53,00.html clearly states over 18-000, so a larger fall than they are letting on, we should look at Norwich, thats the way ahead, dunno what they do to make them so attractive?

[Ian Royal]

So only about 7 clubs out of 23 with more STs sold than us. Pretty good for a small town near Oxford!

And LOL at us having more STHs two seasons running than Birmingham (actually I rather suspect 3 seasons)

Derby are doing pretty well! Must be desperate to see some half decent football and a couple of wins.

[PEARCEY]

Channel 4 have just released a survey showing the season ticket sales of all clubs in the top two Divisions (except 9 who didn't respond) so you can see how RFC's sales compare.

http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/sports/football+fans+defying+the+credit+crunch+channel+4+news+survey+shows/2357492

Thanks for the stats Dirk...13,000 STH's is pretty good and should mean healthy gates when adding on away fans and those of us that attend at various stages throughout the season.

[Ian Royal]

Assuming we're going ok I think you could probably add on about 3-4k home fans for each game. Maybe not the first few whilst people are on holidays.

+ an average of say 1-2k for the away lot should give us a decent average attendence around about 17-18k. More if we're gunning for promotion like we all hope.

[readingbedding]

It is also odd that the club say we sold 16-000 last season http://www.readingfc.premiumtv.co.uk/pa ... 53,00.html clearly states over 18-000, so a larger fall than they are letting on, we should look at Norwich, thats the way ahead, dunno what they do to make them so attractive?

Norwich as an area is a lot more remote than Reading.

We only have London 30 odd miles away.

I'm not suprised they'd have a good fanbase, it's always been the case.

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

It is also odd that the club say we sold 16-000 last season http://www.readingfc.premiumtv.co.uk/pa ... 53,00.html clearly states over 18-000, so a larger fall than they are letting on, we should look at Norwich, thats the way ahead, dunno what they do to make them so attractive?

Norwich as an area is a lot more remote than Reading.

We only have London 30 odd miles away.

I'm not suprised they'd have a good fanbase, it's always been the case.

How many supporters of London clubs from around here support them because they can get there relatively quickly on the train? It doesn't tend to be a huge factor when you are seven years old and chosing a "big club" to support.

I'd actually say a far bigger factor is that so many people in this area either aren't from round here, or their parents weren't, so there isn't that same family tradition of supporting our local team as there might be in areas, such as Norwich where I'd assume the migration levels are much lower.

[The 17 Bus]

you could say the same of Ipswich, but they have 5000 less

[readingbedding]

It is also odd that the club say we sold 16-000 last season http://www.readingfc.premiumtv.co.uk/pa ... 53,00.html clearly states over 18-000, so a larger fall than they are letting on, we should look at Norwich, thats the way ahead, dunno what they do to make them so attractive?

Norwich as an area is a lot more remote than Reading.

We only have London 30 odd miles away.

I'm not suprised they'd have a good fanbase, it's always been the case.

How many supporters of London clubs from around here support them because they can get there relatively quickly on the train? It doesn't tend to be a huge factor when you are seven years old and chosing a "big club" to support.

I'd actually say a far bigger factor is that so many people in this area either aren't from round here, or their parents weren't, so there isn't that same family tradition of supporting our local team as there might be in areas, such as Norwich where I'd assume the migration levels are much lower.

In my experience growing up my point is correct.

[Platypuss]

you could say the same of Ipswich, but they have 5000 less

Ipswich is London overspill territory too.

[Stuffed Crust Pizza]

Having renewed back in June and accepting the same seat for this season, I now feel like a change and would like to move seats. Any idea if the ticket office is still able to do this?

[Hoop Blah]

Having renewed back in June and accepting the same seat for this season, I now feel like a change and would like to move seats. Any idea if the ticket office is still able to do this?

I feel more like just asking for my money back to be honest.