Ticket Prices

[AustrianAndyGull]

Apparently it is £25 to get in at Swindon. Obviously this is extortionate but how and why are there such large descrepancies between clubs ticket prices? I'm not sure how it works. I presume each individual club is allowed to set their own prices and that can be as much or as little as they want. I don't understand the policy for charging away supporters though. For example, did we charge Swindon fans £25 to sit down at Plainmoor? Do we charge clubs the same amount they charge us for terracing and seating. Like for like? If not why not? Appreciate i i someone could fill me in as i've never understood it. Cheers.

[bobby93]

For example, did we charge Swindon fans £25 to sit down at Plainmoor? Do we charge clubs the same amount they charge us for terracing and seating. Like for like? If not why not?

Well it would be unfair to take it out on the fans, surely? I guess the clubs set the prices based on their own assessments of the facilities and standard of football on show, taking into account other business-related factors. But I do agree that there is a huge discrepancy between prices and in the case of clubs like Swindon etc it's ridiculous. I would imagine those were the prices of the tickets when they were a L1 side, so they wouldn't want to lower the admission in L2 as they assumed they'd keep the home fans coming in anyway? Burton at £14, Swindon at £25 for example is a joke, though.

[bengull]

Clubs can charge whatever they like to get into their ground - clearly it hasn't deterred the Swindon faithful too much just looking at their consistently decent attendances.

However, by law, clubs can not charge away fans more than they charge the home fan, so to get round this, penny pinching tyrants such as Swindon chuck the away fans in the most expensive stand of the stadium. Hence why we will be bundled into a corner on Tuesday night.

It is not something that you would ever see friendly old Torquay do to away fans, however with Bristows bench holding 1750, maybe it is something we should consider. In my view though, having traditionally been in a higher league, the powers that be at the County ground can not afford to drop their prices to suit league two football.

Perhaps being a more centrally based football ground too gives them extra leighway to charge a bit more - though extortianate i agree. An awayfan coming to plainmoor would only be further be put off from coming by a high entrance fee, having already had to battle with a sizeable amount of expenditure on what to many is their longest journey of the season.

[Plymouth Gull]

Touched on this a bit at Burton station yesterday with some other Gulls. £25 is frankly ridiculous, but as Ben says they're getting the fans in, and those prices allow the big budget they have..

[Southampton Gull]

At least the Club got a decent deal out of them when Benners left us

[Alpine Joe]

Swindon wanted to get in as much money as possible pre season to finance a promotion winning squad for Paolo.
In addition to that, if things had gone wrong, the side floundering in the bottom half of the table & the fans losing patience with
a Manager who's command of the English language left a bit to be desired, then they would be even more relieved to have pocketed the cash from
their supporters well in advance.

In order to get fans to cough up early for one of those varying schemes you have to make turning up & paying on the day as undesirable as possible.
Slapping a 25 quid entry fee on did the trick & encouraged Swindon fans to give the Club their cash in the Summer. As mentioned earlier, you have to charge
away fans the same price for the same facilities so when we turn up for one isolated match it's also £25 for us.

Various Clubs are experimenting with different schemes. I see that for next Season, besides discounted season tickets, Bradford city are introducing a 50/50
scheme whereby for £50 you get half price entry to every home game you attend. To push people towards joining up for these initiatives pay on the day will be £20.

http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/s ... r/?ref=rss

On the subject of ticketing in general there's no sure fire way of deciding what is best. If we were having a bad Season, two thirds of the way down the league & playing unattractive football, & with lots of talk of austerity & unemployment & the current high fuel prices you can imagine how many would turn up & pay £17 to stand on the Popside for a cold February mid week evening game. Sitting behind the goal with the screaming kids is bad enough for some when we're doing well...they certainly wouldn't have turned up if we were struggling.

It's worth remembering that even though our gates have been a little disappointing, without the Ling miracle this season we may well have been playing in front of two men & a dog.

[AustrianAndyGull]

Cheers Alpine. I am probably not the only one to have let the extortionate admission fee influence my decision not to go tomorrow night. Swindon can f**k off.

[bixieupnorth]

bradfords 50/50 sounds similar to our ill fated membership scheme, of which i hold number 001!! it was a fantastic deal where you set up a direct debit of a minimum 10 pm and get into any home game for a tenner, you'd have thought thousands would have flocked to join this great scheme, but i believe it peaked at just over 100 hardy souls, and is almost certainly less now?

[Behind-the-Gulls]

The market dictates these things-until fairly recently Swindon was one of the most prosperous areas in the South-West with plenty of well paid jobs,so the cost of admission wasn't an issue for many. Contrast that to Torbay where wages are amongst the lowest in the country,unemployment is high,where we have a high population of older people living on fixed incomes,and there are high numbers of benefit claimants.Basically Swindon can get away with it whilst they are doing well,so they won't change it.There are clubs in every league pricing fans' out of their stadiums-most of the top premiership clubs are guilty and QPR have alienated many this season with their huge hike in ticket prices,following promotion.It needs to be addressed but quite how you can stop it I don't know.

[AustrianAndyGull]

The only way you can stop it is by not going to matches inprotest but not enough people will do this to make any difference. Even if Swindon charged £50 i bet enough people would still go thus keeping the club going.

[Behind-the-Gulls]

Some Manc supporters' groups tried it in protest at lining the Glaziers pockets(paying off their debts),but all that happened is that those on the waiting list for season tickets took the place of those who declined to renew.As I said earlier-the market dictates these things.

[AustrianAndyGull]

How much is it to go and stand on the popside just out of interest?

[happytorq]

I think we should do some kind of reciprocity scheme (if we're allowed to) - whatever clubs will charge our away fans for the game at their gaff is exactly what we should charge their away fans at ours. So if Swindon fans complain about the price, and the Swindon team complains about the lack of away support, they'll all know who to blame...

[AustrianAndyGull]

I think we should do some kind of reciprocity scheme (if we're allowed to) - whatever clubs will charge our away fans for the game at their gaff is exactly what we should charge their away fans at ours. So if Swindon fans complain about the price, and the Swindon team complains about the lack of away support, they'll all know who to blame...

I actually thought this is how clubs did things anyway but obviously not. It makes complete sense and is the only way of treating visiting supporters fairly and evenly.

[AustrianAndyGull]

£17 on the pop on saturday. I rang the club today.