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Possible New Ticketing Initiative


Drew

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Think the club might need to review the admin charge that is applied to an online purchase if this sort of scheme was applied.

The system automatically adds a £1 surcharge to every purchase even if you are only charging your existing smartcard.

I appreciate that the online system needs to recover costs but it is a wee bit of a pisstake to be charged extra for actually creating less work for the club. If the tickets are printed and posted then I can understand why there is an admin fee, but not really in the case of charging a game to the card ?

Only affects season ticket holders once or twice a season when we play cup games at home but for people buying maybe 5 or 10 games a season it adds up.

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Think the club might need to review the admin charge that is applied to an online purchase if this sort of scheme was applied.

The system automatically adds a £1 surcharge to every purchase even if you are only charging your existing smartcard.

I appreciate that the online system needs to recover costs but it is a wee bit of a pisstake to be charged extra for actually creating less work for the club. If the tickets are printed and posted then I can understand why there is an admin fee, but not really in the case of charging a game to the card ?

Only affects season ticket holders once or twice a season when we play cup games at home but for people buying maybe 5 or 10 games a season it adds up.

Absolutely.

I know that some clubs who have a similar system actually charge for the card at the outset, and this might offset some of the admin costs (such as they are likely to be). I understand that Arsenal, for example, charge £25, but this will be based on the scale of their operation, and the fact that people will be willing to pay that in order to get first dibs on a scarce resource - ie: a decent seat. This wouldn't apply in our case, as I don't think the club could justify charging for the card itself given that there is never likely to be a stampede for tickets at SMP in any event.

My own view is that there shouldn't be any charge for the card itself, or for adding a game. Let's face it, this would pretty much defeat the purpose of having the facility in the first place - ie: trying to make it easier to encourage people to attend matches. Any additional cost would only put people off, IMO.

Edited by Drew
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Think the club might need to review the admin charge that is applied to an online purchase if this sort of scheme was applied.

The system automatically adds a £1 surcharge to every purchase even if you are only charging your existing smartcard.

I appreciate that the online system needs to recover costs but it is a wee bit of a pisstake to be charged extra for actually creating less work for the club. If the tickets are printed and posted then I can understand why there is an admin fee, but not really in the case of charging a game to the card ?

Only affects season ticket holders once or twice a season when we play cup games at home but for people buying maybe 5 or 10 games a season it adds up.

I agree Div, but as you've alluded to is the admin fee issue not just that the ticket purchasing website is operated by Interstadia and they will be making deductions for the cost of processing the credit or debit card transaction and probably charging a royalty per sale for the use of their software?

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Put simply, this is a tremendous idea.

The only issue I can imagine is to do with the online system. It should encourage a few more folk to attend but has to be done smoothly and professionally or it will have the opposite effect and put off swithering fans. Perhaps the best way to make sure things go to plan would be to give it a trial run in the family stand and see how it goes. If there is a problem it can be fixed. If all goes smoothly it can be swiftly implemented in the other two home stands, one of which I propose re-naming "The Drew Stand."

Also, a direct-debit system using your mobile phone might prove popular - send a text and your bank account will be debited, you'll get a reply with your seat number on it, chosen to be as close as possible to your favourite spot.

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What this would mean is that currently if u buy tickets on line u have postal cost of tickets being sent out or u wait in a queue on a match day, this avoids both of them.

Also if the weather on a Saturday is poor we lose a lot of the 'walk up' crowd where as if they have loaded the card on a Thursday or Friday the money is guaranteed.

I've got to agree with that, if I hadn't already put the Accies cup game on my smartcard I might not have went with the way the weather had been even if it had been pay at the gate.

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Put simply, this is a tremendous idea.

The only issue I can imagine is to do with the online system. It should encourage a few more folk to attend but has to be done smoothly and professionally or it will have the opposite effect and put off swithering fans. Perhaps the best way to make sure things go to plan would be to give it a trial run in the family stand and see how it goes. If there is a problem it can be fixed. If all goes smoothly it can be swiftly implemented in the other two home stands, one of which I propose re-naming "The Drew Stand."

Also, a direct-debit system using your mobile phone might prove popular - send a text and your bank account will be debited, you'll get a reply with your seat number on it, chosen to be as close as possible to your favourite spot.

Barclays Pingit? You don't need a direct debit but it works in the way you describe without charges. I don't know how compatible it would be with the Interstadia system the club uses but if it could be adapted that would work

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Also, a direct-debit system using your mobile phone might prove popular - send a text and your bank account will be debited, you'll get a reply with your seat number on it, chosen to be as close as possible to your favourite spot.

Will the technology installed at GHR cope with scanning your moby in order to permit access?

Or will you bluetooth your PC in order to print out a wee slip to convince the jobsworths that you have ACTUALLY purchased a ticket?

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  • 3 weeks later...

Sorry if this has already been mentioned, but I see Derby have went with a different ticketing policy this season.

Demand Ticketing.

It seems to encourage people to buy a 6 game ticket rather than 1 game and the prices will change every night depending on how many have been sold.

It's good to see clubs are looking at more ways of attracting people to games.

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I'll need to contact Brian at the club to check that he has read the responses on here and on the OS forum. By and large, I think the feedback was pretty positive, so hopefully the club will look at the option seriously - including many of the other great suggestions put forward.

Many thanks, once again, to everyone who took the time to post on this subject. It is much appreciated.

Drew

Edited by Drew
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  • 5 months later...

I'll need to contact Brian at the club to check that he has read the responses on here and on the OS forum. By and large, I think the feedback was pretty positive, so hopefully the club will look at the option seriously - including many of the other great suggestions put forward.

Many thanks, once again, to everyone who took the time to post on this subject. It is much appreciated.

Drew

Any news/update on this?

With suggestions of a "Sell Out Sunday", I would be most disappointed to travel over to Paisley to be unable to attend the match having been to every home weekend game this season.

A simple solution of topping up a smart card during the week would eradicate this worry.

Although tickets are available to purchase online, this incurs an extra charge and is unavailable for certain ticket types.

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Any news/update on this?

With suggestions of a "Sell Out Sunday", I would be most disappointed to travel over to Paisley to be unable to attend the match having been to every home weekend game this season.

A simple solution of topping up a smart card during the week would eradicate this worry.

Although tickets are available to purchase online, this incurs an extra charge and is unavailable for certain ticket types.

I'll be contacting Brian again to ask if he's given this any more thought. I think now would be a great time to think about introducing the initiative.

Thanks for the bump!

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  • 3 months later...

*BUMP*

I've referred to this thread elsewhere today so thought I would bump it for a brief update.

That is to say, there is nothing to update....unfortunately.

I did email Brian a good few weeks back, but have had no response.

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*BUMP*

I've referred to this thread elsewhere today so thought I would bump it for a brief update.

That is to say, there is nothing to update....unfortunately.

I did email Brian a good few weeks back, but have had no response.the club won t introduce anything yet ,still pushing full season tickets right up to end of month at least and if it dries up, wait and see

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This really only strikes me as paperless purchase solution. The only real thing the new facility offers is the ability to get the ticket without having to wait for it to be posted out, or to wait in a queue to pick it up from the ticket office.

I've never really considered the normal paper tickets to be seat specific unless its a big game where you know the ground will be packed, in which case I will sit on the seat provided. Or if theres a group of us, we will sit somewhere and wait to be asked to be moved etc. Theres no real need to make this new ticket be changed to an any free seat policy. Seats/Stands will be pre-chosen before the match begins.

The discount for 3+ games is something that should be brought in irrespective of this new system. Any offer to boost ticket sales in advance should be looked in to. However, how far in advance do we allow this? The club will need to standardise the ticket prices and wouldnt be able to reduce the cost of one game as it would render the discount the punter got 10 weeks ago for buying in bulk.

But dont get me wrong im not slating the idea here. I hate having to queue before the games or wait for the tickets to be posted, because my posty can never get in my building. So any way to load matches on to a card before I turn up gets the thumbs up from me. And if you include the purchase of the smart card itself as a membership fee to a supporters bar etc. then it seems a good idea. It might even promp those without a ST or half season ticket to grab one, knowing they already have their card (although i dont know how what would work seeing as the seat itself is printed on the ST card).

I cant see this new system taking away any benifits the ST currently get, but I do see it as a way of reducing posted and printing and making purchases a lot easier.. i mean I could do it on my phone in the pub before the game without having to leave 15 minutes early in case theres a queue.

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