Online Ticketing

[NiceRed]

Following on from a few ticketing threads complaining about telephone booking queues and suggesting an online alternative be put in place, I was wondering if anyone knew anything about online ticketing systems.

My only experience was buying a ticket for Wales v Brazil at Spurs last season. It's a fairly simple process; you log on and then choose which stand you want, followed by the seat. For seating, you get to see a plan of each block, with all the available seats highlighted, like selecting a seat on a plane at check-in. Really simple. While it would cost a bit, surely we'd save money in the long run as we'd be employing less people in the ticket office. I don't even think we'd have to pay for the software ourselves - it would probably just be done through a 3rd party company like Ticketmaster.

I'm guessing lots of/most Premier League and Championship clubs have something like this in place already. I'm guessing the reason we don't is that we haven't exactly been anywhere near to selling out the ground much in the last few years, though hopefully this is about to change...

[chinapig]

We can buy online via the main site and/or ashtongatestadium.co.uk but no facility was put in place for the Man City game. Ideally any system would give preference to season ticket holders etc.. Didn't the Gas have problems using a ticket agency for the play off final by the way (though I suppose it was short notice)? The issue of delays in posting would still remain mind you. I ordered tickets for the under 21 game online and lo and behold they have not arrived, though my Man City tickets have. Another wait on the phone (current queue 60!) and/or more time off to get to AG for replacements. Don't want to turn up tonight to find they refuse to replace them and have my son in tears. Whatever system you use there have to be enough staff to cope with the demand.

Edit: having had a confirmation of purchase e-mail I was able to contact the office using that route. Got a quick and very helpful response (thanks Suzanne!). Things can go wrong even in the most efficient of operations. Always try to get it right first time but when problems arise put them right quickly. My experience is that service is starting to improve and credit is due for that. Now for a full online system!

[CodeRed]

We do have an online system as stated - but our system is set up to only offer unsold seats (ie) seats that are not season ticket holder's or seats already sold - and the system just allocates the next block/seat so as the club load on a "block" - for example Dolman B the system will offer Row A seat 1 then 2 etc etc unless the seat is an S/T or already sold,.

This is primitive but sort of ok for league games if you don't mind the computer allocating your seat.

The real issue is that the system is unable to process the situation when we play a cup game, as the system doesn't allow the buyer (season ticket holder) to select and reserve his or her own seat. Hence we all need to buy by phone/in person & then all remaining seats and unclaimed S/T seats are then released to either the online system or telephone/personal call..

The ideal system would be to be able to reserve cup tickets for S/T's online and for the remainder of seats have a system where you can see a seat block plan - in real time - and select the seat you want to buy.

I'm not sure many clubs have the facility to pick out a particular seat.

CR

[bournered]

[chinapig]

Thanks to CodeRed and bournered I for one am much better informed. Thanks guys, the forum at its best.

[NiceRed]

Fair enough, yeah I guess it is more complex than you'd think - and you've got to get it right first time otherwise there would be chaos.

Just remembered that when I did use Spurs' online ticketing system, while booking the tickets was fine, I had to collect them from the ticket office before the game as I only booked about 3 days in advance. Unfortunately so did thousands of others and I ended up queuing for ages and missing the start of the game. So I guess that even with state of the art systems, there'll still be problems...

[Blagdon red]

The ST in fact did a detailed paper for the club reviewing a number of online ticketing systems at the back end of last season. There are some very good systems out there - and some not so clever ones.

I believe the club is indeed in the process of changing system.

[CodeRed]

[Bristol Boy]

Looking at this sensibly:

There aren't many tickets to sell!

Official Capacity is about 21,650 but that's only for pop concerts & Rugby which is all pay-Never Club Football although we could have more for U21 Ints with no segregation required?

Football:19,500?

ST's 9,200......possibly even a few hundred more

Away 2,000

That's 11,200

Leaves only 8,300 to sell and last season we sold 9,000 in a day or was it a morning for the Boro game!

The club have a record of every fan on it's database, also a record of credit cards, addresses etc so it may not need anything as sophisticated and expensive as is being contemplated, whilst I'm all in favour of a good system, in the interim we could do it by Text or even E Mail.

Dead simple, just text or e mail the word TICKET followed by the Opposition to:844*** nothing silly or premium rate.People could Register their e mail address & mobile number of the City Database online.

Or have a dedicated e mail address per stand-There are only four!

dolmansts@bcfc.co.uk and an e mail stating TICKET. MAN CITY.

We already have online ticketing for POD and ticket office staff so we are only looking at about 6/7 games a season-10 tops aren't we?

All things considered, it's hardly beyone the wit of man.

[CodeRed]

dolmansts@bcfc.co.uk and an e mail stating TICKET. MAN CITY.

Good ideas there and no doubt it could work like that but ----this is Bristol City

Can you imagine - send email (get receipt function enabled on your PC so you KNOW your email is "deliverd")

But

Wait 3 days and

You've guessed it

Nothing !!

call club and get "sorry didn't receive your email & we've sold your seat etc".

I'd rather an online system where you get your confirmation there and then - like the airlines.

CR

[collier]

can someone explian to me why general sale tickets are now being able to be purchased through the online facility( as stated in the new ticketing details, headed thursday 23rd)? if we season ticket holders could not purchase online then why is billy big game able to sit in front of their computer and purchase with a few clicks of the mouse??

[Blagdon red]

A facility to allow ST holders to buy 'their' seat online for cup matches is very doable, and is done by several of the online stadium ticketing systems on the market.

The systems have a template for the stadium on which the back-office staff allocate all season ticket seats. For league games, these naturally then appear as already 'sold' and only the remaining seats are available online. For a cup game, these seats have a 'reserved' status for a given period. During this period ST holders can log on using their unique log on details and are presented with a screen offering them the opportunity to confirm that they wish to buy their 'reserved' seat. Click, click - job done!

Meanwhile general sales of the other seats can carry on simultaneously, as anyone can log on and look at the non-ST seats available.

When the priority period is over, any 'reserved' ST seats that have not been bought by the relevant ST holder are released for general sale.

As such systems operate in real-time using ONE database, sales (to ST holders and others) can be made online, in person or over the phone and the changes in availability are instantly reflected both on the Net and on the back-office screens.

It's not rocket science and these systems are out there (and are affordable for clubs much smaller than City). It remains to be seen what functionality City's muted new system will in fact provide. Fingers crossed!

@collier: The reason is because City's current online system is very limited, specifically it is NOT real-time. The club has to 'allocate' a certain block of tickets for sale online and a certain number for sale offline. The two systems are not linked. The online system also has no function for 'reserving' ST seats and allowing the relevant ST holder only to convert a 'reservation' into a 'purchase'. As I said above, this CAN be done by some other systems and hopefully City will soon unveil a new all-singing, all-dancing system that will indeed do this!