Ticket Office Shambles!

[Magic Man]

I don't think I've ever seen such a shambles as I witnessed tonight trying to get into the Ajax game.

I'm a ST holder and only made my mind up at the last minute that I was going to attend the game. I tried to activate my ST online about 2 hours before kick off without luck. (apparently you can only activate up to 2 days before any match :noexpression: ... I didn't know this)

So I didn't think it would be a problem to just go to the Dolman ticket office and buy one.

Basically to cut a long story short, after 25 mins of queueing, I found out that they had ran out of tickets for the Dolman stand - it wasn't a sell-out, they just ran out of the bits of card that let you through the turnstiles. It was mental... I believe the kick off was delayed as a result. The queues for the other stands were ridiculous as well so I decided to save myself £15 and went home.

And whilst all this was going on we still had staff running around handing out 'Back the Bristol bid' flags - apparently more important than actually getting the fans inside. I don't think the World cup bid committee would have been too impressed to see how we dealt with a crowd of no more than 15k.. how on earth we'll deal with 40k+ I'll never know! I'm glad I have a ST and don't have to go through this every week!

On a positive note, I have to say that it was sounding great inside whilst I was walking home.

[awilko]

I don't think the World cup bid committee would have been too impressed to see how we dealt with a crowd of no more than 15k.. how on earth we'll deal with 40k+ I'll never know!

Was thinking that aswell with the kick of time delayed!!

[Guest RobbieTurner]

I don't think I've ever seen such a shambles as I witnessed tonight trying to get into the Ajax game.

I'm a ST holder and only made my mind up at the last minute that I was going to attend the game. I tried to activate my ST online about 2 hours before kick off without luck. (apparently you can only activate up to 2 days before any match :noexpression: ... I didn't know this)

So I didn't think it would be a problem to just go to the Dolman ticket office and buy one.

Basically to cut a long story short, after 25 mins of queueing, I found out that they had ran out of tickets for the Dolman stand - it wasn't a sell-out, they just ran out of the bits of card that let you through the turnstiles. It was mental... I believe the kick off was delayed as a result. The queues for the other stands were ridiculous as well so I decided to save myself £15 and went home.

And whilst all this was going on we still had staff running around handing out 'Back the Bristol bid' flags - apparently more important than actually getting the fans inside. I don't think the World cup bid committee would have been too impressed to see how we dealt with a crowd of no more than 15k.. how on earth we'll deal with 40k+ I'll never know! I'm glad I have a ST and don't have to go through this every week!

On a positive note, I have to say that it was sounding great inside whilst I was walking home.

Why doesn't this surprise me....its one fork up after the other with the ticket office...I had issues time and again last year with my wifes membership card.

To be honest we are saying how we are trying to push for the Prem on the field, but off the field the ticket office is often found to be still trying to get out of the bl00dy conference......!!

[Magic Man]

Why doesn't this surprise me....its one fork up after the other with the ticket office...I had issues time and again last year with my wifes membership card.

To be honest we are saying how we are trying to push for the Prem on the field, but off the field the ticket office is often found to be still trying to get out of the bl00dy conference......!!

What gets me is that it always seems such a big shock to them that people might actually want to attend a game like this.

After all, we've made few interesting signings this week, the suns out, we're playing one of the most decorated clubs in world football - who'd have thought there'd be such an interest...

[rossjonesuk]

Absolute joke.

I decided not to re-new my Season Ticket as I missed too many games last season and it is more cost effective to Pay On the Day for the games I do make. A mate told me about the EE only being £200 odd, so I thought I might as well gt one.

When I went up to AG the woman at the Ticket Office told me the card machines were down so I'd have to come back the next day, but that there were plenty of EE tickets left. I couldnt get back up for a couple of days because of living 20 miles away, but less than 36 hours later a notice on the website saying "EE SOLD OUT". Bloody woman!!!

Next thing...

I bought a City Membership online yesterday, and travelled up today to get tickets for the Wolves Friendly. I was told because there is a game on tonight they cannot activate my membership, and so I will have to pay full-price?!? I was told if I came back tomorrow she could do it for the £10 though.

After I whinged and moaned that I live 20miles away she did me the ticket for £10 anyway!!! Lazy bitch just couldnt be bothered to do her job!!! Same woman who's messed me about both times. Sits in the middle window.

[Drew Peacock]

I don't think the World cup bid committee would have been too impressed to see how we dealt with a crowd of no more than 15k.. how on earth we'll deal with 40k+ I'll never know!

Our ticket office wouldn't be doing the ticketing.

It would be the FA screwing it up.

[GrahamC]

Tonight was an utter c**k up of the highest order, very few turnstiles open, tickets still being sold after the game had kicked off, if anyone from the committee was outside the ground tonight we've got no chance of being selected as a venue.

[garlicbread]

Tonight was an utter c**k up of the highest order, very few turnstiles open, tickets still being sold after the game had kicked off, if anyone from the committee was outside the ground tonight we've got no chance of being selected as a venue.

...and to compound the misery, they werent offering the £12 deals they mentioned for ST holders.

...and they ran out of food FFS!!! I could understand if it were perishables, but were talking frozen sausages and crisps!!!!

Jokers

[simonwheeler]

Must admit i got in the ground over an HOUR!!! before the kick off because I sensed this might happen, but, from talking to a lot of fellow supporters in the Dolman - Please ticket office rearrange these words into a very well known phrase - "in brewery a up urine (being polite)"

Sorry "if" we are to harbour any hopes of World cup dreams we need to do an awful lot of work in this department.

[bcfcshorey]

and how is having deaf people manning the ticket office useful, have to shout multiple times to say my surname

[Who Shot JR?]

Total and utter shambles. The stewards etc didn't have a clue.

[Sir Colby-Tit]

Anyone else think that looked a lot more than the 10k odd they announced? That queue done my head in - someone near me smelt like a mixture of poo & marmite.

[Who Shot JR?]

Anyone else think that looked a lot more than the 10k odd they announced? That queue done my head in - someone near me smelt like a mixture of poo & marmite.

Funnily enough, had same discussion with mates on way home...

[Sir Colby-Tit]

Funnily enough, had same discussion with mates on way home...

You smelt him too? Rank.

[Nibor]

You smelt him too? Rank.

Oh god, I did. I thought there was a corpse lying around.

[grebes]

Echo what has already been said. Been the same for years. I would chuck the club shop...sorry..."megastore" into the mix too. Not for the waiting time (although that can be pants), but lack of stock and assuming people can pop in during a lunch breaks. Just unhelpful and inflexible.

[pedrino7]

Ridiculous!!

I had to drive like a maniac down the M42 M5 from Coventry to get to the game. As a season ticket holder I thought I'd avoid the on line ticket charge and pay on the gate as website stated would be available.

Got to Dolman ticket office and queued for 25 mins for a ticket. I was with my mate (a new convert and new season ticket holder) and when I reached window she said "I've only got one ticket left!??" I said what about the windows next to you and the fact that their are plenty of seats left in the Dolman!! she said it's my last ticket I can't help you!! So off I trudged to the ****in awful Williams stand ticket office where I queued for another 20 mins before buying a ticket in the Wedlocks for £15 I said I'm a season ticket holder and It's supposed to be £12 to which she said tough the card machine is down!! then walked round to the Wedlock to be sent back by stewards who claimed that the ground was closed (was expecting their to be some kind of big kick off with fans but when I finally walked all the way around (I currently have a sprained ankle so on top of everything else was less than chuffed by this) their only appeared to be about 37 Ajax fans! God knows how they kicked off enough to close an entrance to the ground!

Not suprised you went home... was tempted to go to the pub for the evening... whole situation was totally embarrasing have been going down the gate since 1984 and partly my fault for expecting the usual non existant pre season friendly sized crowd but I'm sure there were many brought potential new fans tonight that also felt the same!!

[Frome Red]

and how is having deaf people manning the ticket office useful, have to shout multiple times to say my surname

What a Fuc*ing Tw*t it' a shame this club has a small minded supporter like you !

[CiderEM]

I also smelt the poo. NOT NICE

[Guest DanC]

Come on people what did you expect? We all had weeks to get our tickets but left it until tonight and POTD. I think almost everyone including City was surprised by the turn out tonight. 11k is excellent for a friendly (even though I do think there was slightly more there than that)

I got to the ground around 6ish and the queues were little so with 5-6000 people all trying to buy tickets within a 2 hour window with little staff on hand due to the club underestimating demand. You can't blame teh club for that as there was people on here last week predicting around the 5-7000 figure.

Last season we were only selling around 2 k POTD tickets per home game so for the club to sell treble that amount in the same 2 hour time frame with limited staff is obviously going to lead to difficulties. The club could have went ahead and kicked off on time but at least they did put it back for a little.

I think at the new stadium it would be a good idea to have fast ticket machines liek they do at train stations. Not sure they have been used at football stadiums yet but it would certainly be handy to have them. If done correctly it could tie in perfectly with our ticketing system and would be similar to what it is like now to buy tickets online.

I would hope the ST will be in touch with the club about the issues tonight and hopefully communicate back to us the clubs thoughts and what they plan to do in teh future to avoid a similar situation.

As a final thought please don't be to harsh on teh ticket office staff. I wanted to buy 6 EE tickets tonight and had to go to the main ticket office to buy them as they wasn't on sell at the normal Dolman ticket booths for some reason but it took me literally less than 2 mins to buy my ticket once I had gotten through the queue and the ticket office staff dealt with me very quickly and efficiently. I always fail to understand why it takes someone in front of me in the queue to take so long to buy tickets. How long does it really take to tell them where you want to sit, How many of you there is and then pay for the tickets? I would say it is those sort of people who hold the queues up and not the actual staff.

If card machines are down, Not enough staff on is that really teh thought of the ticket office staff?

[tinman-is-god]

Come on people what did you expect? We all had weeks to get our tickets but left it until tonight and POTD. I think almost everyone including City was surprised by the turn out tonight. 11k is excellent for a friendly (even though I do think there was slightly more there than that)

I got to the ground around 6ish and the queues were little so with 5-6000 people all trying to buy tickets within a 2 hour window with little staff on hand due to the club underestimating demand. You can't blame teh club for that as there was people on here last week predicting around the 5-7000 figure.

Last season we were only selling around 2 k POTD tickets per home game so for the club to sell treble that amount in the same 2 hour time frame with limited staff is obviously going to lead to difficulties. The club could have went ahead and kicked off on time but at least they did put it back for a little.

I think at the new stadium it would be a good idea to have fast ticket machines liek they do at train stations. Not sure they have been used at football stadiums yet but it would certainly be handy to have them. If done correctly it could tie in perfectly with our ticketing system and would be similar to what it is like now to buy tickets online.

I would hope the ST will be in touch with the club about the issues tonight and hopefully communicate back to us the clubs thoughts and what they plan to do in teh future to avoid a similar situation.

As a final thought please don't be to harsh on teh ticket office staff. I wanted to buy 6 EE tickets tonight and had to go to the main ticket office to buy them as they wasn't on sell at the normal Dolman ticket booths for some reason but it took me literally less than 2 mins to buy my ticket once I had gotten through the queue and the ticket office staff dealt with me very quickly and efficiently. I always fail to understand why it takes someone in front of me in the queue to take so long to buy tickets. How long does it really take to tell them where you want to sit, How many of you there is and then pay for the tickets? I would say it is those sort of people who hold the queues up and not the actual staff.

If card machines are down, Not enough staff on is that really teh thought of the ticket office staff?

It's true that it is not the ticket staff's fault, but City were an embarresment tonight. Many, such as myself, will have decided to go thanks to the new signings we have made in recent days, and I have never bought a friendly ticket in advance so decided to POTD as usual for a friendly. City should have been aware that the crowd was going to be big, so to only be manning a few of the windows was a joke, and very poor planning. Any City fan (and the club) will have known that 10-11k were going to turn up, so they should have planned for it. They didn't. They also lied, saying it would be £12 for ST holders but charged us £15 and the lack of communication was absurd. They didn't even tell people the Dolman was sold out, it was passed on by word of mouth and all the members of staffed looked clueless and uninterested which really didn't help.

I arrived at 7.25, and got in at 8.02. 42 minutes to purchase a ticket is an absoloute pi55 take.

[Donkeeebles]

I am not a happy bunny today. I had my ticket in the dolman already paid for. I got down there at 7.15pm an started queing in the advanced ticket que to collect my ticket. I eventually got to the front of the que at 7.45pm only to be told that they never had my ticket there. They sent me over to the ticket office opposite the club shop which meant i was now at the back of the que again. I got into the match at 8.22pm missing almost 25 mins of the game.

What really pissed me off the most though was out of the 3 of us that went i was the only one to pre book my ticket. The other 2 paid on the night. They were both in the ground 2 mins before kick off. Where is the justice in that!

I will be on the phone today but i am not confident it will do me any good!

P.s. What i did see queing at the 2nd office was guys running down to the dolman ticket office with bundles of tickets that had just been printed. They never printed enough tickets in the first place so thats why they kept running out!

[Mr Mosquito]

I don't think the World cup bid committee would have been too impressed to see how we dealt with a crowd of no more than 15k.. how on earth we'll deal with 40k+ I'll never know!

Yesterday evening was an absolute shambles. I was queueing for ages to get into the Williams Stand and almost missed the kick off. I didn't get in for £12 as a BCFC season ticket holder and had to pay £15 instead. They'd sold out of matchday programmes and we were outclassed from start to finish on the pitch.

Hooray for our World Cup bid - forget that on last night's ticket fiasco.

[Guest]

I also smelt the poo. NOT NICE

It's the bins outside the dolman expo hall.. they are absolutely rank and always have smelt bad.. its just in the winter its not so obvious. On a hot day like last night it was very evident just how bad they can get.

It was absolutely farcical last night. Part of the problem appeared to be the sheer amount of kids (not having a go at them, although the group in block A of the dolman may have damaged my hearing for the forseable future!) and it seemed they were all from schools so they were trying to find big chunks of seats to sit together and this just held everyone up.

I'm guessing all the stewards are from this new company.. I naturally presumed they'd be all the same staff just employeed by a new company... if not then its a poor decision as I thought we were regarded as having a good setup by the powers above etc.

[Angry Robin]

The reason for the shambles was due to the lack of match day staff at all ticket offices & turnstiles, the club are trying to save a few quid by trying a rota system for staff this season, which means they only want around 60% of staff at every game, this is when situations like tonight occur & will continue to occur throughout the season. tonight was a complete shambles, I saw loads of families with kids turning back & going home because of the sheer size of the queus, It was like queing for alton towers ( 40mins from this point)

[BCFCfan]

Me and the Missus (her first game) got thier in good time even though i finish work in Bradders at 6, no issues at all getting tickets.

People saying 'if we cant cope with 10k how would we cope with 40k....umm, well we would have a nice new stadium with better systems from the off, so comparing them is insane.

Get somewhere in good time and you will have no problems, get thier with 2o minutes to go till kick off and you are bound to have issues.

Everyone knows the ticket office is never the best run part of AG anyway, so be prepared for it and either get your ticket prior to the game or get thier in good time and stop moaning.

[A Horse With No Name]

The reason for the shambles was due to the lack of match day staff at all ticket offices & turnstiles, the club are trying to save a few quid by trying a rota system for staff this season, which means they only want around 60% of staff at every game, this is when situations like tonight occur & will continue to occur throughout the season. tonight was a complete shambles, I saw loads of families with kids turning back & going home because of the sheer size of the queus, It was like queing for alton towers ( 40mins from this point)

Absolute rubbish. Wherever did you hear that? Take it from me, the staff this season are the same as the staff from last season, and there is NO rota system. That would be ludicrous, and against all regulations. Yes, tonight wasn't good, but the main problem was the larger than expected crowd, and the closure of the Williams car park due to crowd trouble from the arriving Ajax fans under escort.

[A Horse With No Name]

Me and the Missus (her first game) got thier in good time even though i finish work in Bradders at 6, no issues at all getting tickets.

People saying 'if we cant cope with 10k how would we cope with 40k....umm, well we would have a nice new stadium with better systems from the off, so comparing them is insane.

Get somewhere in good time and you will have no problems, get thier with 2o minutes to go till kick off and you are bound to have issues.

Everyone knows the ticket office is never the best run part of AG anyway, so be prepared for it and either get your ticket prior to the game or get thier in good time and stop moaning.

Agree with all of that, although you could re-phrase your "in Bradders till 6" comment. I'm sure Bradley won't want that publicised.

[tinman-is-god]

Me and the Missus (her first game) got thier in good time even though i finish work in Bradders at 6, no issues at all getting tickets.

People saying 'if we cant cope with 10k how would we cope with 40k....umm, well we would have a nice new stadium with better systems from the off, so comparing them is insane.

Get somewhere in good time and you will have no problems, get thier with 2o minutes to go till kick off and you are bound to have issues.

Everyone knows the ticket office is never the best run part of AG anyway, so be prepared for it and either get your ticket prior to the game or get thier in good time and stop moaning.

So we should all get there at just gone 6 for a 7.45 kick off because the ticket office is rubbish and we shouldn't moan about it? Don't you think having to turn up 90 minutes before the game in order to make sure you get in is not worth moaning about? Getting to a ground at 7.25 for 7.45 K/O is perfectly adequate time were it not for the shambles last night. In situations like this we cannot just blindly accept and say 'oh the club are rubbish but who cares' - I care. We should complain because it is not acceptable. BCFC is in the service industry and provided a shoddy service last night, thus we should complain. If this lack of organisation were anywhere else we would never shop/eat/go etc to that company. But the reality is that football clubs can treat us awfully because either way they know we are coming back as we are fans. Thus, they couldn't care less about treating us well because they have our custom already. This isn't acceptable, and the more of us moan, the greater impact it may have.

[Red_Mat]

I'm a ST holder and only made my mind up at the last minute that I was going to attend the game. I tried to activate my ST online about 2 hours before kick off without luck. (apparently you can only activate up to 2 days before any match :noexpression: ... I didn't know this)

So I didn't think it would be a problem to just go to the Dolman ticket office and buy one.

Basically to cut a long story short, after 25 mins of queueing, I found out that they had ran out of tickets for the Dolman stand - it wasn't a sell-out, they just ran out of the bits of card that let you through the turnstiles.

Why do several thousand people think it'll be fine if they all turn up at the last minute and then complain that the ticket office couldn't deal with it?!