If Anyone Can, City Can - ticketing!

[italian dave]

2 hours ago, Blagdon red said:

We will. Personally I don't find the 'transparency' argument holds water at all. With Lisa Knights saying on TV tonight that the £1 represents only half of the fee they are charged by the software company, where is the 'transparency' in that? 50% is 'hidden'. And if they have to pay this fee to the software company, why no fee (it appears) on away tickets sold via the same system?

 

£1 per ticket on away match tickets too.

[Guest]

Pathetic response from the club. They chose the supplier of booking facilities, just as the chose the supplier of utilities, of stewarding and of just about anything else you want to name.

The booking fee is a 'cost of sale'. They have a choice to pass that on or not or to absorb it in its charges for supplies. If they want to itemise our costs between utilities for the floodlights and announcer, costs for stewarding, cleaning after the event, booking fees that's fine. But to highlight just one cost of sale for passing on and then standing back and saying 'whoa, it's not me' is a ridiculous stance. 

I'm coming from the perspective that booking fees are totally acceptably and understandable - when you book in advance. POTD there is no justification. That is extortion.

The club should always be advertising the gross cost of a ticket. If potd is increased by a quid and in the background they pay a booking fee no-one would care - it's just part of the potd premium. But to add it as a 'booking' service is bollox. 

[Ian M]

I see Billingham has defended the booking fee as an avoidance of creating a feeling of ticket charges containing stealth taxes but I can't think of anything more stealthy or tax like than at the last minute before sale informing customers that they must pay a hitherto unadvertised fee to gain access to the item they are attempting to purchase. 

 

[Fiale]

I have no problem paying admin fees - I just want to know how much I am paying in total, if the costs including fees is deemed to be £11 I have no problem with that. I can make a judgment on whether I think it's value for money and pay it (or not).

 

It just irks, annoys me a little when the costs is suddenly more, it's just a annoying way of doing it. I would have paid £11, just let me know the total, not tell me £10 and when I am about to pay, say "well no it's actually £11 thank-you" it's just a little thing that rubs you up the wrong way... and as I said it's not even the costs, it's just the way it's done. 

 

Imagine if bars, shops etc all did this. 

 

Just let me know the total costs please, feel free to show it as £11 (includes £1 admin fee) - but always show the amount for the ticket as the total please. 

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, Ian M said:

I see Billingham has defended the booking fee as an avoidance of creating a feeling of ticket charges containing stealth taxes but I can't think of anything more stealthy or tax like than at the last minute before sale informing customers that they must pay a hitherto unadvertised fee to gain access to the item they are attempting to purchase. 

 

Exactly right. He's trying to portray this was/is not Bristol Sport notwithstanding they negotiated the bloody agreement with their supplier. 

The stealth tax argument is absolutely idiotic to my mind. It's no stealth tax, it's a f...... cost of sale, and we all know they are absorbed in our fees. When they start becoming covert additional premiums then the club is taking the piss. 

If they added them on to the ticket price there would be no ill feeling - just as there isn't for all other cost of sales they have. To itemise it, but try to hide that, is just unacceptable.  

[New Dazzler]

2 hours ago, Northern Red said:

If someone had turned up on Saturday with £10 in their pocket, solely to cover what they thought was the advertised admission change, would they have been refused entry for not having the extra quid to pay? 

That statement from the club is pisspoor.

As Bob Dylan put it:-

"Look out kid
It's somethin' you did
God knows when
But you're doing it again
You better duck down the alleyway
Lookin' for a new friend
The man in the coonskin cap, in the big pen
Wants eleven dollar bills but you only got ten"

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, Fiale said:

I have no problem paying admin fees - I just want to know how much I am paying in total, if the costs including fees is deemed to be £11 I have no problem with that. I can make a judgment on whether I think it's value for money and pay it (or not).

Exactly right. It's like walking in to a shop picking up something for a quid and going to the till and them saying 'oh sorry, add in the VAT it's £1.20'. Even that is palatable if they advertise the price as excluding VAT. But to try to pass it off as, well, BCFC are charging you £X but a supplier - which we have chosen is going to charge you £Y - but we didn't make that damn well obvious, is no excuse. 

Amazing isn't it that all he had to say was, sorry to anyone that felt misled we will now advertise prices as being £X plus a booking fee of £Y or £X including a booking fee but no, he tried to arse cover. 

[Robin1988]

1 hour ago, City Rocker said:

Point is, the extra quid is of absolutely no consequence. It's the lack of transparency (contrary to the ironically worded statement) that is the problem. I speak as an advocate of the club, never having found reason to critisise the administration in the past. Just a matter of principle really, tell me the full price, don't add a sneaky surcharge at the till!

And you're bang on. I've just watched Points West with the most unfettered smug statement from Lisa Knights ever; she calls a fee fans were given no prior warning of 'transparent'. It's about as transparent as Harry Redknapp's bank balance! 

Maybe those extra pounds could go towards buying her a dictionary.

[Bristol Rob]

50 minutes ago, Robin1988 said:

And you're bang on. I've just watched Points West with the most unfettered smug statement from Lisa Knights ever; she calls a fee fans were given no prior warning of 'transparent'. It's about as transparent as Harry Redknapp's bank balance! 

Maybe those extra pounds could go towards buying her a dictionary.

What makes it all the more frustrating is that Bristol Sport have got so many things right, and now, when they get something completely wrong, they won't put their collective hands up and say 'sorry' - all it would take would have been a simple explanation that each ticket we sell comes with a two quid charge from our ticketing fulfilment people, we absorb a quid of this and pass a pound on to the customer. We've not been clear about that and going forward we'll either be explicit that all sales, be them online, over the phone or cash on the day will incur a one pound charge, or we'll put the prices up by a quid and then there are no hidden fees.

If they want to play this game going forward, they might as well say that all tickets are 50p with a hidden thirty-four-pound-fifty 'special' charge.

 

 

[Robin1988]

One thing we should say is fair play for coming out and facing up, a lot of clubs would meet this with a wall of silence. Unfortunately, taking responsibility seems too far beyond them though, as you say @Bristol Rob.

[Northern Red]

The best bit of the statement was the pathetic attempt to justify it by saying that Derby and Wigan do it and charge more.

That makes it ok, obviously.

[Dollymarie]

11 minutes ago, Northern Red said:

The best bit of the statement was the pathetic attempt to justify it by saying that Derby and Wigan do it and charge more.

That makes it ok, obviously.

Rest assured, we are checking with those clubs if that particular part is true. 

[Bristol Rob]

24 minutes ago, Robin1988 said:

One thing we should say is fair play for coming out and facing up, a lot of clubs would meet this with a wall of silence. Unfortunately, taking responsibility seems too far beyond them though, as you say @Bristol Rob.

As a damage limitation exercise, they've probably got 24 hours to get it right before they become a joke* and their position on the issue becomes a farce**.

They've been given the answer they need to come out with by a number of posters in this thread - and weirdly, for once - I don't think anyone is asking for cheaper tickets, they just want clarity from the outset.

'Fans have spoken, what we thought was clear obviously isn't, so going forward we'll either increase the tickets by a quid or make it clear that each purchase is subject to a charge' - whichever way we go will be the position for the rest of the season. Full Stop. The end. Apologies for getting it wrong. We didn't mean to deceive anyone. Promise.

Rob

*Food

**Voucher

 

[Roe]

That statement from BS just about sums all of this up. Ridiculously out of touch.  Nobody gives a toss about it being a pound extra or whatever (although if a friendly against a team two divisions lower is worth £11 is another point).

[Monkeh]

The statement just makes me angrier about it, and frankly billingham can **** off if he thinks that's a good enough answer 

it's a stealth tax and there is no defence, 

[ChippenhamRed]

I find it strange that they chose to defend it. The angle that "we're just being transparent about our costs" is just so weak. Do they really think as fans we care who gets what portion of the ticket price?

If your customers have shown they are overwhelmingly against something, why even bother to defend it? The club could just have said they have listened and will roll up the cost into the ticket price. They would make the same money, win back some brownie points with the fans, and put the issue to bed. To make such a strange defence treats the fans as if they are stupid and gives me very little confidence in the decision makers. Another PR disaster, and a completely avoidable one.

[Dollymarie]

Cracking interview from Joe Sims on points west last night 

http://bbc.in/2aQ9IUX

(skip to 3min45 seconds)

[!james]

11 minutes ago, Dollymarie said:

Cracking interview from Joe Sims on points west last night 

http://bbc.in/2aQ9IUX

(skip to 3min45 seconds

[Phileas Fogg]

Joe Sims was absolutely brilliant about this as posted above. 

Summed up my thoughts on it totally.

It's really strange though to see someone with such a thick Bristolian accent using words like 'duplicitous' in a normal conversation!

Good work Joe. 

[Roe]

Yeah that was a great interview. Fair play to him.

[Monkeh]

18 minutes ago, Phileas Fogg said:

Joe Sims was absolutely brilliant about this as posted above. 

Summed up my thoughts on it totally.

It's really strange though to see someone on to with such a thick Bristolian accent using words like 'duplicitous' in a normal conversation!

Good work Joe. 

you see it with so may "suits" (I don't like using that term) they treat a customer base with contempt and like idiots, City won't want the bad press so I think something may happen, but its undoing so much good at the moment, its so flipping frustrating 

[Robin1988]

I don't think they even realise the logistics of it. The point isn't that you have to incorporate the booking fee whether it's in person or not - ok, that's fair enough.

But if someone turns up with the exact ticket money, with no prior knowledge of the booking fee as it is not advertised anywhere on the matchday ticket page here, they will be turned away through no fault of their own.

That's about as stealthy as it gets.

[Monkeh]

16 minutes ago, Robin1988 said:

I don't think they even realise the logistics of it. The point isn't that you have to incorporate the booking fee whether it's in person or not - ok, that's fair enough.

But if someone turns up with the exact ticket money, with no prior knowledge of the booking fee as it is not advertised anywhere on the matchday ticket page here, they will be turned away through no fault of their own.

That's about as stealthy as it gets.

bang on

[phantom]

11 hours ago, Northern Red said:

The best bit of the statement was the pathetic attempt to justify it by saying that Derby and Wigan do it and charge more.

That makes it ok, obviously.

Buit does that mean in the Championship NO OTHER club does charge this?

[View from the Dolman]

6 minutes ago, phantom said:

Buit does that mean in the Championship NO OTHER club does charge this?

No. Cardiff City charge a £1 per ticket booking fee and a £1 transaction fee.

[Monkeh]

6 minutes ago, View from the Dolman said:

No. Cardiff City charge a £1 per ticket booking fee and a £1 transaction fee.

are they pre-warned or is it covered in the face value of the ticket, ie it says £10 a ticket for potd and they pay £10 on the day?,

[phantom]

7 minutes ago, View from the Dolman said:

No. Cardiff City charge a £1 per ticket booking fee and a £1 transaction fee.

I wonder if that is on a cash transaction too?

[myol'man]

The Blue Few over at the rugby ground must be absolutely wetting themselves over this, at least over there you can turn up 10 minutes before kick-off with cash in your pocket, pay the man and just walk in, it's not rocket science.

What a complete PR fiasco from the club. A pre season friendly with a crowd of only 5,317 including a POTD walk up of maybe 1,000, causing queues of over half an hour, who when they get to the paying booth then have a 10% price increase imposed at the last minute. What a farce.

I hope all of the suits at Bristol Sport, Lisa Knights included, are completely ashamed by it all. 

 

[Monkeh]

5 minutes ago, myol'man said:

The Blue Few over at the rugby ground must be absolutely wetting themselves over this, at least over there you can turn up 10 minutes before kick-off with cash in your pocket, pay the man and just walk in, it's not rocket science.

What a complete PR fiasco from the club. A pre season friendly with a crowd of only 5,317 including a POTD walk up of maybe 1,000, causing queues of over half an hour, who when they get to the paying booth then have a 10% price increase imposed at the last minute. What a farce.

I hope all of the suits at Bristol Sport, Lisa Knights included, are completely ashamed by it all. 

 

they shouldn't be laughing, the blue few struggle to get that for a league game

[Phileas Fogg]

1 hour ago, Monkeh said:

you see it with so may "suits" (I don't like using that term) they treat a customer base with contempt and like idiots, City won't want the bad press so I think something may happen, but its undoing so much good at the moment, its so flipping frustrating 

Completely agree. It doesn't appear that difficult to rectify.

Another thing with this is that almost everyone, on Otib anyway, seems completely united in this. That's very rare, especially on club vs fan issues, usually some defend the club to the hilt.