Barnsley Ticket Price 'experiment'...

[WhistleHappy]

After all the hype before hand I'm surprised at the lack (so far) of any official response or appraisal of the deemed success (or otherwise) of the half-price potd match-ticket excercise.

Seems pretty clear that the crowd that day (despite it being 'black' Saturday) indicates that priced attractively the Bristol public does respond & will turn out in numbers if economically able to.

Is the club now finding itself in an awkward(and possibly unexpected) position re its pricing strategy?

If only say 9000/10000 turned up would they not now already be saying 'told you so' etc..?

[Jungle Jim]

Its probably quite a tough one to reach any firm conclusions on. Yes it increased the crowd, but was still well short of selling out. And it was far cheaper than the club would realistically be able to charge. A more telling gauge of the price/attendance effect would be if they made the potd prices what people considered an acceptable increase on last season.

As it is at full price we'll probably get another 16,000 v Coventry, albeit with more away fans, so again the case won't be clear cut.

[Bristol Boy]

The crowd was far higher than anticpated and amounted to an almost sell out of seats available to City fans after segregation that afforded Barnsley far to many.The club should have done at Rotherham and swappped sides, however, another concession that may have passed many by is the fact that POD & Pay In Advance is now the same.

They're moving, but to slowly and that game did prove a point.People will attend if they can afford it.If they can't or there is a perception that the product isn't VFM, they won't.Even if we're winning 9-0 and playing like Brazil.The same applies in the Prem although so clubs have large travelling attendances and fans based all over the UK which can skew things on occassions.

On another note, Bradford slashed prices at the start of the season and their gate yesterday was 13,650........for Hereford.Bradford are 16th in Div 4!!

[scumbag]

After all the hype before hand I'm surprised at the lack (so far) of any official response or appraisal of the deemed success (or otherwise) of the half-price potd match-ticket excercise.

Seems pretty clear that the crowd that day (despite it being 'black' Saturday) indicates that priced attractively the Bristol public does respond & will turn out in numbers if economically able to.

Is the club now finding itself in an awkward(and possibly unexpected) position re its pricing strategy?

If only say 9000/10000 turned up would they not now already be saying 'told you so' etc..?

Barnsley was worth doing becuase of the team and the time of year, but it proves nothing if they don't put the prices back to the normal levels again for some games.

I think between now and easter we could see some more reductions on some games as we have the likes of Colchester and Blackpool to visit, however.

either way with 10k season tickets now sold, I'd be very suprised to see anything lower than 13k for any remaining games this season,

it's easy for some to point fingers at prices now and throughout the season, but the end of seaosn is the best time to judge after we have actually played the "top" teams in this league, so far we are yet to see a "top" team on a saturday 3pm this season, which is interesting, with Charlton, West Brom and Sheffield Utd all being midweek or late sky games, either way if we hit an average over 15k for the course of the season, I'd personally call that a good improvement on previous years and good progress has been made.

[Red Ferret]

On another note, Bradford slashed prices at the start of the season and their gate yesterday was 13,650........for Hereford.Bradford are 16th in Div 4!!

I'v been keeping an eye on Bradfords attendences all season and cant believe the numbers they are getting, even if their ticket prices have been heavily cut

Would be interesting to know if they are breaking even or not

[Geoff65]

With regards to the lack of response - it's xmas - mince pies, xmas pudding and lots of booze.

As to the issues that Ian has been banging on about for so long - I'm a convert.

It appears to me that what has happened is that Mr Sexstone was a cricket man but was offered the job running the football club. The ideas about charging people for the priviledge of phoning their own club via an 0870 number, the booking fees, the credit/debit card charges etc... were introduced from looking at what others have done and emulating them and quite frankly it's wrong.

It appears that Mr Lansdowne is accutely aware of how much it's costing himself personally to be involved with the club and takes the view that if it costs me this much then "they" can pay at least "X" for the priviledge of coming to watch their own side.

What alienates people are the prices and the hidden extras of watching the club - set a freephone number for ticket sales - yes sales i.e. you will earn money if people phone the club with a clear intention to pay for your product - just because you have to pay the telephone sales people is not a reason to ask people to pay for the service - you don't have to isolate their cost and say we have to make this amount of money back to subsidise their existence - their existence is there for the club to make money - want to make more money from these sales assisants - then why not get them to phone your clients who havent bought a ticket or get them to phone season ticket holders and tell them that seat "X" - 2 seats away from you is free - would you be interested in buying the ticket for a youngster at Y price or a friend at a discounted price of Z.

Credit card and debit card charges - I go into Asdas and see a little sign saying that a certain amount of money will be deducted fromt he total sales price - it doesnt get added to my bill it's just an inheernt price "the cost of doing business" don't isolate the cost and pass it on - just realise you are making a sale and be pleased that this is happening.

I am sick to death of these costs of doing business added as an extra - it's like an airlines surcharge due to volatile fuel prices - except that we don't have any volatile elements to the pricing of the tickets - the costs are pretty much fixed - stop following others and start doing the things that make sense.

My daughter asked why she hasnt gone to any footy this year - well it's straight forward the prices City charge for an adult and a child to attend a football match is too high - last 10 years there has been bring a kid for a quid etc... the oppertunities for doing this have been reduced (thankfully - no tin pot cup, no littlewoods cup, no FAcup etc...) but the problem I see is that City will alienate their customers so mush that they have no chance of filling a 30000 stadium if we are not in the premiership and when they start their incentives at the new stadium the response will be innert - all those you alienated wont respond, all those potential City youngsters will go about their business of playing on their Playstation 4 with their Man U, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool shirts on saying nah I want to play as Ronaldo on my game rather than spend money watching a club down the road. Mr Lansdowne will get more and more chewed up about the cost of funding the club and stop investing - it's a dark dark story but come on it's easy to avoid this story, make the changes look at what is right and what is common sense - ignore the "experts" of football marketing who advocate making as much money as possible from the fans - go visit Middlesboro chairman and Wigan's chairman, Bolton's etc... those who understand the fans and don't shaft them on stupid rediculous concepts of making fans pay for the right to buy tickets at a reasonable price who want to bring their kids along too.

One club did a special - bring 10 kids in for £1 or £2 a head and adult goes free!

[Bristolian76]

I'v been keeping an eye on Bradfords attendences all season and cant believe the numbers they are getting, even if their ticket prices have been heavily cut

Would be interesting to know if they are breaking even or not

It helps that Bradford sold over 10,000 season tickets before the season started. The season ticket prices were slashed by over 50% as a way of an apology for their slide to two succesive relegations.

[bristolrich]

Here here! Agree entirely with Geoff65 post.

The best thing for the club on and off the pitch is to have as many fans as possible. Lets hope that the club takes note of whats being said!

[Stoke_Gifford_Red]

It helps that Bradford sold over 10,000 season tickets before the season started. The season ticket prices were slashed by over 50% as a way of an apology for their slide to two succesive relegations.

I believe the early bird prices were set at £138 (£6 a game), with even cheaper season tickets for concessions.

[The Man In Black]

I think that the cost of ticket prices is pretty elastic, if they lower them more people will come. Sure, they'll be paying less but more people will be buying. what's more, there will be more City fans supporting the team at the match -exactly what we might need for that final push across the line in the second half of the season.

I muted the idea of travelling to Bristol to see the team play on the 1st January to my wife - I haven't seen City play in the Championship yet. But it's going to cost us £50 just for tickets, that doesn't include the petrol costs for the two hour journey there and back, food etc.

Half a ton and that's without taking kids! I really do wonder how some of the die-hards afford it.

So, just after Christmas we can't really justify it. Sad really, as I was quite looking forward to it.

[zookeeper]

I think that the cost of ticket prices is pretty elastic, if they lower them more people will come. Sure, they'll be paying less but more people will be buying. what's more, there will be more City fans supporting the team at the match -exactly what we might need for that final push across the line in the second half of the season.

I muted the idea of travelling to Bristol to see the team play on the 1st January to my wife - I haven't seen City play in the Championship yet. But it's going to cost us £50 just for tickets, that doesn't include the petrol costs for the two hour journey there and back, food etc.

Half a ton and that's without taking kids! I really do wonder how some of the die-hards afford it.

So, just after Christmas we can't really justify it. Sad really, as I was quite looking forward to it.

I'd argue that there are price brackets where it is elastic but the main pice regions I'd argue the opposite. An elastic product would be where a halving of the ticket cost would more than double the number of purchases. This wasn't the case for that match. We probably sold an extra 2000 pay on the day people.

The market for football tickets is pretty inelastic, people don't tend to suddenly decide to go to watch the club they've supported for years just because there is a few quid off. There is so much brand loyalty involved that allows football clubs to overprice the product.

Tickets priced very low and very high may well be elastic. The club is finding that it is close to peoples maximum of what they can pay. Any higher and it will push it beyond the means of many people. People like yourself are finding rather than being unwilling to pay that price they are unable to pay.

The ground can only really hold around 19,000 people so it should be their aim to generate the most amount of money that it can from these seats. I don't think that by discounting the product they will generate the same degree of revenue.

[The Man In Black]

In the business sense saying that something is "price elastic" doesn't mean that if you halve it you will double the sales - there's varying degrees. As I said, it's "pretty elastic".

I think that an extra 2000 tickets sold the last week before Christmas is quite an impressive result myself. And how much was it really advertised away from the main site? (I don't know the answer to that, I don't live anywhere near Bristol any more)

Anyway, if the tickets were merely a couple of pounds cheaper psychologically it could make all the difference. £40 would have felt like a lot but a lot easier to justify than fifty quid.

[Robbored]

Its probably quite a tough one to reach any firm conclusions on. Yes it increased the crowd, but was still well short of selling out. And it was far cheaper than the club would realistically be able to charge. A more telling gauge of the price/attendance effect would be if they made the potd prices what people considered an acceptable increase on last season.

As it is at full price we'll probably get another 16,000 v Coventry, albeit with more away fans, so again the case won't be clear cut.

The attendence against B'sley was far better than could have ben expected without the reductions.Over 16.5k against a team that brought about 350/400 fans with them ( I don't know the exact number) and on 'black saturday' is a great turn out.

The fact that it wasn't sell-out says more about Barnsley's lack of away support than anything else.

Coventry will bring a far greater number of away fans with them but I doubt the gate will much more than it was against Barnsley with the prices back up again.

[zookeeper]

In the business sense saying that something is "price elastic" doesn't mean that if you halve it you will double the sales - there's varying degrees. As I said, it's "pretty elastic".

I think that an extra 2000 tickets sold the last week before Christmas is quite an impressive result myself. And how much was it really advertised away from the main site? (I don't know the answer to that, I don't live anywhere near Bristol any more)

Anyway, if the tickets were merely a couple of pounds cheaper psychologically it could make all the difference. £40 would have felt like a lot but a lot easier to justify than fifty quid.

In a business sense a good that is price elastic has a price elasticity of demand of greater than 1 with an inelastic good being less than 1.

The formulae is something like % change in quantity demanded / % change in price. So a change in quantity demanded would have to double if the price is halved.

Don't get me wrong. I think that reducing the price was the right thing to do. It added to the attendance and also increased the opportunity for some repeat business.

[The Man In Black]

We must have been taught in differing schools of thought then , we were shown a mind-bogglingly boring "elasticity curve", the idea being a product could be at different part of the curve

Ah well, not the sort of exciting thing worth arguing about!

[zookeeper]

We must have been taught in differing schools of thought then , we were shown a mind-bogglingly boring "elasticity curve", the idea being a product could be at different part of the curve

Ah well, not the sort of exciting thing worth arguing about!

I think I remeber that curve but the idea would be to run a straight line off it to get the Elasticity!

It goes to show how bored or boring I can get at work!

[chinapig]

After all the hype before hand I'm surprised at the lack (so far) of any official response or appraisal of the deemed success (or otherwise) of the half-price potd match-ticket excercise.

Seems pretty clear that the crowd that day (despite it being 'black' Saturday) indicates that priced attractively the Bristol public does respond & will turn out in numbers if economically able to.

Is the club now finding itself in an awkward(and possibly unexpected) position re its pricing strategy?

If only say 9000/10000 turned up would they not now already be saying 'told you so' etc..?

I've been wondering much the same. Can't help thinking that if it had failed we would have heard someething from Steve by now. Is a re-think going on or is someone trying to think how they can spin it as a failure?

[Bristol Boy]

It helps that Bradford sold over 10,000 season tickets before the season started. The season ticket prices were slashed by over 50% as a way of an apology for their slide to two succesive relegations.

And we sold 9,600, lost 800 of last seasons ST's and have just hit 10,000, two divisions & about 18 places higher for most of the season.Go figure.

Here here! Agree entirely with Geoff65 post.

The best thing for the club on and off the pitch is to have as many fans as possible. Lets hope that the club takes note of whats being said!

The club are currently trying to find a reason why people aren't coming that doesn't relate to price in some way.There are reasons other than price however, price is a amajor factor and the sooner the club realise it or rather, admit to it, the sooner we can all move on.

I think that the cost of ticket prices is pretty elastic, if they lower them more people will come. Sure, they'll be paying less but more people will be buying. what's more, there will be more City fans supporting the team at the match -exactly what we might need for that final push across the line in the second half of the season.

I muted the idea of travelling to Bristol to see the team play on the 1st January to my wife - I haven't seen City play in the Championship yet. But it's going to cost us £50 just for tickets, that doesn't include the petrol costs for the two hour journey there and back, food etc.

Half a ton and that's without taking kids! I really do wonder how some of the die-hards afford it.

So, just after Christmas we can't really justify it. Sad really, as I was quite looking forward to it.

And yours is probably the thousandth post I've read that says a similar thing.People with the attention span of a Goldfish are saying "OK, we've got it, honest" and still it's a token gesture here and a token gesture there-One major initiative that worked brilliantly and there are still those who deny the eveidence of their own eyes.

In a business sense a good that is price elastic has a price elasticity of demand of greater than 1 with an inelastic good being less than 1.

The formulae is something like % change in quantity demanded / % change in price. So a change in quantity demanded would have to double if the price is halved.

Don't get me wrong. I think that reducing the price was the right thing to do. It added to the attendance and also increased the opportunity for some repeat business.

Your final statement cuts through all the maths you can come up with.If it's to expensive people will not come.Market forces and all that stuff.Any product is worth what the market will stand and, like it or not, the football following public of Bristol won't/can't* pay £28/30 to watch BCFC on a regular basis

I've been wondering much the same. Can't help thinking that if it had failed we would have heard someething from Steve by now. Is a re-think going on or is someone trying to think how they can spin it as a failure?

You've got that right and at the same time they can expain why they made about 2,500 seats to many available to Barnsley fans who were never going to attend in a million years, then announced that the EE would be open as an afterthought.

[zookeeper]

Your final statement cuts through all the maths you can come up with.If it's to expensive people will not come.Market forces and all that stuff.Any product is worth what the market will stand and, like it or not, the football following public of Bristol won't/can't* pay £28/30 to watch BCFC on a regular basis

My final statement related to a one off reduction in price to entice people in. I'm not sure how you've taken it to mean that nobody can afford it.

As sad as it may be seling tickets needs to be about maximising income and adding a few thousand onto an attendance bu reducing prices may not be the best possible way to do it. That is where the "maths" comes in.......

So far this season we have averages 15,320 people per game. If we took £5 off our average ticket price of say £20 we would need to sell out (19,200 or there abouts) to achieve the same income. To me that doesn't make financial sense.

At present there is spare capacity caused by people being unwilling or unable to pay. The best possible way for the club to fill that would be for them to discriminate and price tickets according to how much people can pay. It's not realistic or suitable for them to do this but it shouldn't mean that they should discount everyones ticket to get them in.

[cheese]

So far this season we have averages 15,320 people per game. If we took £5 off our average ticket price of say £20 we would need to sell out (19,200 or there abouts) to achieve the same income. To me that doesn't make financial sense.

And you'll find we can't sell out every game as not every visiting club will be able to sell their entire allocation.

[The Man In Black]

So far this season we have averages 15,320 people per game. If we took £5 off our average ticket price of say £20 we would need to sell out (19,200 or there abouts) to achieve the same income. To me that doesn't make financial sense.

You're not taking into account all the factors though - investment in future supporters who are now attending the games and additional catering revenue (OK, that one's pushing it )

[collier]

I'd argue that there are price brackets where it is elastic but the main pice regions I'd argue the opposite. An elastic product would be where a halving of the ticket cost would more than double the number of purchases. This wasn't the case for that match. We probably sold an extra 2000 pay on the day people.

The market for football tickets is pretty inelastic, people don't tend to suddenly decide to go to watch the club they've supported for years just because there is a few quid off. There is so much brand loyalty involved that allows football clubs to overprice the product.

Tickets priced very low and very high may well be elastic. The club is finding that it is close to peoples maximum of what they can pay. Any higher and it will push it beyond the means of many people. People like yourself are finding rather than being unwilling to pay that price they are unable to pay.

The ground can only really hold around 19,000 people so it should be their aim to generate the most amount of money that it can from these seats. I don't think that by discounting the product they will generate the same degree of revenue.

Arnt we all forgetting that the crowd was a little over 16k, with only 200 or so barnsley so we actually sold 6 thousand tickets to people who are not season ticket holders. Now we only usually have a 12-13k crowd so by your reasoning 3k x2 equals 6k equals an elastic product in my view.

[cheese]

Arnt we all forgetting that the crowd was a little over 16k, with only 200 or so barnsley so we actually sold 6 thousand tickets to people who are not season ticket holders. Now we only usually have a 12-13k crowd so by your reasoning 3k x2 equals 6k equals an elastic product in my view.

We usually have a 12-13k crowd but have average attendances of just over 15000. Hmm, not sure I understand that one!!

[zookeeper]

And you'll find we can't sell out every game as not every visiting club will be able to sell their entire allocation.

I agree. The only chance for a sell out is if an away team fills out the east end.

You're not taking into account all the factors though - investment in future supporters who are now attending the games and additional catering revenue (OK, that one's pushing it )

Of course there are lots of other financial and non financial reasons. It is vital to get future supporters in and I think the club should really look into filling some of the spare seats with discounted child tickets as they have done before. Also the effect of the crowd on the team is important to the clubs success. I'd love to see the ground sell out at every game but I also enjoy watching some of the players we have on show at the moment!

Catering revenue???? The last time I tried to get catering they had run out of everything including water before half time!

[collier]

We usually have a 12-13k crowd but have average attendances of just over 15000. Hmm, not sure I understand that one!!

well the reason we have a 15k average is because of away fans duh!! We are talking about prices and the impact on actual bristol city fans. Price don't have an impact on away fans imo so why would i include them in the equasion??

Hmmm maybe you understand that one!!!

[zookeeper]

Arnt we all forgetting that the crowd was a little over 16k, with only 200 or so barnsley so we actually sold 6 thousand tickets to people who are not season ticket holders. Now we only usually have a 12-13k crowd so by your reasoning 3k x2 equals 6k equals an elastic product in my view.

We have had 2 attendances below 14,000 people and one of those was on sky.

The discount would have been offered to the Barnsley fans as well so I'm not too sure we can totally discount them. From what I've seen a lot of away fans are normally based locally.

[cheese]

well the reason we have a 15k average is because of away fans duh!! We are talking about prices and the impact on actual bristol city fans. Price don't have an impact on away fans imo so why would i include them in the equasion??

Hmmm maybe you understand that one!!!

I'm surprised that away supporters average somewhere between 2000 and 3000. How can they be excluded - they pay - they have to be considered part of the equation.

[scumbag]

I agree. The only chance for a sell out is if an away team fills out the east end.

surely if we actually sold out the City part of the east end then that would help?

despite the prices cuts the east end home allocated area still wasn't anywhere near full?

[collier]

I'm surprised that away supporters average somewhere between 2000 and 3000. How can they be excluded - they pay - they have to be considered part of the equation.

how can they be considered when we are trying to gauge if more home fans will turn up if the prices are lowered. certain teams will always bring x amount of fans whatever the prices are. I doubt you would get fans from most away sides looking at the prices for away tickets and then saying well I was going to go but I wont bother because its a few quid over my budget.

I thought the whole point of this discussion was to work out if the lower prices affected the home attendance at the barnsley match.

[zookeeper]

surely if we actually sold out the City part of the east end then that would help?

despite the prices cuts the east end home allocated area still wasn't anywhere near full?

The problem being the more away fans that come the bigger the netting that is placed between them and us. If they fill it all out there won't be the need for the netting and then we could sell out.