Steve L On Tickets: Dilemma

[Rob k]

The TV money is only massive in the Prem, in this division it's only slightly more than in league one.

Ticket money is the vast majority of the club's revenue at this level and the prices you're suggesting are far too low IMO.

I think reasonable prices are around £20 adult, £15 student/oap, £10 kids u-16. I reckon that would put the average seat price near enough half way between the extremes of Barnsley and normal prices.

This would knock £14 off Fatman's ticket prices for example, which is about 30% and enough to make the difference between going and not going for many people. I think it would handily add up to 2k to most gates for the remainder of the season and to be fair if we're still in the shake up for the last couple of games the club can always remove the discount since we'll sell out anyway.

I think the offer for the Boro game is pretty reasonable, I'd like to see them repeat something like that for a couple of league games so it's easier to compare with other attendances.

is £20 resoanable when you compare it to other leisure activities that would last the same amount of time, ie cinema, bowling etc??

[Nibor]

is £20 resoanable when you compare it to other leisure activities that would last the same amount of time, ie cinema, bowling etc??

It's close enough to make it a viable alternative I think. It's never going to be able to be as cheap as the cinema etc.

[cheese]

is £20 resoanable when you compare it to other leisure activities that would last the same amount of time, ie cinema, bowling etc??

Kylie Minogue concert, WestLife concert, Bryan Adams etc etc.

[bristolcitysweden]

Yet another 'Ticket price' topic! I haven't said anything on the matter myself so far, but this follows Steve Lansdown's World interview.

Now there actually some figures to contend with.

I am a ST and want the ground as full as possible myself, but looking at the figures now, I can understand SL's thinking on the prices of tickets.

SL says we lost £15,000 in gate revenue at the Barnsley game. So we got a 16k crowd (which he thought was very good) BUT lost out on the money.

Therefore there are two circumstances:

1. Have around 14k-15k and sustain the revenue.

2. Get +16,000, gaining an extra thousand people or so, but losing out on around £345k per season (which is could go towards transfers for example). Personally I don't feel that a boosted crowd adds sufficient atmosphere, and enough of a contribution to cover this lost revenue as a Championship club. I know that this was only Barnsley, who brought just 800 fans, but it's still the point of losing out on finances.

I must add that SL's opinion is that we need to compromise between that lost revenue, and increasing our current crowds a little.

I'd prefer slightly lower crowds with the higher gate revenue, and it is better to think of the club longer term, instead of individuals' suffering in high prices.

Think it would be possible to mathematically decide the prices for each game to get maximum revenue. If it doesn't mean a full house spare tickets could be offered for free to single mothers bringing their kids/familys with one parent unemployed etc. No professor in maths up at the university?

[Red Zeppelin]

Kylie Minogue concert, WestLife concert, Bryan Adams etc etc.

To be fair those concerts aren't every week though.

[bristolcitysweden]

Think it would be possible to mathematically decide the prices for each game to get maximum revenue. If it doesn't mean a full house spare tickets could be offered for free to single mothers bringing their kids/familys with one parent unemployed etc. No professor in maths up at the university?

Your English is better than mine but SL said we lost that money compared to the taking from a 12 500 crowd.

[Blagdon red]

I'm struggling to make SL's maths add up... I've not got World, so am working on what he quotes in the free video on the main site ... it's possible, therefore, that the snippet has lost some context. However, he states that the average revenue per ticket for the Barnsley game was £10.74 while normally it is, he says, around £21.

So I did the maths: Barnsley crowd was 16,588. 16,588 x £10.74 = £178,155

If he was comparing that with the revenue from a 12,500 gate at £21 (= £262,500), then where does the figure of a £15,000 loss (quoted by those who have seen the full interview) come from? The difference in these two figures is actually £84,345.

So I wondered if what he meant was the average POTD revenue per head, i.e. the revenue from all fans other than ST holders. So I took 9,600 (being the approx. ST total at that time) from the Barnsley attendance. That gives us 6,988 POTD fans. If the average revenue per head from those 6,988 was £10.74, then the total it generated was £75,051.

If that was a loss of £15,000, then SL must be making his comparison based on POTD revenue of c. £90,000 (i.e. £90k less £15k = £75k). At an average of £21 per head that equates to 4,285 POTD fans. Add that to the 9,600 ST holders and you get a total attendance of 13,885.

So, if what SL meant was that average revenue per head from POTD fans is normally £21 and because it was only £10.74 for the Barnsley game this represented a loss on what he had expected for that match of £15,000, then he must have expected a crowd of 13,885 for the Barnsley game.

Was that a realistic expectation for the second home game in 8 days on a pre-Xmas shopping Saturday? Or can anyone explain the figures of £21, £10.74 and a loss of £15,000 in any more logical way?

[Nibor]

Was that a realistic expectation for the second home game in 8 days on a pre-Xmas shopping Saturday? Or can anyone explain the figures of £21, £10.74 and a loss of £15,000 in any more logical way?

The way you've worked it out is perfectly logical given the figures and the same way I did (although I used 10,000 for the ST figure since I think we broke that around the same time).

I don't think that's a realistic gate expectation for that game myself.

[bristolcitysweden]

I'm struggling to make SL's maths add up... I've not got World, so am working on what he quotes in the free video on the main site ... it's possible, therefore, that the snippet has lost some context. However, he states that the average revenue per ticket for the Barnsley game was £10.74 while normally it is, he says, around £21.

So I did the maths: Barnsley crowd was 16,588. 16,588 x £10.74 = £178,155

If he was comparing that with the revenue from a 12,500 gate at £21 (= £262,500), then where does the figure of a £15,000 loss (quoted by those who have seen the full interview) come from? The difference in these two figures is actually £84,345.

So I wondered if what he meant was the average POTD revenue per head, i.e. the revenue from all fans other than ST holders. So I took 9,600 (being the approx. ST total at that time) from the Barnsley attendance. That gives us 6,988 POTD fans. If the average revenue per head from those 6,988 was £10.74, then the total it generated was £75,051.

If that was a loss of £15,000, then SL must be making his comparison based on POTD revenue of c. £90,000 (i.e. £90k less £15k = £75k). At an average of £21 per head that equates to 4,285 POTD fans. Add that to the 9,600 ST holders and you get a total attendance of 13,885.

So, if what SL meant was that average revenue per head from POTD fans is normally £21 and because it was only £10.74 for the Barnsley game this represented a loss on what he had expected for that match of £15,000, then he must have expected a crowd of 13,885 for the Barnsley game.

Was that a realistic expectation for the second home game in 8 days on a pre-Xmas shopping Saturday? Or can anyone explain the figures of £21, £10.74 and a loss of £15,000 in any more logical way?

Beats me.

[Guest DanC]

So we lost 15k against Barnsley, Does this include the increase in food, Merchandise and programme sales that you would get from a higher crowd? With the extra fans' there it would equate to something like each person would need to spend around 4 pounds to make that 15k back up. 4 pounds per person doesn't seem that far fetched when you consider some would have brought shirts at 40 pounds on a spur of the moment thing. 3 pounds for a programme, 1.80 for a bottle of drink, 3 pounds for a burger etc.

So really when you put all the match day income together did we actually break even or even make a profit if this 15 k loss was just on ticket sales?

[zookeeper]

So we lost 15k against Barnsley, Does this include the increase in food, Merchandise and programme sales that you would get from a higher crowd? With the extra fans' there it would equate to something like each person would need to spend around 4 pounds to make that 15k back up. 4 pounds per person doesn't seem that far fetched when you consider some would have brought shirts at 40 pounds on a spur of the moment thing. 3 pounds for a programme, 1.80 for a bottle of drink, 3 pounds for a burger etc.

So really when you put all the match day income together did we actually break even or even make a profit if this 15 k loss was just on ticket sales?

With people saying that they went to the ground because of the cost savings I don't imagine many would have spent £40 on spur of the moment decisions. It's more than likely that the overall catering revenue was down with people saving for christmas.

It's also important to take into account the costs of the catering. Extra tickets only generate a small cost as most of the costs would be incurred anyway but with catering there will only be a mark-up of at most 50%. With this in mind it would mean that the club would have to sell an extra £30k which by your maths would be £8 per person. I'd expect that the 50% mark-up is probably too high as well.

[stortfordred]

The way you've worked it out is perfectly logical given the figures and the same way I did (although I used 10,000 for the ST figure since I think we broke that around the same time).

I don't think that's a realistic gate expectation for that game myself.

I also think that SL is being disingenous here. Basically, he is trying to stop lots of people crying out for reductions for more games. The Barnsley game was part of a nationwide price reduction for Coca-Cola clubs over the Christmas period; it was even backed by a national radio advertising campaign.

You could certainly argue, as many people have done very convincingly on here, that it did the trick for that one-off game: it got the attendance up and has proved that price is a factor long-term. It may also have convinced some people that we're playing such good football that even £29 is worth it in the future.

However, we have 10.000 people who have paid full whack for their season tickets: any more reductions and you start to annoy your real hard-core, those people who have bitten the bullet and paid the extra this season. It would start to look like the season ticket holders were subsidising the part-timers.

The club now need to look at what to do for next season. Crystal Palace, for example, give reductions to people who buy very early (I think they even do a five year deal), Plymouth do various colour membership schemes whereby people are entitled to five, ten or fifteen match tickets if they pay so much in advance.

Basically, we have a huge catchment area; the club need to find a way of tapping into that. Believe me, the more that those people pay, the happier the club will be.

[jgsmuzzy]

Yep. £5 for U16's £10 OAP/Students £12 for adults. I seriously think something like this IS acceptable

Come on. £10 for adults? I pay £11 to watch Hyde united in the Conferance North! (4 divisions below)

(Blagdon Red. Your figures eeem correct to me. I had worked it out as well in the same way)

[RedM]

[quote name='Nibor' date='Jan 2 2008, 8:45 PM' post='852295'

I think reasonable prices are around £20 adult, £15 student/oap, £10 kids u-16. I reckon that would put the average seat price near enough half way between the extremes of Barnsley and normal prices.

I would have like to have seen our prices at this level too. I would think that it would be attractive to all, therefore crowds would have been up and no need to offer discounts. I think it would be better to have a lower price to attract people that couldn't commit to a season ticket, yet would want to see more than a couple of matches a season. Who knows they might have seen enough to then take a ST, watching only 1 match doesn't usually get you hooked!

Obviously the ST prices would have had to be set to reflect this, maths was never my strongest subject but a freeze or 10-15% increase should have happened. But then SL is the accountant not me!!!

I'm not saying that i haven't had good value, far from it. But my ST was paid for whether we are sitting joint top or 10 points adrift at the bottom. I just don't want to think what te attendances would be then are we aren't selling out now and the team deserves to be playing to packed stands.

I know it has been done to a death but the lack of early bird discounts for ST's still leaves a bad feeling. We were told that we did get a discount as the prices would rise after selling 10,000 tickets, that never happened. It seems the demand for ST was greatly overestimated? I know we have broken the 10,000 barrier now, 6 or 7 months after buying our tickets and as half season tickets are no longer available (?) we didn't get a discount did we anyway!

I think I'll start saving for my premier tickets now!!!

[Chivs]

I'm struggling to make SL's maths add up... I've not got World, so am working on what he quotes in the free video on the main site ... it's possible, therefore, that the snippet has lost some context. However, he states that the average revenue per ticket for the Barnsley game was £10.74 while normally it is, he says, around £21.

So I did the maths: Barnsley crowd was 16,588. 16,588 x £10.74 = £178,155

If he was comparing that with the revenue from a 12,500 gate at £21 (= £262,500), then where does the figure of a £15,000 loss (quoted by those who have seen the full interview) come from? The difference in these two figures is actually £84,345.

So I wondered if what he meant was the average POTD revenue per head, i.e. the revenue from all fans other than ST holders. So I took 9,600 (being the approx. ST total at that time) from the Barnsley attendance. That gives us 6,988 POTD fans. If the average revenue per head from those 6,988 was £10.74, then the total it generated was £75,051.

If that was a loss of £15,000, then SL must be making his comparison based on POTD revenue of c. £90,000 (i.e. £90k less £15k = £75k). At an average of £21 per head that equates to 4,285 POTD fans. Add that to the 9,600 ST holders and you get a total attendance of 13,885.

So, if what SL meant was that average revenue per head from POTD fans is normally £21 and because it was only £10.74 for the Barnsley game this represented a loss on what he had expected for that match of £15,000, then he must have expected a crowd of 13,885 for the Barnsley game.

Was that a realistic expectation for the second home game in 8 days on a pre-Xmas shopping Saturday? Or can anyone explain the figures of £21, £10.74 and a loss of £15,000 in any more logical way?

By heck, I did exactly the same maths and came up with 27.

I think 12500 was a more realistic estimate for the pre-price cutting Barnsley game though it's all guess work of course.

You'll have to do the maths to tell me if that means we would have made more of a loss or not .

It would start to look like the season ticket holders were subsidising the part-timers.

I'm a ST holder and I have absolutely no problem with subsidising "part-timers". I paid my money and I'm sure as hell getting value for money. If someone else gets the tickets cheaper, good luck to them.

[bristolrich]

The club needs to improve communication about cheaper ticket prices. e.g. the quid for a kid matches, I've only ever heard about this when I've been at AG!

The city of Bristol has about 400,000 to 500,000 population (not all footie fans and support other teams I know) but I think its pretty poor that the club has not done enough to get more people into the ground, more special offers (even if its means advertising in the local newspaper) and a reduction in ticket prices next season regardless of what division we are in could help in getting more fans - which are arguably are the most important factor in football.

[stortfordred]

I'm a ST holder and I have absolutely no problem with subsidising "part-timers". I paid my money and I'm sure as hell getting value for money. If someone else gets the tickets cheaper, good luck to them.

I agree but the club have to be careful because there could be those who decide not to re-new STs because they can get them cheaper buying match by match. This is where the early-bird type offers are so crucial.

[BournemouthRed]

As I see it the answer is to vary ticket pricing according to the opposition and any weekends where low attendence is expected.

The club also have to be careful that season ticket holders are not let down by regular reductions and special offers.

I would suggest £25 as the standard match day ticket price for an adult, with special offers of £20 per game against less attractive opposition, with the very occasional drop to £15/half price for games such as 'black Saturday' before Christmas or where there are three home games in 10 days.

The drop to £25 would compromise between the definitely overpriced match tickets we have at present and the financial necessities - this would have to come into effect next season to avoid alienating season ticket holders.

I believe it is easier and more attractive for people to hand over two tens and a fiver rather than three tenners.

In reality, I suspect we will see a couple more games this season where the £20 offer comes into play, while next season will see no increase in ticket prices if we stay in the Championship and an increase to £30 per game if we go up.

An expensive hobby these days.

[Bristol Boy]

Yet another 'Ticket price' topic! I haven't said anything on the matter myself so far, but this follows Steve Lansdown's World interview.

Now there actually some figures to contend with.

I am a ST and want the ground as full as possible myself, but looking at the figures now, I can understand SL's thinking on the prices of tickets.

SL says we lost £15,000 in gate revenue at the Barnsley game. So we got a 16k crowd (which he thought was very good) BUT lost out on the money.

Therefore there are two circumstances:

1. Have around 14k-15k and sustain the revenue.

2. Get +16,000, gaining an extra thousand people or so, but losing out on around £345k per season (which is could go towards transfers for example). Personally I don't feel that a boosted crowd adds sufficient atmosphere, and enough of a contribution to cover this lost revenue as a Championship club. I know that this was only Barnsley, who brought just 800 fans, but it's still the point of losing out on finances.

I must add that SL's opinion is that we need to compromise between that lost revenue, and increasing our current crowds a little.

I'd prefer slightly lower crowds with the higher gate revenue, and it is better to think of the club longer term, instead of individuals' suffering in high prices.

The mistake you're making is the one that says tickets are the price they are now or half that price.That's never been suggested and, frankly, it's just insulting to put in in those simplistic terms.There's a huge amount of scope in between.

The "loss" SL mentions is when measured against budget,(Budget was about 15/15,500) not an actual loss, so the figures you're using aren't a sensible extrapliation and no one is suggesting for a solitary second that such cuts would be feasible.He also used a figure of 12,500 at full pay as a comparison regarding the same revenue but who's to say that the gate would have even been that high.

Barnsley brought 357 fans, not 800, so the attendance by City supporters in the crowd was the highest of the season, on the worst day of the season.

Now, parking all that, what SL said was that football had changed and if City supporters wanted CCC football then, with a few possible exceptions like Quid-A-Kid, there would be no change.Either that or he'd ask the players & staff to take a pay cut etc, etc.

OK, that point is stated and some people will continue to make their choice which, to date, has been principally to stay away, because the can't afford it.Our crowds probably won't go much above an average of about 15,500 for the rest of the season, but he considers that acceptable in building up the clubs brand image on the basis that we didn't get more than that, less in fact, when we were last in the CCC-That being said, gates were counted differently then and we were struggling like mad not joint top by Jan 1st.

If the club move forward and please God, gain promotion, then SL may be proved right.The problem comes if that doesn't happen and if next season is mediocre........or even worse and in football, all things are possible.If crowds are 15,500 now then they will surely fall if this season ends disppointingly and we don't at least make the play offs (Yes, the bars been raised) and we start the following year poorly.

I was delighted to hear him talk about how great promotion would be dismissing as "Twaddle" comments regarding promotion to the premier league as coming to soon.

I am also delighted that we have a new ground (coming soon) and a new training ground (coming even sooner!) and I fully accept that they have to be paid for-however, a careful balance needs to be struck and it'll be interesting to see if our ground hosts 4 x 19,000+ Crowds this year as it did last and if we take in excess of 1,000 fans to 15 away matches as we did last season.

It's all about balance and there's a million miles between today's prices and half of that.If we are to retain and improve on our existing fanbase that ground needs to be properly and sensibly explored.

[Bristol Boy]

I'm no longer a season ticket holder and have to pick and choose my games.

This decision is purely financial as I simply couldn't afford to go every week.

My ticket £28

Son's ticket £16

Programme £3

Refreshments for 2 £6

Total matchday exp: £53!

I acknowledge the programme and refreshments are optional but you see my point?

What's worrying for me the most is the cost of bringing children. Everyone talks about getting kids and families to the gate, the truth is that my sons visits to the gate are limited because £16 is too expensive!

Yours is one of dozens of posts of a similar nature and the anecdotal evidence is huge.

It might be an idea to petition for lower prices, suggesting a sensible figure-In your position as a Mod it should be fairly easy to organise something online and perhaps that would work.Colchester would be an ideal game for another "Barnsley" type experiment, perhaps quid-a kid and knock 30% off Adults?-Every little helps!

[Bristol Boy]

Kylie Minogue concert, WestLife concert, Bryan Adams etc etc.

The essential difference being that Kylie Doesn't perform in one City on the 30 Occassions that City did last season in a nine month period.

[Red Zeppelin]

The mistake you're making is the one that says tickets are the price they are now or half that price.That's never been suggested and, frankly, it's just insulting to put in in those simplistic terms.There's a huge amount of scope in between.

I apologise if you are 'insulted'.

Obviously we have to find a compromise like SL says. I didn't intend to consider only the extremes, my point is basically I am happy to sacrifice the extra fans for finances.

[Dave L]

I apologise if you are 'insulted'.

Obviously we have to find a compromise like SL says. I didn't intend to consider only the extremes, my point is basically I am happy to sacrifice the extra fans for finances.

Buying a season ticket will always be the cheapest way to watch City, but the club are looking at more deals for forthcoming matches.

[bristolrich]

Yours is one of dozens of posts of a similar nature and the anecdotal evidence is huge.

It might be an idea to petition for lower prices,

I'd certainly sign that petition. I feel its best for the club in the long term as well.

[bristolrich]

Buying a season ticket will always be the cheapest way to watch City, but the club are looking at more deals for forthcoming matches.

What was the price of the full season ticket in August? Is it expected to go up if we get promotion?

[Nibor]

What was the price of the full season ticket in August? Is it expected to go up if we get promotion?

The most expensive was £455 in the central blocks in the Dolman.

If we got promoted there's a decent case for it not going up due to the £30m odd TV money but I would expect another increase because we'd probably be oversubscribed in the 3 main home stands.

[CiderJar]

I know what the tilde stands for thank you. Having heard the free version, I note he says that the average revenue per ticket for the Barnsley game was about £10.74 (or ~£10.74 if you prefer) whereas it's usually around £21. No doubt you can figure the effect out yourself.

Exactly, but the price cut did not need to be so drastic for the Barnsley game to have an impact. He needn't have lost money had he aimed for an average revenue from a ticket as being £15 instead of £10. Still considerably less than most if the current average is £21 and the 4,000 extra (?) on the gate would have earnt him more than his £15,000 deficit (£5 x 4,000 = £20,000 the last time I checked, or for the pedants £4.29 x 4,000 = £17,160).

He mentions not undercutting season ticket holders. An adult half-season ticket in the Dolman saves about £6 a ticket on a match day price of £29. Cut that price by £4 to £25 a ticket and I bet overall revenue would increase. For example an extra 1000 people through the gate (17,000 crowd instead of 16,000) and your revenue (excluding 10,000 season tickets already sold) is 7,000 x £25 = £175,000 instead of 6,000 x £29 = £174,000.

I know the average ticket price is not £29, but nor will the new average be £25 so the principle is the same. Cut prices by as little as £4 or £5 and reap the benefits. Cut them by £10 and struggle to make up the defecit. Steve Lansdown surely understands this? What was halving the Barnsley ticket price intending to achieve? If he realistically wants to increase attendance whilst balancing revenue then why not go for a smaller reduction? Unless he was just trying to justify his over-priced tickets in the first place?

Some will say the price increases are what is needed to fund the club. I say that unless we the fans make a stand we are at the mercy of over-pricing in football in general. Ultimately all we are doing is supporting Rupert Murdochs empire, which can ruin football in this country just as soon as it created the huge media-driven monster that his "Premiership Soccer" has become.

[Bristol Boy]

I apologise if you are 'insulted'.

No need and it was the simplistic argument that I felt was wrong-Insulting was probably to strong a word.

Obviously we have to find a compromise like SL says. I didn't intend to consider only the extremes, my point is basically I am happy to sacrifice the extra fans for finances.

And that's where it gets difficult and, in the long term, I fear that will damage the club.

Buying a season ticket will always be the cheapest way to watch City,

Agreed and so it should be, over 23 home games.However ST's give many advantages not just price

but the club are looking at more deals for forthcoming matches.

And I'm delighted to see it and applaud what you're trying to acheive.I was pleased to see that POD & PIA are now the same, that's good.The next step is two fold.Drop the on costs like booking fees and reduce the end costs to £20 and the side costs to £23.If that doesn't boost attendances then at least you've tried and you can rightly say that.

The other major factor is the EE-Given the normal configuration, unless the away support totals 3,000 we can't get near 19,500, so the clubs attitude to that end needs to become welcoming & flexible as opposed to a bit ridgid and intransagent.If people don't behave boot them out, ban them and let's those who do behave watch from where they want to but please unallocated & POD regularly.

It's a leap of faith, but we're here until 2010 and not all Prem Clubs will bring 3,000 away fans especially for the daft KO times.

At the moment

[Bristol Boy]

What was the price of the full season ticket in August? Is it expected to go up if we get promotion?

Dolman C £455 = £19.78pm against £30 POD = £690.

SL told the ST that's not definite however, if we do, I would estimate 10/15% making it about £27.50 on the basis that ther are less games in the Prem although you might get a cup game or two thrown in??

[bristolrich]

Just wondering but does anyone from the club read this forum? Be interesting to see if it had any impact (even small...)