Attendance for Saturday

[CFSFC]

They may have done that publicly but I reckon Cortese probably told them to shove it when approached about this offer.

 

I like that about him, it works in selling players as well.

[Guest Dark Sotonic Mills]

Well, there's two in this family who won't be going as we are at a stag do. However, as we both have season tickets we will have a virtual presence as the club include ST holders in the crowd numbers whether there or not.

[Sour Mash]

Not really. Other than maximising revenue. Look. I would be happier if all parking was free. I would be happier if there was no additional cost of purchasing a ticket. But parking costs and there is an admin fee on the ticket. I will be honest with you. I am past caring. Really I am. I saw they had introduced it. THought it might be a touch harsh, then i got on with my life and have not spent any more time thinking about it.

 

I just wish some would do the same!

 

No you haven't - you've posted on this thread numerous times already.

[Alucard]

Not really. Other than maximising revenue. Look. I would be happier if all parking was free. I would be happier if there was no additional cost of purchasing a ticket. But parking costs and there is an admin fee on the ticket. I will be honest with you. I am past caring. Really I am. I saw they had introduced it. THought it might be a touch harsh, then i got on with my life and have not spent any more time thinking about it.

 

I just wish some would do the same!

 

And you are club's ideal customer just accept the charges and get on with your life. At what point would you call the surcharge excessive £5 , £10 because that is what SFC are trying to find out . If you want club to buy a nice shiny new centre-back I wish you had the option to chuck your spare cash into a bucket at the turnstile rather than having it surgically removed from your wallet by not being able to buy a ticket at the advertised price without visiting SMS (and leaving the car park within 15 minutes) which to a lot of people is not an option.

[djharvey]

Well, there's two in this family who won't be going as we are at a stag do. However, as we both have season tickets we will have a virtual presence as the club include ST holders in the crowd numbers whether there or not.

 

Are you sure? I thought the attendance figures were actual attendance (people through the turnstiles), not tickets sold.

[CFSFC]

Are you sure? I thought the attendance figures were actual attendance (people through the turnstiles), not tickets sold.

 

Mills is correct.

[This Charming Man]

I like that about him, it works in selling players as well.

 

Agreed. It does help we have the financial clout to turn down bids as well. If Lowe was still here, AOC would've been sold for £6m back in January and Arsenal would be paying in £10 monthly instalments.

[CFSFC]

Agreed. It does help we have the financial clout to turn down bids as well. If Lowe was still here, AOC would've been sold for £6m back in January and Arsenal would be paying in £10 monthly instalments.

 

And our fans would of wish the lad luck, if he leaves us... i genuinly hope the little skate breaks an ankle and suffers a blood clot and dies instantly.

[benjii]

As a transactional cost it is not the norm . Booking online at the Odeon Cinema is 75p (or I can avoid it completely by buying my ticket when I actually go). Why are you taking all the fixed costs of running the ticket office and dividing it by the number of online transactions? Surely the fixed costs should be spread across every ticket and not just those purchased online or on the phone. The online charges are so high as they judge that is what they can get away with charging not anything to do with costs actually incurred in performing the transaction. Again I ask you Can you please, please, please explain to me how the £2 charge to deter me from buying a ticket on the day works when my only alternative is paying a £3 'administration' fee for buying it online or over the phone pre match day.

 

Because most people have friends. Most people book tickets together with a friend or two. If you book two tickets the cost per ticket is less than the per-ticket matchday surcharge.

[Chez]

Also why charge those using the travel club for away games when the car park sits empty anyway? Surely they should be encouraging people to follow the team

absolutely spot on, you'd think they want as many fans to buy away tickets as possible yet they charge a ticket tax and for some a parking tax. Football clubs offer free coaches from time to time to maximise support, our football business just seems keen to extract every last penny from dedicated supporters.

[Alucard]

Because most people have friends. Most people book tickets together with a friend or two. If you book two tickets the cost per ticket is less than the per-ticket matchday surcharge.

 

I'm sure I'm not the only person who doesn't know until a few days before a game whether I can attend due to work and family commitments so have to buy single tickets. If the club really wanted to disuade people from causing a large rush for walkups just before kick off they could put a £10 surcharge on tickets sold after 2pm on matchdays and selling tickets before that at the advertised price. The deterrent price is conveniently set just small enough not to deter too many people and therefore maximise revenue from walk ups.

[for_heaven's_Saint]

absolutely spot on, you'd think they want as many fans to buy away tickets as possible yet they charge a ticket tax and for some a parking tax. Football clubs offer free coaches from time to time to maximise support, our football business just seems keen to extract every last penny from dedicated supporters.

 

It is ridiculous. The best bet now is to get on at Eastleigh and park at Fleming Park, though I appreciate that involves travelling further for a lot of people.

[70's Mike]

will there be a walk up for this game?

 

in the past games against Leeds tickets were only sold up to the Friday night

[This Charming Man]

will there be a walk up for this game?

 

in the past games against Leeds tickets were only sold up to the Friday night

 

They haven't actually sold out yet (about 100 to sell so imagine it will be come KO) so can only assume they're not worried about a load of Leeds turning up in the home end.

[up and away]

If you honestly believe that it costs £3 to handle an online transaction you deserve to be parted from your cash. If it does cost SFC that amount then I suggest they start looking elsewhere for someone to handle the online ticket sales. Why do you believe SFC would not be screwing fans for something that hardly registers on the bottom line when they've reduced the free parking time to 15 minutes to do just that.

 

What | do believe that it's nowhere as simplistic as you believe. As with many other clubs I imagine they have a certain number of staff for online and phone sales. When that volume is too great this gets automatically routed to an outside agency who process the order. They would then relay the transaction back to Saints where everything would be printed off automatically or manually. You then have to ask what sort of charges you would expect from these agencies, bearing in mind they will be expected to handle large volumes in a short space of time This is their business, something they make money from and I would expect you have to throw in VAT as well.

 

Lots of Premier clubs do this so it should come as no surprise and the figure is generally around the same. Tickets for all sorts of things incur similar charges, so if you were to present the point to them that it seems excessive, I really doubt you would have much luck or a viable alternative. The cost for the envelope, stamp and process time will be far lower than the £3, but that will never reflect the true cost of the operation however it is done, when you have to deal with large volumes over a short space of time.

 

St Helens business telecoms provider, Elite Telecom, has earned its Spurs after adding another club to its growing collection of Premier League clients. Elite Telecom has set up a bespoke network system for Tottenham Hotspur to handle calls for all club departments, including ticket sales. The firm now handles the telephone systems at six Premier League football clubs, including Everton. Nick Mannion, commercial director at Elite Telecom, said: “The system consolidates several numbers into two memorable numbers which fans can use whatever their enquiry. “Our system has in-built flexibility so that the ticket line can forward calls either in-house or to an out-sourced ticket agency depending on the tickets required and the volume of calls.” The call queuing package allows Tottenham Hotspur to handle large spikes in demand for high-profile fixtures.

[trousers]

the club include ST holders in the crowd numbers whether there or not.

 

That's my understanding too, but I've always felt it's illogical.

 

Does anyone know if clubs quote "tickets purchased" rather than "actual people there" to arrive at the attendance (sic) figure out of personal choice or is it some League/FA regulation that they are adhering to here?

 

I recall someone telling me once that there were tax reasons for quoting "sales figures" instead of "attendance figures" and that there were 'tax benefits' of either under-stating or over-stating the numbers, but never really got to the bottom of that.....

 

Surely what your average punter wants to glean from an "attendance" figure is how many human beings were in the ground watching the game. Yay? Nay?

[Alucard]

What | do believe that it's nowhere as simplistic as you believe.

 

Lots of Premier clubs do this so it should come as no surprise and the figure is generally around the same. Tickets for all sorts of things incur similar charges, so if you were to present the point to them that it seems excessive, I really doubt you would have much luck or a viable alternative. The cost for the envelope, stamp and process time will be far lower than the £3, but that will never reflect the true cost of the operation however it is done, when you have to deal with large volumes over a short space of time.

 

Just because lots of companies do make these charges doesn't make it right. Which magazine have launched a formal "super-complaint" with the Office of Fair Trading over online surcharges stating

Which launched its complaint against the charges in February, claiming they "are often sprung against the customer at the point of payment and can be far in excess of what it costs to process the transaction.

[The9]

Attendance figures definitely include all ST holders, whether they're there or not. You can tell from how the ST voucher stubs are handled at the turnstiles that no-one ever has to count them or bothers to.

[Barry the Badger]

Attendance figures definitely include all ST holders, whether they're there or not. You can tell from how the ST voucher stubs are handled at the turnstiles that no-one ever has to count them or bothers to.

 

I had always assumed there were counters on the turnstiles..

[Leicestersaint]

It's 6 August and a lot of people are away on holiday.

[Saint Garrett]

I always assumed that the attendance was counted by how many times the turnstiles clicked....might be wrong though.

[JRM]

I always assumed that the attendance was counted by how many times the turnstiles clicked....might be wrong though.

 

not might be, you are wrong.

[whelk]

how else would Emirates gate be consistently around 60000 when clearly many empty seats?

[The Kraken]

What | do believe that it's nowhere as simplistic as you believe. As with many other clubs I imagine they have a certain number of staff for online and phone sales. When that volume is too great this gets automatically routed to an outside agency who process the order. They would then relay the transaction back to Saints where everything would be printed off automatically or manually. You then have to ask what sort of charges you would expect from these agencies, bearing in mind they will be expected to handle large volumes in a short space of time This is their business, something they make money from and I would expect you have to throw in VAT as well.

 

You make a fair point regarding telephone sales for in-demand times.

 

However, I don't see that it can be an issue for online sales. With the right type of booking system in place (which we must already have) there is surely no need to use an agency; the bookings are made directly on SFC's system, and all that is then left to do by the club is print the tickets and put them in an envelope. Which begs the question of why online sales are charged the £3 fee. I'd use the online system if it was free, but for some reason it's the same as the telephone sales charge.

[Gigersaint]

Couldn't renew my ST for this season as a couple of things cropped up that took preference and my savings for it

 

However, I wasn't originally able to make the Leeds game but after change of plan I realised I could still go and take my nipper too. The Mrs went down to St. Marys today to get us the tickets and the TO could only find 2 seats together in the Kingsland South, with nothing else together in either the Itchen or rest of the Kingsland.

 

As the Northam is always usually close to sell out it looks as if we are looking at quite a good turnout afterall despite people on holiday, game being on Sky, etc...

 

I can't wait! I thought that without my ST now I wouldn't be so quite so enthusiastic to get matchday tickets but the second I knew I could make it.... think I may end up going to every home game still!

[JRM]

Couldn't renew my ST for this season as a couple of things cropped up that took preference and my savings for it

 

However, I wasn't originally able to make the Leeds game but after change of plan I realised I could still go and take my nipper too. The Mrs went down to St. Marys today to get us the tickets and the TO could only find 2 seats together in the Kingsland South, with nothing else together in either the Itchen or rest of the Kingsland.

 

As the Northam is always usually close to sell out it looks as if we are looking at quite a good turnout afterall despite people on holiday, game being on Sky, etc...

 

I can't wait! I thought that without my ST now I wouldn't be so quite so enthusiastic to get matchday tickets but the second I knew I could make it.... think I may end up going to every home game still!

 

the club this morning said only 20k saints ticket sold, plus the away following, that should leave 9k left around the ground to choose from, so amazed if you can't get 2 together in the Itchen.

[Stu Man Do]

Brought mine today rocked up about 3:30 three tickets in the Kingsland/ Northam corner no troubles. I reckon we'll look for about 25-26k home supporters which is not too shabby for a game on sky!

[Gigersaint]

the club this morning said only 20k saints ticket sold, plus the away following, that should leave 9k left around the ground to choose from, so amazed if you can't get 2 together in the Itchen.

 

My thoughts were exactly the same JRM, and my surprised response much to the Mrs' annoyance was when I asked her if she had asked for tickets where I asked her to get them when she came back with tickets for Kingsland South.

 

The TO clerk looked for two together first in the Itchen and then Kingsland stands, the only two she could find together were in Kingsland South.

 

I don't like to be sceptical of our TO but I've also seen when friends have brought tickets in the past on a matchday basis who wanted them elsewhere that there are often groups of empty seats in the all stands, I don't believe these are all down to people that have tickets but don't turn up and I'm not sure why this is.

 

So although tickets together for 2 people or more seems sparse I guess we'll find out for sure on the day if it's actually the case.

 

Anything regarding match attendance threads before a game often seems to have differing messages coming from the TO about availability and tickets sold. I guess I'll start to understand this more now getting tickets on a match by match basis.

[DJ_TOAST]

the club this morning said only 20k saints ticket sold, plus the away following, that should leave 9k left around the ground to choose from, so amazed if you can't get 2 together in the Itchen.

 

seems every ticket office person is telling everyone something different. told my mate who got 2 yesterday 22K sold

[Crab Lungs]

24,304

 

or

 

24,887

[up and away]

Just because lots of companies do make these charges doesn't make it right. Which magazine have launched a formal "super-complaint" with the Office of Fair Trading over online surcharges stating

Which launched its complaint against the charges in February, claiming they "are often sprung against the customer at the point of payment and can be far in excess of what it costs to process the transaction.

 

This charge by football clubs will never be looked at by Fair Trading. Why, because it is all totally up front and there are viable alternatives to not pay the additional costs. It's more than likely you could get the prices down by outsourcing to India, but many would not see that as viable given the problems experienced with Indian call centres. When you get small base charges as this, it is not surprising that the %level of profit looks excessive. But these companies treat this as a business and are content for anyone to walk away and find another agency.

 

The clubs introduced these different methods and manners in payment and collection to give everyone the opportunity the easy access of a ticket. They don't force you down this one route, that's something your circumstances or laziness dictate. If this option was not available I bet there would be a clamour from fans for exactly this, even though it's greater benefit is for the club.

 

At the end of the day what are we actually talking about here? If you wanted to keep your seasons expenditure to exactly the same, for the average fan buying individual tickets it would mean missing one game. Hardly life changing in being able to support your team.

[whelk]

Attendance prediction league anyone?

 

I have to agree with Crab Lungs 24304 for sure

[Alucard]

What | do believe that it's nowhere as simplistic as you believe. As with many other clubs I imagine they have a certain number of staff for online and phone sales. When that volume is too great this gets automatically routed to an outside agency who process the order. They would then relay the transaction back to Saints where everything would be printed off automatically or manually. You then have to ask what sort of charges you would expect from these agencies, bearing in mind they will be expected to handle large volumes in a short space of time This is their business, something they make money from and I would expect you have to throw in VAT as well.

 

 

The clubs introduced these different methods and manners in payment and collection to give everyone the opportunity the easy access of a ticket. They don't force you down this one route, that's something your circumstances or laziness dictate. If this option was not available I bet there would be a clamour from fans for exactly this, even though it's greater benefit is for the club.

 

 

You are trying to make it sound like we've just introduced some super swish state of the art system that's costing a fortune to run. We haven't we have the same crappy online booking system we've been using for the past 6 years or so which won't even let you pick specific seats. Why has the cost of running this suddenly rocketed to the point of costing £3 per transaction where up until last season a charge wasn't even made for postage? I believe we should have made a charge for postage but obviously all the previous regimes were willing to absorb the cost as part of the increase in revenue from selling more seats by making it easier for the customer to purchase.

 

I know a lot of the telephone orders are now handled by an outside agency but what business in their right mind outsources a minor part of the business at such a cost that it has to increase their product price by over 10%

[Barry the Badger]

I can't wait! I thought that without my ST now I wouldn't be so quite so enthusiastic to get matchday tickets but the second I knew I could make it.... think I may end up going to every home game still!

 

Sounds like you are the clubs ideal customer!

[JustMike]

26,679

[trousers]

26,678

[solentstars]

You are trying to make it sound like we've just introduced some super swish state of the art system that's costing a fortune to run. We haven't we have the same crappy online booking system we've been using for the past 6 years or so which won't even let you pick specific seats. Why has the cost of running this suddenly rocketed to the point of costing £3 per transaction where up until last season a charge wasn't even made for postage? I believe we should have made a charge for postage but obviously all the previous regimes were willing to absorb the cost as part of the increase in revenue from selling more seats by making it easier for the customer to purchase.

 

I know a lot of the telephone orders are now handled by an outside agency but what business in their right mind outsources a minor part of the business at such a cost that it has to increase their product price by over 10%

good post it is the same system and you use to have the option to get season ticket posted out

[krissyboy31]

26,679

 

26,678

 

Why?? Are you not going??

[31cc]

I was at the box office this morning and was told that 24k had been sold, don't know if that includes away fans though.

[This Charming Man]

I was at the TO this morning and they told me to f*ck off as it's none of my business.

[Hatch]

I bought one ticket online today.

 

When i went to try and print off the 'printable receipt thingy,' the system kept directing me to the corporate booking application form.

 

Not sure whether it is a system f-up or if they are trying to force me to go corporate.

 

So i was paying £3 for a system that doesn't even work , I might even claim back 20p for not being able to print out my reciept.

[surrey1saint]

Think we will approach a sellout for this game.

[K,Billy's supersound]

27300 the die hard fans will start to return to st mary's again.

[voteforpedro]

Ticket office said around 25,000 sold as of around 4pm this afternoon.

[action man]

23,793

[The Kraken]

23,793

 

:lol:

 

Did you read the post above your's, or just ignore it?!

[suewhistle]

Ticket office said around 25,000 sold as of around 4pm this afternoon.

 

With or without durtys?

[Neil]

Anything less than 32,689 would be a major disappointment.

[The9]

I bought one ticket online today.

 

When i went to try and print off the 'printable receipt thingy,' the system kept directing me to the corporate booking application form.

 

Not sure whether it is a system f-up or if they are trying to force me to go corporate.

 

So i was paying £3 for a system that doesn't even work , I might even claim back 20p for not being able to print out my reciept.

 

It's being doing that for at least 10 months, I was in my old office last time I tried to print a receipt off and had that happen, and we moved in October.

[Turkish]

I was at the TO this morning and they told me to f*ck off as it's none of my business.

 

If they introduced an attendance tax for everytime someone aasked how many tickets we'd sold they could put the parking threshold back up to 30 minutes.