Norwich sold out!

[Jack]

As above, that's pretty quick. An I right in thinking they didn't announce the allocation? Glad I got in there quick.

 

[DuncanRG]

Impressive if we had a good allocation.

[SaintNeil90]

They never give out the allocation, although we did take full allocation for WBA according to a steward at their ground.

[View From The Top]

Bas*ard. Was hoping it would get to general sale as nipper wanted to tick Carrow Rd off the list.

[Bucks Saint]

gutted

[Mattio]

**** that was a localish one for me!

[Colinjb]

We really are establishing a good away following. Better then I can remember anyway.

[simo]

Triffic support !

[lutz]

My father in law,who supports Norwich told me that we had only asked for a 1200 allocation,how true that is I don't know,but we will find out on saturday.

[Saint Garrett]

Just been told by a Norwich mate we only taken 1 block out of 3....very odd if true.

[adrian lord]

thats a ****er as its my local

[Griffo]

F*ck sake. Why can't the ticket office sort our tickets out properly? What's wrong with taking initial allocations if they're wary that we wouldn't sell out completely but then asking for more or the rest of the allocation when the initial one sells out?

[saints_is_the_south]

1 block? After selling out our allocation of 2,600 for WBA? Find that hard to believe. The final block in the away section at Carrow Road is tiny too! http://www.canaries.co.uk/cms_images/stadium-plan-1213132-230542.pdf

[Saint Garrett]

I did say to my mate it would be very hard to believe after selling out WBA, but odd that me and one other has sorted, feel sorry for those that haven't got one if the club had only taken a small allocation. Ridiculous if so.

Edited 20 August, 2013 by Saint Garrett

[LGTL]

I'm in block G so would assume we have block F too. I know we had 3 blocks last year so would seem odd to only have 1 this year?

[Georgie]

One block?! We would easily have sold 2 blocks. I really don't understand the ticket office sometimes.

[saints_is_the_south]

I've seen people on twitter who also have block G. So we've got 2 blocks then, F & G.

[Sour Mash]

1 block? After selling out our allocation of 2,600 for WBA? Find that hard to believe. The final block in the away section at Carrow Road is tiny too! http://www.canaries.co.uk/cms_images/stadium-plan-1213132-230542.pdf

Pretty sure we had block "H" last year as well? Very strange ticket management from Saints sometimes.

[Georgie]

Hmm yes just looked at my ticket, block g. So block f and g then. Is that only 1,200? Seems like it would be more than that. Would of sold the 3rd block if we had asked for it

[Saint Garrett]

Honestly think we could have sold 4000 if we'd been given it, especially if we win on Saturday. Doesn't make sense to me. Hopefully we have taken the full allocation and they're wrong.

[saints_is_the_south]

I'm surprised that it took as long to shift the 1,200 tickets as it did, if that allocation is indeed correct.

[dronskisaint]

Any one got any spares please? - ideally 2, me and the lad but one is good...happy to pay towards delivering it or a bit extra for whatever reason. I'm staying in Southampton and was going to be at the ticket office first thing as I only live 30 mins from Norwich.

[View From The Top]

It's nuts that we sell out before tickets reach general sale and then find out we've taken a reduced allocation.

[M271]

We should be taking full allocations for all away games except maybe Hull midweek or may be Newcastle or Sunderland, the ticket office must know what the likely demand is.

More supporters acting as the 12th man could be worth a quite a few points during a season.

[saints_is_the_south]

May fire an email off to the TO about this in the morning. I'd also like to know their reasoning for not telling us the allocation in the first place. It's ridiculous.

 

It also looks like the club have requested that the Saints FC Cop on twitter no longer gives out allocation info. Crazy. Our TO is a shambles.

 

Sent from my BlackBerry 9780 using Tapatalk

[Plonko]

Not happy.

[JRM]

May fire an email off to the TO about this in the morning. I'd also like to know their reasoning for not telling us the allocation in the first place. It's ridiculous.

 

It also looks like the club have requested that the Saints FC Cop on twitter no longer gives out allocation info. Crazy. Our TO is a shambles.

 

Sent from my BlackBerry 9780 using Tapatalk

 

they must think the fans are thick mate , purposely don't tell us the allocation to hide their own incompetence when it comes to away games.

 

two blocks won't be many of us there.

[alehouseboys]

We should be taking full allocations for all away games except maybe Hull midweek or may be Newcastle or Sunderland, the ticket office must know what the likely demand is.

More supporters acting as the 12th man could be worth a quite a few points during a season.

 

The problem with that, for the club, is if we take the full allocation and then don't sell them all it's SFC that has to cover the cost. Financially it's better to just take a smaller number they're guaranteed to sell - just not so good for the fans that miss out.

 

I would imagine the powers that be at SMS would rather fans save their money and spend it on home games where the club will benefit, they make nothing from away league games.

 

Don't get me wrong, I want to see Saints fans travelling in great numbers like we have been in recent years but I just think the club see it differently and when you play the likes of Norwich and Liverpool, where demand outstrips supply, and they put pressure on to keep more seats for their own home fans then we seem to take the easy option.

[Sour Mash]

Honestly think we could have sold 4000 if we'd been given it, especially if we win on Saturday. Doesn't make sense to me. Hopefully we have taken the full allocation and they're wrong.

No-way we would have sold out 4k. Would have sold out the full allocation if given a chance though.

[Saint Garrett]

No-way we would have sold out 4k. Would have sold out the full allocation if given a chance though.

 

Why not? Ain't that far? Good start, new exciting players, sold more than that for some games in the NPC.

[Graffito]

The problem with that, for the club, is if we take the full allocation and then don't sell them all it's SFC that has to cover the cost. Financially it's better to just take a smaller number they're guaranteed to sell - just not so good for the fans that miss out.

 

I would imagine the powers that be at SMS would rather fans save their money and spend it on home games where the club will benefit, they make nothing from away league games.

 

Don't get me wrong, I want to see Saints fans travelling in great numbers like we have been in recent years but I just think the club see it differently and when you play the likes of Norwich and Liverpool, where demand outstrips supply, and they put pressure on to keep more seats for their own home fans then we seem to take the easy option.

 

Financially it's better to win the fixture and we stand a better chance of doing that with decent support. Stoke City understand this.

 

Your point about the club wanting fans to spend their money on home games would be valid but for the fact that the away allocations are going to season ticket holders.

 

If we really have taken a reduced allocation it would appear to be a misjudgment.

[Sour Mash]

Why not? Ain't that far? Good start, new exciting players, sold more than that for some games in the NPC.

Because we didn't sell this initial allocation particularly quickly, because we've rarely ever taken 4k that distance (only Wigan I can think of and that was a new ground for everyone).

[Saint Garrett]

It really is completely retarded if we haven't taken the biggest possible allocation!!

[Sour Mash]

Financially it's better to win the fixture and we stand a better chance of doing that with decent support. Stoke City understand this.

 

Your point about the club wanting fans to spend their money on home games would be valid but for the fact that the away allocations are going to season ticket holders.

 

If we really have taken a reduced allocation it would appear to be a misjudgment.

exactly that, the club just aren't any good at judging what our support is likely to be at different games and knowing what allocation to then take.

[Saint Garrett]

Because we didn't sell this initial allocation particularly quickly, because we've rarely ever taken 4k that distance (only Wigan I can think of and that was a new ground for everyone).

 

Hmm fair enough. Still start of the season, and not particularly hard to get to. Still stupid to not take more than the initial.

 

Club should tell us regardless.

[SNSUN]

My wife and all her family will be at this game, and I would have been there, innocently sitting with them in the home end, but thankfully work got in the way. Outsing them people, and let's hope for my sake we win!

[saints_is_the_south]

Hmm fair enough. Still start of the season, and not particularly hard to get to. Still stupid to not take more than the initial.

 

Club should tell us regardless.

 

I think we could have taken close to 3,000, not 4,000 though for sure. Max allocation at Norwich is 2,500 anyway so it's a bit irrelevant.

 

If I get a reply to my email from the club today I'll put it up on here later.

[alehouseboys]

Why not? Ain't that far? Good start, new exciting players, sold more than that for some games in the NPC.

 

It's over a 400-mile round trip. Do believe we'd have sold out a full allocation tho.

 

Financially it's better to win the fixture and we stand a better chance of doing that with decent support. Stoke City understand this.

 

Your point about the club wanting fans to spend their money on home games would be valid but for the fact that the away allocations are going to season ticket holders.

 

If we really have taken a reduced allocation it would appear to be a misjudgment.

 

That's a very good point and don't get me wrong, I agree with what you say, I also believe it is a misjudgement. The trouble is the club are obviously seeing it differently for some reason or other from the fans.

[Georgie]

If we've got 1,200 tiks for blocks f and g that would mean block h holds 1,300 to take the whole allocation to 2,500. But block h looks the same size as block g. We must have more than 1,200 going, unless block f is left empty?!

 

Has anyone actually got a tik in block f?

 

However didn't someone say we didn't take the full allocation for West Brom but we did

Edited 21 August, 2013 by Georgie

[Georgie]

...

[JRM]

looking at a pic of the stand block F is about half the size of block G , last year we also had H which didn't quite sell out , the netting was used in that block for segregation though.

 

my estimate would be our reduced allocation this time is about 1700. still not a bad support but disappointing considering how many people still want to go and there was almost 2 weeks left until the game when it sold out.

 

the secrecy around allocations is just odd behaviour from the club , they've even told SFCcop on twitter not to release the info now.

[Griffo]

My ticket's in G. Don't know anyone with one in H so I'm pretty sure we've only got the 2 blocks.

[saints_is_the_south]

Emailed the club today. No reply yet.

[GAS]

As above, that's pretty quick. An I right in thinking they didn't announce the allocation? Glad I got in there quick.

 

Anyone got a spare ticket, one adult?

[Sour Mash]

Dell size mentality from the club unfortunately.

[saints_is_the_south]

Ticket office reply:

 

Good Afternoon,

 

I can see from the below e-mail that you've raised several points, many of

which have overlapping answers, so forgive me if it seems that I am

answering them out of turn.

 

Selecting the appropriate allocation for away tickets is a decision that is

not taken lightly for any game, and one into which a lot of thought and

consideration are placed. For each game, we assess a number of criteria,

many of which are fairly obvious such as the day/date of the fixture,

travel time from Southampton, previous attendances at that ground etc.

 

To address those points specifically for the Norwich game as mentioned

below, the allocation options were , as you have alluded to below, some

distance apart. Given the limited options for segregation at Carrow Road,

we were unable to reserve the option to 'call off' the additional tickets

should sales progress fairly well due to the limited number of tickets

Norwich had to sell for the game, and their need to adhere to their own

advertised sales criteria. For last year's game at Norwich, we were left

with several hundred unsold tickets, the cost of which was borne by the

Club. Over the course of the season, selecting options which causes a

repeat of this can lead to a considerable loss of revenue for us as a

business.

 

Given the speed at which the Norwich tickets sold, we do not believe that

we would have been able to sell the additional 1,000 tickets on General

Sale for this game, an opinion which is supported by the amount of tickets

sold when the game reached General Sale in the 2012/13 season. In this

instance, we are confident that the correct decision was made as to which

allocation was opted for. Contrasting that with the West Bromwich Albion

game, and the fact that historically the first away game of the season

sells better than other comparable fixtures, we opted for the larger

allocation based on the sales figures from last year, again a decision we

feel was vindicated by the speed of the sales.

 

We try to be as flexible as possible when it comes to offering and

obtaining away allocations, and the decision not to disclose allocation

figures reflects that these numbers can change dramatically during the

course of a sale for an away game, and would quickly lead to the

information offered being outdated and incorrect.

 

We do try to listen to the opinions of fans, particularly surrounding areas

that provoke as much debate as away ticketing does, and so your comments

will be taken on board when discussing future allocations for upcoming

fixtures.

 

Kind Regards,

 

Michael Jolliffe

 

 

Michael Jolliffe

Ticket Office Manager

Southampton FC

[Sour Mash]

Ticket office reply:

Fair play, decent enough reply that. I guess 300 tickets at £35 a pop = £10k, not a huge amount, but it all adds up.

[saints_is_the_south]

I still don't understand why they cannot tell us the allocation amount. If things change, and we've sent tickets back due to slow sales for example, it only takes a quick tweet to update us.

[Sour Mash]

I still don't understand why they cannot tell us the allocation amount. If things change, and we've sent tickets back due to slow sales for example, it only takes a quick tweet to update us.

I guess if anything slow sales actually help them as it makes their decision to send tickets back/not take full allocation easier then if they were selling very fast.

[JRM]

I still don't understand why they cannot tell us the allocation amount. If things change, and we've sent tickets back due to slow sales for example, it only takes a quick tweet to update us.

 

if anything there's more reason why they should announce the allocation , if they said at the beginning we have an initial 1300 for Norwich with the option of a further 1000 if demand was there we may have sold them faster.

 

as things stand there won't be many of us at Norwich then.

 

ps. I had to wait outside the ground at Norwich last year for a mate and we sold quite a few on the day , hope they didn't make saints pay for them as well!