Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Heroes Discussion => Topic started by: Mark H on October 19, 2011, 05:50:10 PM
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Sorry to start a new topic on what is my personal rant -
I have 2 season tickets 1 for me and one that I share between my 2 boys (11 and 7 year olds), so as my little one is 8 on Monday what a nice thing to do I though I will take both of them to the game on Saturday. I called the ticket office and good news the seat next to our 2 season tickets is available .....I give them my 7 year olds Client Ref and then was told that will be £26 ...£26 to take a 7 year old to a game when the last home game there was 12k empty seats £26 to take him to a game when we have seen offer after offer cheaper than the season tickets I have paid for year after year upfront ...
Oh dont you just love modern football ....
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28 for an 8 year old? Fuck that!
Modern footballs stuffed! Not selling out for blose last season. Baggies not selling out for wanky last week, birminghams game against leicester sunday at 1 on tv was 30 quid. Its a complete joke and there's empty seats in every single game these days.
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Our ticket prices are disgusting. You're preaching to the converted on here, mate.
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...! £27 for a seven year old is shocking. How do they justify that?
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That's only £21 more than it was for U16s to watch two quality teams in a Champions League game at Man City last night - anywhere in the ground.
Half the players we'll see on Saturday won't even be able to control the ball or shoot on target!
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Take yourself and the two boys to the Cinema instead. Tickets and popcorn and it'll be a similar price for similar length or longer of entertainment.
As overpriced as the add-ons at the cinema are, its time football woke up and smelt the coffee.
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It's things like ticket prices that will make me not renew my 3 tickets next season.
Football really needs a wake up call
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I got a ticket towards the back, in L5 of the Lower Holte against Man United for £18, I was pleased with that.
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Damned if they do, damned if they dont.
This is the problem with offering cheaper tickets to try and fill the ground, people expect it all the time.
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£26 for a 7 year old is a bit steep, whatever part of the ground it's in.
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£26 for a 7 year old is a bit steep, whatever part of the ground it's in.
Yes it is, but we all accept the prices when we buy our ST, compared to an adult ticket in the same area it is significantly cheaper.
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There will be a lot of empty seats Saturday, you would think the club would realise a tenner is better than an empty seat and nothing
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Problem is Phil, if the club do endless cheap ticket matches it will end up pissing off the ST holders.
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A few years ago our most expensive ticket for category A games against Man Utd and the like was about £35. Now it's £47. This despite our manager being clueless, our squad being average and no better than back then and us still being a mid table at best team. I remember we used to scoff at Chelsea and Blues for charging £45, now we're doing the same with no justification on or off the pitch. If our owner needs to charge scandalous prices to stay afloat then he should feck off.
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Problem is Phil, if the club do endless cheap ticket matches it will end up pissing off the ST holders.
I hear what your saying mate just seems a lot for a 7 year old, there are probably many others who are not going for the same reason!
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As with all products, the owners or producers will charge what ever they think they can get away with. The only way to bring about a decrease in the price of any product is for the consumer to stop buying said product. I'm not advocating a boycott......judging by the way gates are down right across football this season I don't need to.
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Damned if they do, damned if they dont.
This is the problem with offering cheaper tickets to try and fill the ground, people expect it all the time.
Oh, so it's our fault! Well let us all smack our naughty bottoms. Get real football - which includes Aston Villa - reform or die.
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£26 for a kid, shocking, at that price it will cost me over £100 for me take my 2 kids, football need to take its head out of the sand and realise they are pushing fans away, not just the fans now, but the fans of tomorrow..
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Problem is Phil, if the club do endless cheap ticket matches it will end up pissing off the ST holders.
I hear what your saying mate just seems a lot for a 7 year old, there are probably many others who are not going for the same reason!
just had a look on ticket master they are charging £43 for u16 in the witten lane upper,
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Problem is Phil, if the club do endless cheap ticket matches it will end up pissing off the ST holders.
I hear what your saying mate just seems a lot for a 7 year old, there are probably many others who are not going for the same reason!
just had a look on ticket master they are charging £43 for u16 in the witten lane upper,
I think it is because there are some areas of the ground in which concessionary prices aren't available.
Where I sit, for example, Upper Trinity, centre, middle, near the front, you can't get concessionary (either u16 or OAP) tickets, so any prices quoted will be full whack.
Having said that, it's pretty staggering that they expect anyone to cough up 43 notes to watch us play Albion in a mid table yawnathon, but that's a different argument.
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Like i said in an earlier post, the club should'nt be charging adult prices for a 7 year old, just because it's a good seat. It's a shame when something like this comes up because they've done lot right on the ticket front to get people in.
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Like i said in an earlier post, the club should'nt be charging adult prices for a 7 year old, just because it's a good seat. It's a shame when something like this comes up because they've done lot right on the ticket front to get people in.
it's hard to disagree with that.
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Like i said in an earlier post, the club should'nt be charging adult prices for a 7 year old, just because it's a good seat. It's a shame when something like this comes up because they've done lot right on the ticket front to get people in.
it's hard to disagree with that.
If the football was of a premium quality, people would no doubt accept that the prices should be.
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There is only one way to reduce prices,but every fan from every club needs to unite on it..
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And that will never happen, as if it were going to, it would've happened when tickets threatened to break the £20/30 barrier, not £50. The German's have led the way on this front. Think Dortmund handed their tickets back to Schalke a couple of years back, as they tried to try and charge £20 per ticket. The result, consistently full grounds with a vibrant atmosphere. Fair play to them.
Meanwhile, our country has needed an economic crisis to see the ever scaling prices be met with a noticable decrease in attendances. We should be ashamed.
I don't go anymore, mind. Best part of half a tonne? Fucking lol. I wouldn't pay that much a week to watch Barcelona, nevermind this shite.
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That is a lot money to pay out for a ticket for a 7 year old it's a good job you dont have to do this every home game.
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Away tickets at Chelsea have been £59 this season.....should that be the the one that we miss as a group?
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The point is though while people still keep paying £26 for kids and up to £43 for adults to watch that garbage the club will continue to charge it. Complaining about it on message boards won't lower the price, the only thing that will do that is to stay away and refuse to pay the disgusting prices.
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We can argue all day long about prices of £30/£40/£50 for this game or that.
All I know is that for youngsters the prices should be rock bottom for all games be it Man U or Bolton visiting.
I would rather see a seat occupied with an enthusiastic kid for a fiver even at the expense of getting 3/4 times as much from an adult. They may then follow us for a lifetime rather than risk them being lost to the SKY favourites and watching all their football on TV.
In fact, I will go further. £4 for every single game and £50 season tickets for under 16s, make live football accessible at Villa Park to virtually every football mad kid in the West Midlands.
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The club have a massive problem on the horizon, with the current strategy of offering cheaper tickets in an attempt to fill the ground the current season ticket holders will be wondering "why have I bothered"
Lets face it you can pretty much get a ticket for any match at VP at short notice these days so apart from ensuring your seat location the advantage of having a ST is being flushed away with the cheaper offers.
I can see the qty of season ticket holders reducing next season, I for one will NOT be renewing the three I have, and will simply attend when I want and take advantage of the cheap deals.
The club needs to offer some money back to season ticket holders in order to try to undo some of the negative feelings. [Or offer a free ticket for the FA cup if we are at home!]
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The point is though while people still keep paying £26 for kids and up to £43 for adults to watch that garbage the club will continue to charge it. Complaining about it on message boards won't lower the price, the only thing that will do that is to stay away and refuse to pay the disgusting prices.
I agree with the principal of what your saying - but you try looking a 7 year old in the eye and tell him that he cannot go for his birhtday as I am making a stance against the prices !
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The point is though while people still keep paying £26 for kids and up to £43 for adults to watch that garbage the club will continue to charge it. Complaining about it on message boards won't lower the price, the only thing that will do that is to stay away and refuse to pay the disgusting prices.
I agree with the principal of what your saying - but you try looking a 7 year old in the eye and tell him that he cannot go for his birhtday as I am making a stance against the prices !
Fair enough mate that is a dilemma, but what i said is right and the only way prices will drop is if fans stop paying it. Like you say parents like yourself are in a tricky position, although you should have taken him paint balling or to the cinema or something, he'd probably have enjoyed it more than being punished by being made to watch that dross!
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We can argue all day long about prices of £30/£40/£50 for this game or that.
All I know is that for youngsters the prices should be rock bottom for all games be it Man U or Bolton visiting.
I would rather see a seat occupied with an enthusiastic kid for a fiver even at the expense of getting 3/4 times as much from an adult. They may then follow us for a lifetime rather than risk them being lost to the SKY favourites and watching all their football on TV.
In fact, I will go further. £4 for every single game and £50 season tickets for under 16s, make live football accessible at Villa Park to virtually every football mad kid in the West Midlands.
That would look dreadful on Messrs Russell and Faulker's spreadsheet.
Plus, Deloittes would downgrade us, God forbid !
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A lot of good points on here - no wonder people are fed up when you get a situation like this.
It is completely bleeding obvious, but seems to have escaped football clubs in this country - unless you give people a chance to take their kids along with them (yes, also sit next to them wherever they are in the ground), you're going to lose the next generation because they won't have grown up with going to football.
Football crowds have been getting older for years now in this country because of ludicrous prices. Something that always strikes me when I'm over in Germany is how many kids go to football compared to here. And they're able to start going on their own from a fairly young age (say 14, 15 or so) because they can afford the cost of terrace tickets and clubs make it as cheap as they can for them. Bingo - next generation on board.
Many of us have argued for years that the PL would end up destroying itself - this season I think it may finally be coming true.
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The Club gave me a call yesterday asking if I fancied the game at the weekend for a discounted cost of £30. As I may have free corporate tickets, I said at this moment in time I wasn't interested.
He then tried to sell me the 3 "big ones" in Arsenal, Manure and Chelsea for a discounted price, before the "31st October Deadline" at a competitive price (about £90+).
They must be really desperate
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If i'd have been a nipper these days i wouldn't have gone to the football every week, whereas when i was younger me and my old man had season tickets for years. He doesn't go these days because it's too expensive and not value for money, so i wouldn't have grown up going to the football and many kids will grow up not doing the same. Our crowds could be very low in future decades because there simply aren't enough youngsters and new fans going to games.
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The Club gave me a call yesterday asking if I fancied the game at the weekend for a discounted cost of £30. As I may have free corporate tickets, I said at this moment in time I wasn't interested.
He then tried to sell me the 3 "big ones" in Arsenal, Manure and Chelsea for a discounted price, before the "31st October Deadline" at a competitive price (about £90+).
They must be really desperate
Filling potentially empty seats [or attempting to] with cheaper offers is an ok strategy as with the airlines its better to have a body in a seat paying something rather than it being empty.
The problem here is that many have paid a higher price in advance [Season Ticket Holders] which the clubs desperately need to keep. But as I have said with all the offers around it makes having a ST almost pointless
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If i'd have been a nipper these days i wouldn't have gone to the football every week, whereas when i was younger me and my old man had season tickets for years. He doesn't go these days because it's too expensive and not value for money, so i wouldn't have grown up going to the football and many kids will grow up not doing the same. Our crowds could be very low in future decades because there simply aren't enough youngsters and new fans going to games.
When I started going regulary it was £1.25 to stand on the Holte. With the £3 for the supporters coach from Telford it made going to the football affordable
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Footballl is all about short term profit, sadly.
It's hard enough to get kids interested in football these days with the various other ways they have to enjoy theirselves, so god only knows where the next wave of supporters will come from.
Sadly, clubs are too busy salivating over the likes of overseas television rights, Asian markets and how much the next Sky deal will be worth to do something about it.
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The Club gave me a call yesterday asking if I fancied the game at the weekend for a discounted cost of £30. As I may have free corporate tickets, I said at this moment in time I wasn't interested.
He then tried to sell me the 3 "big ones" in Arsenal, Manure and Chelsea for a discounted price, before the "31st October Deadline" at a competitive price (about £90+).
They must be really desperate
Filling potentially empty seats [or attempting to] with cheaper offers is an ok strategy as with the airlines its better to have a body in a seat paying something rather than it being empty.
The problem here is that many have paid a higher price in advance [Season Ticket Holders] which the clubs desperately need to keep. But as I have said with all the offers around it makes having a ST almost pointless
I got one for my lad for his 16th in the Upper Holte at a cost of £355, which I think is ridiculous considering the fayre on offer at the moment. However, I agreed because he wants to sit with a friend of mine that has been going since the 70s and his lad who is one of his best mates.
On calling to book the ticket, I asked for a combined amount. I'd have had little change from a grand. I decided against it and only missed one home game this season on a vastly reduced amount compared to buying a Season Ticket and also managed to take my daughter to her first ever game along with a German friend of mine and his lad who live in Birmingham in the process.
If you are willing to move around you can get some cheap tickets. I do feel sorry for ST holders. A lot (like myself) a few years ago worried about giving up their long standing seats. In the end I bit the bullet and let two go. Only regretted it for the League Cup Final. Cost me a fortune to go that day (x2)
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Can I just add at this point to about the pricing structure for youngsters. A few years ago, child tickets I believe were up to 18 and then there were concessions for Students and OAPS.
This 16-18 band seems a little unfair to me, especially when most kids are still not earning at that age and going to college/sixth form (especially in this day and age)
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Can I just add at this point to about the pricing structure for youngsters. A few years ago, child tickets I believe were up to 18 and then there were concessions for Students and OAPS.
This 16-18 band seems a little unfair to me, especially when most kids are still not earning at that age and going to college/sixth form (especially in this day and age)
A good point and well worth making. But following up on that would require clubs to cast a glance beyond whatever world it is they inhabit.
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Damned if they do, damned if they dont.
This is the problem with offering cheaper tickets to try and fill the ground, people expect it all the time.
Of course we should fucking expect it. The tickets are ridiculously expensive so therefore they should be cheaper.
I'd also love someone to explain why, as the quality of the team has got worse the ticket prices have increased.
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Problem is Phil, if the club do endless cheap ticket matches it will end up pissing off the ST holders.
They are already.
All the games I've paid for this season have been either 15 or 20 quid, they're already advertising that the Swansea game on Jan 2nd is 20 quid in quite a few parts of the ground.
As I've been saying for the last 18 months, the club have raised ticket prices for matchday games too quickly, two seasons ago you could watch this game in the north stand upper for 21 quid, on Saturday it's 30 quid!
Now our season ticket holders numbers are reducing more people are realizing this...
This is the sort of thing you can partly get away with the team are doing well on the pitch and challenging the top 4 but not when you're in mid table.
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A lot of circumstances have come together this season for our home game support to have dipped to circa 30k.
Firstly we have lost our best players year after year.
Then Man city have proved the level of investment needed to win the league in the most "competitive" league in the world. 16 or 17 other clubs cant do the same.
So now our real purpose is to either get local bragging rights or win a cup / secure a Europa place. Personally I think just STAYING in the league is our remit for the near future.
Our football at the moment is pretty bland and the cost of living has rocketed.
All reasons why its easy to turn off.
We can all "escape" for 90 mins from our everyday lives down VP for the enjoyment and atmoshphere and the win, then we see the players uninterested and get bored watching them, so we go home and cant beleive we've paid £70 for a 1-1 while they roll into their supercars, drive to their mansions and collect the years salary for the time it takes me to take the train to work.
Were not putting up with it anymore so season after season get used to the empty seats.
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The ticket prices are absolutely ridiculous and something must be done about it. I'm 20 and had a season ticket with my old man from 1998 until 2009, since then we've been to as many games as we can afford to each season, which is getting fewer and fewer.
We sat in the same seats for more than ten seasons, Upper Holte K3 and became rather attached to "our" seats, since we relinquished our season tickets we've considered a sentimental return to those seats, but to do so would set us back somewhere in the region of £80.
This seems to me a illustration of how out of touch the club really is with the fans, football is all about fathers and sons or groups of mates going to watch the match on a Saturday afternoon. Normal working people haven't got £80 to spare on a football game, especially when there is no guarantee of a positive result and you could well be watching players run around looking disinterested. The expenditure on tickets is not the only thing, we'll all spend money on travel, a drink, a bite to eat, a programme or maybe something from the club shop, all of a sudden it's over £100 to watch a 1-1 draw against Newcastle.
To me, the solution seems to be a marked slashing of ticket prices, the most expensive tickets in the ground should be £20 and in the economy areas they should be £5. This will guarantee a bigger crowd, with people still spending money inside the ground, it will only be positive to the team, as playing in front of a full house instead of empty seats can only be a good thing. Season tickets could then be either reduced or have cup tickets come complimentary or drastically reduced, as a way of getting people into the ground. The club need to realise that having more people in the ground is a major positive, they seem happy to let us have in excess of 12,000 empty seats every week and be pricing out the people that love the team.
It may seem idealistic to suggest that Aston Villa will be able to start this revolution, but something needs to be done. Manchester City have now proved that football is rotten to the core and that money is the only thing that matters if you want to be successful. What we need to do is be unified in our support for our team, but the club need to help us do that, we can't get behind the team if we can't afford to get in the door, so they need to make it easier for us. Otherwise it will be a mass exodus from Trinity Road and we'll be stood in pubs watching Villa get beaten by the richest clubs. But how will we be able to help if they still want £43 for one person to go through the turnstiles?
I don't want to suggest boycotting games because for many people it's the high point of the week and their escape from stresses of work, but there are also so many people who would love to be cheering the team on and can't afford to do so, these are the people that the club need to entice back, because expecting Aston Villa to remain competitive in front of a half empty stadium week in week out is never going to work.
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Football is dying a slow death but the powers that be are sticking their heads in the sand. One club will only do it if others do as well since they'll lose out financially and unfortunately for football, that's all it's about.
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Damned if they do, damned if they dont.
This is the problem with offering cheaper tickets to try and fill the ground, people expect it all the time.
Of course we should fucking expect it. The tickets are ridiculously expensive so therefore they should be cheaper.
I'd also love someone to explain why, as the quality of the team has got worse the ticket prices have increased.
The club is stuck in a vicious cycle at the moment. Our attendances are down, our turnover is down as a result and people are expecting cheaper prices.
I totally agree football is too expensive, but we are one the most competitively priced clubs in the league. Sadly we dont have the support like say Spurs or Newcastle (comparible sized clubs) who turn up rain or shine. They can charge what they like because they know the fans will pay it.
Villa have tried lots of incentives for ST holders and have tried lots of deals for most games, but sadly fans are still not turning up.
With an average attendance of 35k, the 'cheap prices' people would like will unfortunatly result in Villa becoming just a midtable club, who have to live accordingly.
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The thing about ticket prices isn't confined to our club. There's a growing discontent in the wider football community (not just the PL) about ticket prices and all the other things we get charged exorbitant matchday prices for......drinks, food, programmes etc.
Just take a quick whizz round some other club forums. They all seem to have the same gripes as us.
Maybe it's time we separated out our support for our clubs from a wider support for football in general. Or are we destined to become the generation that sat on our arse's while football died?
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Until the clubs can reduce the wages the players are paid they wont be able to reduce ticket prices as with all clubs the biggest expenditure they have is the wages............
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Until the clubs can reduce the wages the players are paid they wont be able to reduce ticket prices as with all clubs the biggest expenditure they have is the wages............
But we keep hearing that its the TV money that pays players wages...
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The point is though while people still keep paying £26 for kids and up to £43 for adults to watch that garbage the club will continue to charge it. Complaining about it on message boards won't lower the price, the only thing that will do that is to stay away and refuse to pay the disgusting prices.
I agree with the principal of what your saying - but you try looking a 7 year old in the eye and tell him that he cannot go for his birhtday as I am making a stance against the prices !
Principle. And all of the prices quoted are very modest, by contrast with clubs and cities where they have before & expect in future to win trophies. Villa ticket prices seem to be well researched and bang on for a team with zero ambition based in the Midlands beyond
the sole aim of staying in the league.
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Villa ticket prices seem to be well researched and bang on for a team with zero ambition based in the Midlands beyond the sole aim of staying in the league.
Still not cheap though, are they?
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Villa ticket prices seem to be well researched and bang on for a team with zero ambition based in the Midlands beyond the sole aim of staying in the league.
Still not cheap though, are they?
Depends how you define cheap.
Compared to scunthorpe no, but compared to most Premier League clubs decent?
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Villa ticket prices seem to be well researched and bang on for a team with zero ambition based in the Midlands beyond the sole aim of staying in the league.
Still not cheap though, are they?
Depends how you define cheap.
Compared to scunthorpe no, but compared to most Premier League clubs decent?
So now compare to other forms of entertainment.
Cinema ticket = £8 or £9, add overpriced popcorn/drink - £16 or £17.
Computer game = £45 but probably dozens and dozens of hours entertainment.
I'm sure you can add your own to the list.
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Villa ticket prices seem to be well researched and bang on for a team with zero ambition based in the Midlands beyond the sole aim of staying in the league.
Still not cheap though, are they?
Depends how you define cheap.
Compared to scunthorpe no, but compared to most Premier League clubs decent?
So now compare to other forms of entertainment.
Cinema ticket = £8 or £9, add overpriced popcorn/drink - £16 or £17.
Computer game = £45 but probably dozens and dozens of hours entertainment.
I'm sure you can add your own to the list.
Surely other live entertainment is a better comparison. I've paid £90.00 for 2 theatre tickets next month, the Stone Roses are charging £55.00 for their reunion gigs.
Football is expensive, absolutely no doubt. The price Mark has been charged for a junior ticket is wrong. Trouble is we don't operate in a vacuum and that sort of price has become the norm and Villa cannot stay in touch with other clubs if we unilaterally decide we're going to cut prices.
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I'm not sure you can compare a two hour one-off to see a group you may never get to see again to an normal league game that you can go to every other week every year. Even the theatre you're at least in relative comfort compared to freezing your balls off at this time of year. To me anyway, the problem is the product. People will pay the prices if it seems VFM. We're very unlikely to do more than make up the numbers in the league this year so why pay those sort of prices when the best players have been sold and we're not much cop to watch?. I don't think Lerner has sussed that out yet.
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The theatre and gig comparisons don't do it for me personally. I'm not into live music at all and I'd possibly have to be dragged kicking and screaming into a theatre.
I'd also say that I was very disappointed that season ticket prices weren't frozen in the summer, especially as it became obvious that the club was scaling back its ambitions at least temporarily.
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I wonder just how long people are going to continue to pay such extortionate prices for a product as uninspiring and predictable as premiership football. It's not just us as much as the tedious anti-McLeish bores would have you believe. Count the empty seats at pretty much every other mid-tableish club this season. 12-13,000 empty seats at Sunderland against West Brom, 11-12,000 at VP for us against Wigwam and 8-9,000 at Everton for their game against Wigan. I could go on. I think we are coming to a crossroads with premier league football where either there has to be a sea change of some form (lower prices, a salary cap or anything that can make the product better) or we risk playing in half empty graveyards of stadiums for all but the biggest clubs or matches. A lot of people (even some of those who still go) are starting to get fed up of it especially if you judge it from comments on here and other forums. As much as you can argue that such sites are more likely to be host to people who love a good moan you will also see that it is more likely to have people who are big supporters rather than the floating element that makes up a lot of our support.
I agree with Chris Harte's argument. That for some it is becoming more attractive to spend their money on other things. In the past football was a routine whereas other things such as going to the cinema, a theme park, a gig or a theatre show was more of a special treat due to the much greater cost of it. Now the costs are much closer together people are now starting to either see football as more of a treat than a routine or deciding to do alternative things. It's not just the cost of tickets either. I reckon between other things such as transport, accomodation etc I must spend £150-200 every time I do a game and I'm starting to wonder what else I could spend it on.
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The bloke sat in front of me today bought his ticket on Viagogo,
Given out attendances, I didn't think that anyone would be using that facility this year
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The theatre and gig comparisons don't do it for me personally. I'm not into live music at all and I'd possibly have to be dragged kicking and screaming into a theatre.
I'd also say that I was very disappointed that season ticket prices weren't frozen in the summer, especially as it became obvious that the club was scaling back its ambitions at least temporarily.
Your personal tastes are irrelevant, live entertainment is a better comparator than your Xbox.
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The theatre and gig comparisons don't do it for me personally. I'm not into live music at all and I'd possibly have to be dragged kicking and screaming into a theatre.
I'd also say that I was very disappointed that season ticket prices weren't frozen in the summer, especially as it became obvious that the club was scaling back its ambitions at least temporarily.
Your personal tastes are irrelevant, live entertainment is a better comparator than your Xbox.
Actually, everyone's personal tastes are relevant. Even yours.
Xbox? Pfft! Bloody nerve!