Ticket Prices Rant

[bilsim]

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.

[Nastylee]

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.

[Shrek]

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.

[The Laughing Policeman]

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? 

[spangley1812]

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............

[Chris Harte]

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...

[paulcomben]

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.

[Chris Harte]

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?

[Shrek]

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?

[Chris Harte]

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.

[Chris Smith]

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.

[Greg N'Ash]

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.

[Chris Harte]

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.

[TheSandman]

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.

[UK Redsox]

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