Season Ticket guess the price thread.

[silhillvilla]

There must be some seats in the ground that haven't been used in years.

The upper trinity wings. If you want a block to yourself you could settle in there with a decent book for 90 mins

[Ego Uhiogu]

Just out of interest why should the prices go up when our operating costs will go down considerably next year due to a much lower wage bill and our income will go up significantly next year due to the new TV deal.  I appreciate this assumes we stay in the PL.  Given this set of circumstances there is no commercial reason why the prices should go up.  Keep the season ticket prices as they are, if you have to increase prices then do it on the individual match day tickets, it won't matter anyway because they always do ticket deals for every game.

Because we're in a competition and every other competitor will put their prices up?

Don't get me wrong, football ticket prices do feel quite high, especially on-the-day prices, but at c.£500 for a whole season not only are the Villa's prices quite far down the list when you look at Premier League season ticket prices but that's also not that much when compared to the price of other top level sports (£60 for a day at the cricket; £200 to watch the Grand Prix, etc, etc).

The thing that keeps our ticket prices relatively cheap is the fact that we have more empty seats than anyone else. Teams like Chelsea, Spurs and Liverpool all have thousands on a waiting list and know they can charge what they want and still sell out. We have 12,000 empty seats and putting the prices up would be utter madness, especially if we go down.

[ez]

Just out of interest why should the prices go up when our operating costs will go down considerably next year due to a much lower wage bill and our income will go up significantly next year due to the new TV deal.  I appreciate this assumes we stay in the PL.  Given this set of circumstances there is no commercial reason why the prices should go up.  Keep the season ticket prices as they are, if you have to increase prices then do it on the individual match day tickets, it won't matter anyway because they always do ticket deals for every game.

Because we're in a competition and every other competitor will put their prices up?

Don't get me wrong, football ticket prices do feel quite high, especially on-the-day prices, but at c.£500 for a whole season not only are the Villa's prices quite far down the list when you look at Premier League season ticket prices but that's also not that much when compared to the price of other top level sports (£60 for a day at the cricket; £200 to watch the Grand Prix, etc, etc).

The thing that keeps our ticket prices relatively cheap is the fact that we have more empty seats than anyone else. Teams like Chelsea, Spurs and Liverpool all have thousands on a waiting list and know they can charge what they want and still sell out. We have 12,000 empty seats and putting the prices up would be utter madness, especially if we go down.

If spurs were in relegation battles 3 seasons running they'd have smaller crowds than us. Probably not the other two though.

[Ego Uhiogu]

I dont disagree, the point I was making is that prices will depend on supply and demand. We're one of the few clubs where supply outweighs demand and that's why our ticket deals are pretty good in comparison to other clubs. But at the same time, those empty seats and the utter shite on the field are why I would be shocked if our prices went up.

I'm fully expecting a price freeze, regardless of what league we're in.

[silhillvilla]

If we stay up, you could argue for a price drop with all the extra tv money that will be sloshing about. Whether we'd sell more tickets is another matter.
We didn't sell out even under the giddy years of MON.

[PeterWithesShin]

If Chelsea had just had the same last 15 years as we've had they'd be struggling to get 25K. Spurs however would still be in the 30-35K range.

Liverpool are a strange one, everyone has an image of a packed Anfield in the 80s and yet you look at their averages during that time and even though they were winning everything their average attendances were quite shit.

[mr-villa]

I'm sure there will be plenty of opportunity for all next season. I can only see ST numbers declining.

I can see numbers improving but only if we go down, if they get the pricing right there are many of our old midlands rivals from the 80s in the championship so would tempt a lot of people looking for nostalgia and chances are we would win our share of home games. Atmosphere would be good as teams that haven't been to VP for a while will make it their big away day so makes for a good day out.

If we stay up take your pick, unless there is investment in personnel it will be very hard to tempt the missing 10k back, losing at home every other week to the likes of Wigan and Southampton is soul destroying regardless of the price. McCleish must have cost about 5k renewals last season another few thousand will disappear at the end of this season so they've got to gamble, come up with something people can't refuse regardless of what division we're in or end up with crowds of 20-25k next season.

I agree with your point about pricing but wouldn't think there is much evidence to support the notion that prices will fall and sales increase if we go down.  Most experts on here say that lowering the prices will not increase the crowds but that is not a reason for not lowering them.  There is absolutely no justification at all for increasing the price of tickets next year, as by every measure our costs to run the club will go down.

[Chipsticks]

I';ll take one for a tennre

[Ad@m]

The truth of the matter is that in the list of factors which affect attendances, ticket prices are somewhere near the bottom.  Arsenal's the classic example - their prices are the highest in the country and have sky-rocketed over the past 15 years and for that whole period they've basically sold out every single home game, even when they moved stadium to one with a capacity 22,000 greater.

All football clubs know this and that's why the prices won't come down.  Every year since the Premier League started fans have been declaring a tipping point in ticket prices and the bursting of the bubble and yet prices have continued to go up at a much higher rate than inflation and at the same time average attendances have continued to rise.

If we go down I can see them freezing ticket prices - Blues did.  There won't be a decrease.  As has already been pointed out on this thread, Doug actually put prices up when we last got relegated so it could be worse.

If we stay up I think there'll be a similar increase to last year of 2-3%.

[Dave Clark Five]

There must be some seats in the ground that haven't been used in years.

Randy Lerners for a start

That's a cracker.

[bertlambshank]

Leaving it late for early bird prices this year?

[pauliewalnuts]

The truth of the matter is that in the list of factors which affect attendances, ticket prices are somewhere near the bottom.  Arsenal's the classic example - their prices are the highest in the country and have sky-rocketed over the past 15 years and for that whole period they've basically sold out every single home game, even when they moved stadium to one with a capacity 22,000 greater.

I think it is misleading to look at the situation at Arsenal and compare it to the rest of the league.

Arsenal could probably sell 20k tickets every home match just to tourists who fancy taking in a game. There is always going to be demand for their tickets, they are the biggest club in one of the most tourist attracting cities in the world, and they play in the best marketed league in the world.

Our attendances seem to be way more price elastic, though, and we are far from being alone.

[SoccerHQ]

Arsenal don't sell out anymore, their annual 60k attendances are just tickets sold.

There's loads of gaps for most of their games now.

[dave.woodhall]

Arsenal don't sell out anymore, their annual 60k attendances are just tickets sold.

There's loads of gaps for most of their games now.

They sell out the games, their season ticket holders just don't attend them all. It's said that up to 8,000 ticket holders fail to turn up at any given match.

[danlanza]

If Chelsea had just had the same last 15 years as we've had they'd be struggling to get 25K. Spurs however would still be in the 30-35K range.

Liverpool are a strange one, everyone has an image of a packed Anfield in the 80s and yet you look at their averages during that time and even though they were winning everything their average attendances were quite shit.

Thats because they were all called Yosser Hughes and could not get a job !