Villa Park Redevelopment

[jon collett]

30000 may be a high number but I bet if they put 200 extra season tickets on sale to cover these supposedly empty seats they would sell them all immediately.

There's a bit of double counting going on there though Jon.  The assumption would probably be that the 200 who would immediately snap up the ST's are probably going to most games anyway.

ok I will put it another way I don't think it will be very easy to purchase a season ticket at the end of this season so the waiting list is genuine whatever the number. Personally I think its the regular 200 empty seats which is the myth.

[aev]

If they don’t trust the waiting list data - how about seeing if people will put money down?

I certainly would. I’m not sure how fair that would be, but it would be a way of judging it.

I think they'd probably sell another 4-5k season tickets quite comfortably - they must know this.  But many will already be match-going fans, so all it really does is take 4-5k of floating demand out of the equation.  Personally I think with success the fans would follow and cancelling the development is short-sighted.  But I think as London Villan mentions, the stand was never really about an extra 7,000 seats at £45 a match.

There are 3 of us on the waiting list, and we'd buy them today if we could. We are not interested in the fancy add on stuff however.

[chrisw1]

30000 may be a high number but I bet if they put 200 extra season tickets on sale to cover these supposedly empty seats they would sell them all immediately.

There's a bit of double counting going on there though Jon.  The assumption would probably be that the 200 who would immediately snap up the ST's are probably going to most games anyway.

ok I will put it another way I don't think it will be very easy to purchase a season ticket at the end of this season so the waiting list is genuine whatever the number. Personally I think its the regular 200 empty seats which is the myth.

I agree.  The 200 seats thing is bollocks.  But if hypothetically we increased from 30 to 35k season ticket holders, that doesn't mean there's suddenly 5k more fans than we are currently getting, just 5k people purchasing seats in a different way.

[pauliewalnuts]

If, for the several years we spent spending huge amounts on getting the stand designed - remember it’s not just pretty mock ups, it’s a structural, architectural designfor a whole stand, a lot of work - we were under the impression we needed the seats, and in the meantime we’ve sold out the ground every match bar 200 single seats sorted around or LG seats, then a sudden realisation that we don’t need them is absolutely least convincing argument there is.

I said the other day, the thing I do not like about this and the badge saga is I have a sneaking feeling we are effectively at best being treated like idiots and at worst, lied to. It feels like “we aren’t going to build it and it’s all your fault for not buying enough tickets”.

Well in that case, Mr Heck, what type of fucking idiots are you guys having spent the last two years proudly crowing about it and spending huge amounts of money on it?

I genuinely trust this guy as far as I can throw him and he’s only been here six months.

[pauliewalnuts]

Incidentally a few months ago we resubmitted the plans without Villa Live.

Why didn’t we pause the whole thing then?

[Pat Mustard]

30000 may be a high number but I bet if they put 200 extra season tickets on sale to cover these supposedly empty seats they would sell them all immediately.

There's a bit of double counting going on there though Jon.  The assumption would probably be that the 200 who would immediately snap up the ST's are probably going to most games anyway.

ok I will put it another way I don't think it will be very easy to purchase a season ticket at the end of this season so the waiting list is genuine whatever the number. Personally I think its the regular 200 empty seats which is the myth.

I agree.  The 200 seats thing is bollocks.  But if hypothetically we increased from 30 to 35k season ticket holders, that doesn't mean there's suddenly 5k more fans than we are currently getting, just 5k people purchasing seats in a different way.

I agree with that to an extent, as probably the majority of non ST holders going to games currently are members (as it's the only way to have a chance of getting tickets together if that's what you need) and on the waiting list, so they are not an extra 10k who would be turning up each week.

What the current situation masks, however, is demand beyond that - people who would be interested in going to at least some games, but don't because they have no chance of getting tickets at the moment.  I think whoever is in charge of the situation (presumably Heck) has fundamentally misunderstood our fanbase.  There seems to be an attitude that if someone isn't prepared to pay £150 to see one game then they aren't really that interested so we won't cater for them.  This means that at a time when we have a real opportunity to capture a generation of support, we are forgoing it because they aren't the right type of fan.

[Villan82]

I think we all know people who would like to be able, at short notice, to say 'oh, I can go to that game next month after all, let me go and book the tickets'. That sort of fan isn't really catered to at the moment because we sell out almost every week. That sort of fan would also be the type of fan to go all out and spend a bit on a match day- food etc.

The off the field stuff at the moment is so damn frustrating. We finally have everything going forward and they kill the new development. It just stings.

[exigo]

Truth is, if we had a ground around 50k, everybody would shuffle up the pecking order a bit. An extra 5k fans who probably go fairly regularly through claret membership would get season tickets, there'd be more incentive for the 2-3 game a season goers to get claret membership and up the games to 10 a season, there'd be more people who could buy the odd few games on general sale etc.

Heck has bulldozed his way in thinking that instead of all that, he could attract a few thousand extra GA+ instead, paying £100+ a seat per match, instead of the £45-55 GA.

[pauliewalnuts]

His brief is to increase revenue.

If he's not going to do it by increasing the number of us - even though we're selling all the seats week in, week out - then there's one other way to do it, and that's to increase the amount they make from each one of us.

There's no way he does that by the TV and LG alone - do some basic back of fag packet calculations, it's peanuts (probably literally given what I've read about some of the food offerings) - he's going to do that by making us pay a lot more to get what we currently have. That means match tickets, the lot.

Prediction - these extra 2 or 3000 seats? Won't happen. It's just more smoke and mirrors.

[Villan82]

In six months Heck has joined the likes of Ellis, Lerner and Tom Fox for me. I mean if he increases prices he risks driving a lot uf away. He is a disaster.

I just want to give him a shake. Honestly, such baffling decisions have accompanied his arrival

[chrisw1]

30000 may be a high number but I bet if they put 200 extra season tickets on sale to cover these supposedly empty seats they would sell them all immediately.

There's a bit of double counting going on there though Jon.  The assumption would probably be that the 200 who would immediately snap up the ST's are probably going to most games anyway.

ok I will put it another way I don't think it will be very easy to purchase a season ticket at the end of this season so the waiting list is genuine whatever the number. Personally I think its the regular 200 empty seats which is the myth.

I agree.  The 200 seats thing is bollocks.  But if hypothetically we increased from 30 to 35k season ticket holders, that doesn't mean there's suddenly 5k more fans than we are currently getting, just 5k people purchasing seats in a different way.

I agree with that to an extent, as probably the majority of non ST holders going to games currently are members (as it's the only way to have a chance of getting tickets together if that's what you need) and on the waiting list, so they are not an extra 10k who would be turning up each week.

What the current situation masks, however, is demand beyond that - people who would be interested in going to at least some games, but don't because they have no chance of getting tickets at the moment.  I think whoever is in charge of the situation (presumably Heck) has fundamentally misunderstood our fanbase.  There seems to be an attitude that if someone isn't prepared to pay £150 to see one game then they aren't really that interested so we won't cater for them.  This means that at a time when we have a real opportunity to capture a generation of support, we are forgoing it because they aren't the right type of fan.

I agree completely Pat.  It seems very short-sighted to me.  It feels like a fuck you to traditional everyday fans.

[Villan82]

It is a fuck you to traditional fans.

They had bags and bags of goodwill, and still do. But Chris Heck is burning through it at a rate of knots.

[Ads]

His brief is to increase revenue.

If he's not going to do it by increasing the number of us - even though we're selling all the seats week in, week out - then there's one other way to do it, and that's to increase the amount they make from each one of us.

There's no way he does that by the TV and LG alone - do some basic back of fag packet calculations, it's peanuts (probably literally given what I've read about some of the food offerings) - he's going to do that by making us pay a lot more to get what we currently have. That means match tickets, the lot.

Prediction - these extra 2 or 3000 seats? Won't happen. It's just more smoke and mirrors.

I think the convenient/ready excuse to treating us like idiots is fundamentally the same spectrum. None of it reconciles with what's gone before, how nothing has changed from conception of new North to cancelling beyond;

(i) changing of the chief money man
(ii) his old pals that owned his last club's stadium, with exprience of investing in the building of them, have bought a stake in NWSE

If you think this is about 200 seats in Lower Grounds/Terrace View, which is an exercise in making more money from what already exists, then perhaps you're deserving of the contempt those "excuses" given by Heck hold you in.

I agree with you also on the extra 2000/3000 seats. It's not feasible.

[frank black]

Absolute zero interest in fans that just want to watch a game of football. Everything is about revenue (which I get)

[Risso]

The thing is, the thought of a brand new Villa Park on the existing site is really exciting, even it would mean playing our home games in Leicester or Wolverhampton for a couple of years.