Villa Park Redevelopment

[Nii Lamptey]

I'm as season ticket holder in A5 - Most of my row was totally empty on Sunday. I'd love to know the maths behind it.

Surely its more cost effective to FILL a stadium with supporters, some of whom will also probably buy stuff, rather than having 20/25% sales of GA+ seats? Not much of a 'match going experience' for people like me, when you're sat on your tod.

Football is eating itself.

[john e]

I'm as season ticket holder in A5 - Most of my row was totally empty on Sunday. I'd love to know the maths behind it.

Surely its more cost effective to FILL a stadium with supporters, some of whom will also probably buy stuff, rather than having 20/25% sales of GA+ seats? Not much of a 'match going experience' for people like me, when you're sat on your tod.

Football is eating itself.

I agree 100% with this, the project to sell more hospitality is not working

I’ve said before I don’t think they understand the fan base, we’re not in London so don’t get the tourist sales and we’re not a globally or even a national supported team like MU or Liverpool we are locally supported I reckon most of our support comes from no more than an hours travel away

This actually makes us unique getting, big club with a local Support in a traditional stadium gives us something A lot of other clubs haven’t got anymore.
They should market that, fill the place with local fans creating a cracking atmosphere That can’t be done with day trippers, just ask West Ham etc

I suppose money is king at the moment though because of FFP,
But in our case empty seats brings no money in

[AV82EC]

As Damian noted on Sunday after Emi’s save, not a phone in sight. The issue for me with the current GA+ offerings is they are spread over the ground. They need to be concentrated in particular blocks and as others have noted if they’re not selling then look at pricing or sell them as GA earlier. I’m sure Francesco is all over it.

[VILLA MOLE]

As Damian noted on Sunday after Emi’s save, not a phone in sight. The issue for me with the current GA+ offerings is they are spread over the ground. They need to be concentrated in particular blocks and as others have noted if they’re not selling then look at pricing or sell them as GA earlier. I’m sure Francesco is all over it.

Well it will be intersesting what they allocate and where  with the North Stand 

[rob_bridge]

They can do those upselling ticket price sales for Liverpool, Man U etc...

You can't do it for Bournemouth at home on a Sunday afternoon. Both games I attended on a Sunday also had biggish sections of away end unsold too.

If we want to be cnuts about it - sell the ManU away at 60 quid a throw, they will still sell out. Those less well supported from further afield charge less.

GA+ going forward may be mainly in new North Stand as it would make sense. I.e new place.

[Walmley_Villa]

£30 cap on away tickets

[PeterWithesShin]

If clubs take the full allocation don't they have to pay for them all regardless of how many they sell, or have I dreamt that i've read that before?

[AV82EC]

If clubs take the full allocation don't they have to pay for them all regardless of how many they sell, or have I dreamt that i've read that before?

I think you’re right.

[lovejoy]

I'm as season ticket holder in A5 - Most of my row was totally empty on Sunday. I'd love to know the maths behind it.

Surely its more cost effective to FILL a stadium with supporters, some of whom will also probably buy stuff, rather than having 20/25% sales of GA+ seats? Not much of a 'match going experience' for people like me, when you're sat on your tod.

Football is eating itself.

Football ticket demand doesn't have a price elasticity of 1 (if you halve prices you don't double the crowd). So the clubs will charge more knowing they will sell out most matches and accept a few empty seats against Bournemouth on a sunday. Hospitality on a sunday must be a tough sell at the best of times. it is another reason why the european football competitions outside the champions league are a real drag on a season.

[Pat Mustard]

On Sunday there were a few seats available that were presumably resale next to where we have STs.  We wanted to take our 11 year old nephew to his first game given that we would all be able to sit together, but the club would only sell these at full price.  I emailed and got a response that concessions were only available in the upper North.  The choice was not to buy or to pay £56 quid for an 11 year old.

We didn't buy it, lo and behold the tickets didn't sell and the seats were empty.  I know it is only one example, but we have a real problem at the moment in pricing out fans across the board, and crucially the club are stopping the next generation of fans from coming.  Someone at the club must realise they have got something wrong when we are getting lower gates for some games when we are top 6 in the Premier League and competing in Europe than we were when we were in the Championship.

[artvandelay]

On Sunday there were a few seats available that were presumably resale next to where we have STs.  We wanted to take our 11 year old nephew to his first game given that we would all be able to sit together, but the club would only sell these at full price.  I emailed and got a response that concessions were only available in the upper North.  The choice was not to buy or to pay £56 quid for an 11 year old.

We didn't buy it, lo and behold the tickets didn't sell and the seats were empty.  I know it is only one example, but we have a real problem at the moment in pricing out fans across the board, and crucially the club are stopping the next generation of fans from coming.  Someone at the club must realise they have got something wrong when we are getting lower gates for some games when we are top 6 in the Premier League and competing in Europe than we were when we were in the Championship.

To slightly defend the club on this, if they're resale then the club have already received the ST money. If they sold a concession and refunded the full adult price (minus whatever admin fee they charge now) to the STH, then they would have reduced their revenue for the seat.

I suppose you could add a mechanism to allow the reseller to opt to receive the concession amount? But then you get into the territory of resold tickets potentially undercutting the clubs prices.

[PeterWithesShin]

Of the 69 home league games in the Championship I doubt 10 were higher than Sunday and i'd go they were Burton Boxing Day, 3x sha and then 4 or 5 after Smith took over. We probably had a similar number below 30k.

[Hookeysmith]

The old saying of sell the tickets cheaper to fill the ground and that the difference will be covered by the take up in food, drink and merchandise sales does not hold water.

Villa will take 99% of the value of the ticket (minus a little for admin costs etc) whereas concession stands and even the shop they only take margins off the sale, and i assume not big ones on food and drink outlets.

I bet the sale of programmes (unless special ones like Champs league) dont sell anywhere near what they used to. I would imagine anyone under 35 has never bought one.

All you can do is raise prices and hope that the product matches the price and equates to value for money - when them 2 factors oppose then that is really a problem.

Our marketing teams have had a great run with the team which has obviously helped but we will never reach the levels of the scum 6 who have milked the Sky cow for years and years.

Our only option is for the shackles to be taken off and our owners are allowed to really go for it - incrementally trying to bridge the spending gap will just not work without pricing regular punters out. It is why the rigged deck of the prem is so unfair.

If we reached the Champions league last year or even went on to win it the year we were in it - would that guarantee sell out every game - i doubt it.

We never sold out every game in 81 or 82 when the pricing was a lot more pallatable than it is now.

[chrisw1]

All true.  But the point remains that we had a load of unsold hospitality seats on Sunday.  Many of those could and would have sold as standard seating and produced additional income for the club.

[VancouverLion]

What's with the big block of empty seats in the upper Trinity?
Noticed it a few times on the box now.