Chris Heck - President of Business Operations

[pauliewalnuts]

The food and drink thing, that's not the worst part of it tbh, it just strikes me as a missed opportunity and something that never gets fixed.

The state of the toilets, though, there's no excuse for that.

[itbrvilla]

Have we installed rail-seats?

The only thing I can find is this tweet showing where they may be in the UH

https://x.com/VillaJetsMS/status/1791007453858988403

Yep.

Cheers - do we know where/how many?

[Border villan]

I thought he explained quite clearly?

"... we talk about Villa Park being a fortress. It is true. There is no better home advantage than at Villa Park and I think it would be a bad idea to tear down one of the stands for a two year period while we are playing like we are. I think that going forward, everything should be about all fans and not just one particular stand."

To be fair, yes, he did say that, and I don't have a massive problem with that being the thinking.

However, the bit in bold, in that case, hopefully everyone can look forward tomorrow to toilets that aren't rivers of piss, and an ability to spend money on food and drink at half time.

We've heard plenty about the new GA+ and corporate offers, but absolutely nothing about improvements for the ordinary fan.

Thanks Paulie for putting so well the reasons why I, as an ordinary fan who does not want to be in hospitality/hostility but just watch a match, try to buy a drink and get out of the toilets with my shoes dry, originally described the fluffy Heck interview as smelling of bullshit.
We ordinary fans were there when the top of the Trinity was closed and now we are ignored when the good times roll.

[dalians umbrella]

I don't know overall how successful the new areas have been, but I do know that they're having a massive push on selling match-by-match hospitality packages, which they didn't need to do last season. I know lots of people who haven't renewed their places because the prices have doubled. We didn't, for that reason.

There are quite a few seats in the 150 club not sold in the lower DE* so that's just under half a million quid's worth not sold in just that area.

Although I want the Club to succeed in their fight against PSR, I'm also hoping this means no more of us will be kicked out of our seats at the end of this season if the demand isn't there.









 *PS - I know I'm meant to call it the Witton on here but if anyone has a right to be pissed off at Doug - it's me - he once docked me £1000 from my monthly pay-packet, saying I'd earned too much, but that's what it's called.

[Toronto Villa]

This is new ground for us as a club to push this hard in the corporate space. It's been a massive gap relative to the top sides we are competing against, both locally and globally. If we keep doing it on the pitch, we keep building out brand through Heck and his team, customers will buy these spaces at the club. We need to have this even if it isn't for the everyday fan, there will be demand.

[pauliewalnuts]

This is new ground for us as a club to push this hard in the corporate space. It's been a massive gap relative to the top sides we are competing against, both locally and globally. If we keep doing it on the pitch, we keep building out brand through Heck and his team, customers will buy these spaces at the club. We need to have this even if it isn't for the everyday fan, there will be demand.

We need to start regularly winning things like the top clubs do if we want to close the gap.

[pauliewalnuts]

I don't know overall how successful the new areas have been, but I do know that they're having a massive push on selling match-by-match hospitality packages, which they didn't need to do last season. I know lots of people who haven't renewed their places because the prices have doubled. We didn't, for that reason.

There are quite a few seats in the 150 club not sold in the lower DE* so that's just under half a million quid's worth not sold in just that area.

Although I want the Club to succeed in their fight against PSR, I'm also hoping this means no more of us will be kicked out of our seats at the end of this season if the demand isn't there.









 *PS - I know I'm meant to call it the Witton on here but if anyone has a right to be pissed off at Doug - it's me - he once docked me £1000 from my monthly pay-packet, saying I'd earned too much, but that's what it's called.

Ha ha, is that true about the pay packet? Tell more, sounds like a good anecdote.

Anyway, back to the sales, looking at that planner, I think they'll be pleased with the number they have sold tbh.

That looks like 300 odd seats there and about 30 left unsold (i haven't counted), so they've sold 90% of season tickets in those seats, for tickets that cost a minimum of nearly 8k each,

That's over £2m revenue.

Obviously, they might be showing more seats sold than is actually the case in that screen, to give the illusion of scarcity, but I doubt it.

[dalians umbrella]

Yes, it is a true story.

When I qualified as a physio aged 21, I started 2 jobs on the same day - one full-time in the NHS and one at Villa.

Despite me being the only real physio at the club with actual medical qualifications, I was put with the under 9s based on how young I looked (I got asked for ID last week at the age of 47 so that gives you an idea).

I think I got £50 a match (on a sunday) and £30 for each of 2 training sessions (let's say monday and thursday - I can't remember).

I worked my way up all the age groups, and there was a point where all Premier League Academies needed a named Chartered Physiotherapist, so although I wasn't told that was the reason, Jim Walker suggested I could help him out full-time as his number 2.  Now, I was in all day, covering training sessions and treatment sessions  from 1st team down in the morning (£30) and afternoon (£30) and evening (£30)  in a typical week, I could do say a reserve game, an U21 game, and an u14s game (3 x £50) - so that was like £2000 a month which I was pretty chuffed with back in the late 90s in my early 20s.

Anyway, one day I'm woken up early on a sunday by a phonecall from Jim Walker telling me "the chairman's been looking at the wages and you've been earning too much and he's deducted £1000 from your wages but he wants to offer you a full-time contract.

Great, I thought until I went in the next day and  learned the offer was for £7k a year.

If I carry on the story from there, it's going to paint other people in a bad light, so I ended up going to another Club, THE END.

[Sexual Ealing]

I can't believe you left us in the lurch like that. I suppose you went to Middlesbrough to win trophies. And then won a trophy.

[dalians umbrella]

I can't believe you left us in the lurch like that. I suppose you went to Middlesbrough to win trophies. And then won a trophy.

Ha ha. No, I didn’t go that far, and I didn’t win any trophies. But it’s funny you should use that analogy, because I think that Gareth was quite disillusioned at the lack of qualifications of people at the club and how everything was done on the cheap. He was a really nice guy, but he was very bright And wouldn’t put up with shit. I wasn’t still there when he left, but I don’t think it was just about trophies. I know people got pissed off with him when he was England manager, but he was a really nice guy.

[Sexual Ealing]

I can believe it.

[dalians umbrella]

I can believe it.

Posted in error. I mis-read
the previous post

[Risso]

I don't know overall how successful the new areas have been, but I do know that they're having a massive push on selling match-by-match hospitality packages, which they didn't need to do last season. I know lots of people who haven't renewed their places because the prices have doubled. We didn't, for that reason.

There are quite a few seats in the 150 club not sold in the lower DE* so that's just under half a million quid's worth not sold in just that area.

Although I want the Club to succeed in their fight against PSR, I'm also hoping this means no more of us will be kicked out of our seats at the end of this season if the demand isn't there.









 *PS - I know I'm meant to call it the Witton on here but if anyone has a right to be pissed off at Doug - it's me - he once docked me £1000 from my monthly pay-packet, saying I'd earned too much, but that's what it's called.

Ha ha, is that true about the pay packet? Tell more, sounds like a good anecdote.

Anyway, back to the sales, looking at that planner, I think they'll be pleased with the number they have sold tbh.

That looks like 300 odd seats there and about 30 left unsold (i haven't counted), so they've sold 90% of season tickets in those seats, for tickets that cost a minimum of nearly 8k each,

That's over £2m revenue.

Obviously, they might be showing more seats sold than is actually the case in that screen, to give the illusion of scarcity, but I doubt it.

Obviously I don't know the exact numbers, but it seems like all of the new corporate areas have been a bit of a disaster sales wise. There are loads left unsold, and lots of existing clients just haven't bothered. The thing is, if they're not selling out now after a season when we've finished 4th and qualified for the Champions League for the first time, when are they going to? They pissed off an awful lot of existing clients (me included) and getting new ones hasn't been as easy as they hoped.

[London Villan]

Doug, on the cheap, never...

[dalians umbrella]

Doug, on the cheap, never...

I once got some compeed plasters out of the cupboard to use on someone, I think it might have been Darren Byfield. Jim Walker nearly had a heart attack and said don’t use those! I said why not? He said, they’re too expensive, the chairman will go spare! I laughed for a bit and proceeded to use them, until I realised
 that he wasn’t joking.