Chris Heck - President of Business Operations

[Risso]

But queues at the turnstiles aren't remotely defensible, and nor is the attitude of "well get there earlier then."

[Villan82]

Balance is critical for sure. I thought the original comment was in reference to social media rather than any poster here, and that is certainly what I had in my mind,

[Drummond]

But queues at the turnstiles aren't remotely defensible, and nor is the attitude of "well get there earlier then."

People should get there, have a fucking think about how the ticket works beforehand and be ready.

It's the equivalent of being in a supermarket and the person in front starts scrabbling around in their handbag looking for the exact change, or the person at the ATM who checks their balance, checks their balance on another card, goes back to the first card and fucks about holding everyone else up.

This will all be forgotten soon enough when people learn how to do it. We're not the only club doing it this way, and surely it's not much to ask people to be prepared?

I've used contactless tickets at Villa for years and not been held up, tap and go. It's the way the world is going.

What the club should have done of course, is help everyone, have stewards checking phones were ready before people got to the turnstile and sorted it. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work that out. The club fucked it up.

[Toronto Villa]

Upper Holte was a nightmare to enter on Saturday. Arriving at 1442 we finally got into the ground at 1501, missing the Gary Shaw tribute

18 minutes before kick off when there have been some known challenges getting in is cutting it very tight.

Not a great reply mate, twenty minutes SHOULD be (and used to be) plenty of time to get in. It's not like the majority of people are getting there at that time, most people are getting there in plenty of time but are still missing bits of the game because the club haven't organised things properly.

I get that. But it’s not like it used to be. I’m not excusing what’s happening and it should be better. The club have to fix it. But given that it’s not perfect I’d be giving myself more time. I understand people have a routine and they like to stick to that. And even in a perfect situation shit can still go wrong.

[London Villan]

Or as they did in the Tritiny open up another bank of turnstiles that have apparently been shut for the last couple of seasons... according to the head steward.

[Risso]

I get that. But it’s not like it used to be. I’m not excusing what’s happening and it should be better. The club have to fix it. But given that it’s not perfect I’d be giving myself more time. I understand people have a routine and they like to stick to that. And even in a perfect situation shit can still go wrong.

Or people have jobs and family commitments that mean they can't get there earlier just because the club can't implement things properly.

[HolteL4]

But queues at the turnstiles aren't remotely defensible, and nor is the attitude of "well get there earlier then."

People should get there, have a fucking think about how the ticket works beforehand and be ready.

It's the equivalent of being in a supermarket and the person in front starts scrabbling around in their handbag looking for the exact change, or the person at the ATM who checks their balance, checks their balance on another card, goes back to the first card and fucks about holding everyone else up.

This will all be forgotten soon enough when people learn how to do it. We're not the only club doing it this way, and surely it's not much to ask people to be prepared?

I've used contactless tickets at Villa for years and not been held up, tap and go. It's the way the world is going.

What the club should have done of course, is help everyone, have stewards checking phones were ready before people got to the turnstile and sorted it. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work that out. The club fucked it up.

If it was that simple, I have IT qualifications so I have no problem with getting my phone ready to go through the turnstiles as I did with 0 problems at the Everton match but when I did the exact same thing against Wolves it took 3 attempts. In my opinion this isn't a user error this is quite clearly a rubbish system that Villa are using.

[amfy]

But queues at the turnstiles aren't remotely defensible, and nor is the attitude of "well get there earlier then."

People should get there, have a fucking think about how the ticket works beforehand and be ready.

It's the equivalent of being in a supermarket and the person in front starts scrabbling around in their handbag looking for the exact change, or the person at the ATM who checks their balance, checks their balance on another card, goes back to the first card and fucks about holding everyone else up.

This will all be forgotten soon enough when people learn how to do it. We're not the only club doing it this way, and surely it's not much to ask people to be prepared?

I've used contactless tickets at Villa for years and not been held up, tap and go. It's the way the world is going.

What the club should have done of course, is help everyone, have stewards checking phones were ready before people got to the turnstile and sorted it. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work that out. The club fucked it up.

Never had any issues last season Drummond, but this season it is different. It’s a large screen and there seems to be a slightly different knack for each type of phone. The instruction for mine is to hold it up & tap the top of my phone screen, but that just makes my season ticket disappear from the screen. I think mine works best held near the top of the screen, but that’s not the same for everyone. The stewards are just saying ‘try this, ok, try that, ok, turn it round, move it up a. It, move it down a bit’. No one knows, it’s not just a case of people not being ready.

[dekko]

Yeah, I'm not having the 'user error' thing either.

Arsenal - tried the NFC method (tap the phone against the top) and no response.  Opened up the QR code and got in using that.
Everton - tried NFC - got the green lights that should indicate it worked, turnstile wouldn't budge.  Tried again and this time got a red light.  Opened up the QR code and got in using that.
Wolves - NFC method worked first time.

There's clearly some kind of inconsistency or issue with the technology or how its been employed.  Even though it eventually worked each time it was taking me a hell of a lot longer than tapping the physical ticket ever did - multiply that extra time by several thousand for everyone else trying to get in and its no surprise that there are crazy queues.

[London Villan]

There was different hardware at Arsenal vs Wolves too.

[chrisw1]

But queues at the turnstiles aren't remotely defensible, and nor is the attitude of "well get there earlier then."

People should get there, have a fucking think about how the ticket works beforehand and be ready.

It's the equivalent of being in a supermarket and the person in front starts scrabbling around in their handbag looking for the exact change, or the person at the ATM who checks their balance, checks their balance on another card, goes back to the first card and fucks about holding everyone else up.

This will all be forgotten soon enough when people learn how to do it. We're not the only club doing it this way, and surely it's not much to ask people to be prepared?

I've used contactless tickets at Villa for years and not been held up, tap and go. It's the way the world is going.

What the club should have done of course, is help everyone, have stewards checking phones were ready before people got to the turnstile and sorted it. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work that out. The club fucked it up.

Yes but there's clearly a specific problem with the Holte Lower as the queues there seem to be far worse than everywhere else.  As I mentioned I got pretty much straight in the upper at 2.35 whereas the queues for the lower at that time were reaching the car park
.

[astonvilla82]

But queues at the turnstiles aren't remotely defensible, and nor is the attitude of "well get there earlier then."

People should get there, have a fucking think about how the ticket works beforehand and be ready.

It's the equivalent of being in a supermarket and the person in front starts scrabbling around in their handbag looking for the exact change, or the person at the ATM who checks their balance, checks their balance on another card, goes back to the first card and fucks about holding everyone else up.

This will all be forgotten soon enough when people learn how to do it. We're not the only club doing it this way, and surely it's not much to ask people to be prepared?

I've used contactless tickets at Villa for years and not been held up, tap and go. It's the way the world is going.

What the club should have done of course, is help everyone, have stewards checking phones were ready before people got to the turnstile and sorted it. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work that out. The club fucked it up.

Steward did say people had issues with the digital ticket and were sent to the ticket office and came back with a printed ticket and it still didn't work,I only used the OR code on the phone and no problem

[The Edge]

But queues at the turnstiles aren't remotely defensible, and nor is the attitude of "well get there earlier then."

People should get there, have a fucking think about how the ticket works beforehand and be ready.

It's the equivalent of being in a supermarket and the person in front starts scrabbling around in their handbag looking for the exact change, or the person at the ATM who checks their balance, checks their balance on another card, goes back to the first card and fucks about holding everyone else up.

This will all be forgotten soon enough when people learn how to do it. We're not the only club doing it this way, and surely it's not much to ask people to be prepared?

I've used contactless tickets at Villa for years and not been held up, tap and go. It's the way the world is going.

What the club should have done of course, is help everyone, have stewards checking phones were ready before people got to the turnstile and sorted it. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work that out. The club fucked it up.

Yes but there's clearly a specific problem with the Holte Lower as the queues there seem to be far worse than everywhere else.  As I mentioned I got pretty much straight in the upper at 2.35 whereas the queues for the lower at that time were reaching the car park
.

The queues for the North Stand have stretched half way across the car park 15 minutes before kick off for Everton
and  Wolves.

[CLEEVE]

However you look at it 2000 empty seats at any premier league ground is bad and these days unheard of. The fact we had that for a Saturday 3pm for a local derby should set alarm bells ringing. 

[Louzie0]

Somebody on Twitter is claiming that the attendance for Wolves was 39Kish. If true, for a Saturday 3pm kick off that's not televised, that's woeful.

That AV Updates? Not the most reliable. MoTD had attendance as well over 42k.

SSN played their clip of the game on Saturday night and the score caption included the attendance as 42,700-ish. Sorry Lou for not remembering exactly.

Thanks Percy, Risso. That’s very interesting, as the Beeb has put out 39,978 as their official figure, sometime today!

Appreciate the comment re MOTD as well, DB 👍