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It's all about perceived value imo and the offering has to be better for someone to justify the ticket price. The club has to remember that they need to attract people other than us die hard supporters who love the club.
This is what our club offers to those people who attend for the first time:

Ticket price high

Food offering / hygiene poor

Queuing times poor

Stadium dirty and run down, with fox excretion everywhere

Toilet facilities poor e.g. Where are there any disabled toilets or child friendly conveniences? I have seen some fathers with daughters having to take their girl into the mens toilets, where some cubicles do not even have locks.

Entertainment at half time poor. No offence to the Blue Bells (who do not even wear blue by the way) but (although I do appreciate their efforts) their performance can be amateurish and cringe worthy at times.

Entertainment on the pitch last season was generally poor (my son and his friends (7 in total) went last season and was bored silly, they will not be back!).

Communication poor. Some speakers in the South stand upper don't even work!

Don't forget you can only make one first impression, and Southend United as a club don't make a very good one imo!
 
The away fans will bring the average attendance down this season for this league. Far too many northern teams. Does anyone know what the official home capacity is? I would guess at 8500, so it's only around 3000 extra spaces to fill on our last few games. A few more wins and that would close the gap. As for the day trippers, how about we don't moan about them, then they might come back. I'm not saying this post is moaning about them, but many people have in the past.
 
I've still not heard a convincing argument as to why something like Bradford's scheme wouldn't work. Would anyone complain if we sold 8000 STs on that basis? I wouldn't.
 
The away fans will bring the average attendance down this season for this league. Far too many northern teams. Does anyone know what the official home capacity is? I would guess at 8500, so it's only around 3000 extra spaces to fill on our last few games. A few more wins and that would close the gap. As for the day trippers, how about we don't moan about them, then they might come back. I'm not saying this post is moaning about them, but many people have in the past.

Nearer 11,500.
 
I've still not heard a convincing argument as to why something like Bradford's scheme wouldn't work. Would anyone complain if we sold 8000 STs on that basis? I wouldn't.

We currently have nearly 3,500 season ticket holders. I'm not sure of the split but I would imagine a fair few of those are already cheaper prices i.e. Under 8's £23, Under 16 £75 (£24 cheaper than Bradford City's Under 16 'special offer' price), Young Person £220, Senior £230 (these were the early prices I think).

There is no guarantee we would sell 8,000 season tickets if prices were £149 for adults.

We would almost certainly sell more Adult season tickets but there might actually be a drop in income.
 
We currently have nearly 3,500 season ticket holders. I'm not sure of the split but I would imagine a fair few of those are already cheaper prices i.e. Under 8's £23, Under 16 £75 (£24 cheaper than Bradford City's Under 16 'special offer' price), Young Person £220, Senior £230 (these were the early prices I think).

There is no guarantee we would sell 8,000 season tickets if prices were £149 for adults.

We would almost certainly sell more Adult season tickets but there might actually be a drop in income.

You may be right, but as I posted earlier, we wouldn't have to clone Bradford's scheme exactly. The thread is 'How do we get the Wembley daytrippers into the Hall?'. One way would be to offer season tickets at a lower adult price than at present. Of course there is a risk of a drop of income, but we could also sell enough for that not to happen. I would be very happy to have regular gates of 8-9k, including away support.

I'm not advocating this as the solution to everything, but it is possibly worth a bit more discussion by the club.
 
I have to agree that a new stadium would be the way forward in terms of bringing in more fans, and increasing performance. Im sure if we moved to Fossetts Farm we would see an intial spike in attendance for a season or 2 at least, and hopefully in those 2 years, if 10% - 20% of any new fans coming to the club would remain loyal and watch us more often. then surely mathmatically speaking of course our attendance would increase by 10% - 20% on average. and I understand it remains on the success of the team, but if there are more bum's on seats, that should mean more income, which in turn means more availibilty of obtaining new quality players and obtaining them on higher wages etc.. "succcess breeds success" and "word of mouth" comes to mind.. I will never forget the week we had Man united in the cup, my phone was ringing constantly with old friends begging for tickets, we could have filled roots hall twice that night.

Historically thinking of course, (with the exception of Darlington's new Arena stadium) most clubs that expand or move to a new modern stadium currently do better than they than did a few years ago. (Swansea, Cardiff, Brighton, Mk Dons,) to name but a few.

That being said though, knowing our clubs ambitions and financial situations....bringing back Onion's on the burgers... would really be a good start!! :hilarious:
 
How to get the Wembley crowd into Roots Hall?

In my case, I just walked up from the railway station, went through the car park and swiped my shiny new season ticket on the swipe-y thing. It was actually pretty easy... :smile:
 
I say this again. The term 'Day tripper' I find offensive. We get to games as often as we can, some of us have forgotten more about our beloved team than some nowadays know about supporting our boys. Some of us have supported our team all over the country through thick and thin, some of us have been in a crowd of barely 1000 to watch our team. It is all about winning games. If we win a couple on the bounce now, watch the crowds swell. It really isn't rocket science. It is nothing to do with the ground, facilities, meat pies, onions or whatever, it is solely about a winning team. End of rant. COYBB.

I certainly didn't mean to offend with the day-tripper term (sorry if it seemed that way). I have full respect for all shrimpers, irrespective of how many games they go to (we all have different lives and situations). As Uncle Leo kindly pointed out, it was a term to refer to those who very rarely go to Roots Hall, even if they have the ability to. I would say we have approx 6,000 - 8,000 supporters that do their best to get to home games..but how many supporters did we have at Wembley ? 20,000 ? That's 12,000 supporters that were happy to cheer on Southend United on that day. Is there anything WE can do (as a club, as supporters or Shrimperzone, even) to help bring them to Roots Hall to cheer on our heroes.
 
At a risk of sounding repetitive, if we are good/fortunate enough to get on a roll of wins, the fans will fill Roots Hall, as they always have done. Fans will always support a winning team, no matter what other incentives are proposed. OK, a new stadium would be nice, as unlikely as it is to come about, so let's hope we are successful enough to fill the one we have. Fans will put up with anything if there is success on the pitch. COYBB.
 
I certainly didn't mean to offend with the day-tripper term (sorry if it seemed that way). I have full respect for all shrimpers, irrespective of how many games they go to (we all have different lives and situations). As Uncle Leo kindly pointed out, it was a term to refer to those who very rarely go to Roots Hall, even if they have the ability to. I would say we have approx 6,000 - 8,000 supporters that do their best to get to home games..but how many supporters did we have at Wembley ? 20,000 ? That's 12,000 supporters that were happy to cheer on Southend United on that day. Is there anything WE can do (as a club, as supporters or Shrimperzone, even) to help bring them to Roots Hall to cheer on our heroes.
Part of that 20,000 will be partners who simply aren't interested enough in football to come more frequently. My OH will come to a few matches but won't necessarily make the trip to Roots Hall as often as I do.

Another probably big part of that 20,000 is mates who support other [premier league] clubs. I had two friends from west of London, one of whom brought his son, for whom a round trip to Roots Hall is probably 5 hours, and it's not their club anyway.

And then you've got the fans who don't come to every home game. 3,500 season ticket holders leaves at least 1,500 people who don't come to every home game each home game. So maybe 1,000 people who come every other home game (500 per game), 2,000 who come to every 4th home game/six times a season(500 per game), 4,000 who come two or three times a season (500 per game). That's 7,000 who will come to Wembley.

There's just not such a strict divide between seasos and "day trippers".

Edit: So the trick is to get more wins so the 7,000 non seasos will come more often.
 
Difference between us and Bradford is they are rattling around in a 25,000 capacity stadium and have nothing to lose by selling those swathes of seats that would otherwise be empty on the cheap. A few good wins and we could feasibly be hitting 8,000 home fans, which with 2,000 available for away supporters, doesn't really mean much room left.I do think there should be something done about the pricing in the South Lower though. The view means it should be at least a fiver cheaper than the rest of the ground..
I like the idea of making the south lower a cheap area to sit. It's always pretty dead in there. Make it south lower for a fiver. Would be great to fill that up every game, would add to atmosphere on the home end as well. Also a fiver is a great way to get people coming in and giving it a go at a little cost. And if they end up enjoying it maybe they will decide to purchase better seats or maybe not and we get a pretty full home on a pretty consistent basis. Worth a go I reckon.
 
I like the idea of making the south lower a cheap area to sit. It's always pretty dead in there. Make it south lower for a fiver. Would be great to fill that up every game, would add to atmosphere on the home end as well. Also a fiver is a great way to get people coming in and giving it a go at a little cost. And if they end up enjoying it maybe they will decide to purchase better seats or maybe not and we get a pretty full home on a pretty consistent basis. Worth a go I reckon.

Fair shout. Cheap tickets in a general sense have the problem of potentially upsetting people who have already bought full price tickets.

However, making just one stand a fiver a pop means there should be less of that - someone who has paid £20-odd to sit in the South Upper is more likely to think 'good luck to them' if people want to pay a reduced amount to sit in the Lower.

There surely can't be any seasos in the Lower?

A busy South Lower would look good on the telly too!
 
I looked at the South Lower on Saturday and it was virtually empty, although a few were near the back right behind the goal,so their view must have been through the net, can't understand why anyone would want that. But if you were paying as suggested perhaps £5 then it's better than not being there at all.
 
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