Saturday's Ticket Office Fiasco

[Upminster Blue]

I haven't seen tonight's Echo yet, but apparently it says that 600 fans gave up queing and went home on Saturday without seeing the game. Talk about a ****-up, there's 600 people that wont be back in a hurry. Or look at it another way, best part of £10k down the drain.

I can't believe the club placed 100% faith in the new system for potentially our biggest crowd of the season. Why wasn't it rolled out when a smaller crowd was expected (eg Yeovil next week)? Or why wasn't it just partially rolled out on Saturday, with the new ticket office open but with a batch of pre-printed tickets available from the old North-East corner ticket office as back-up? Unbelievable!

Anyone running a business knows that you should plan for the ****-up factor, especially given this was the first run for the new ticket office/systems - if you assume things will go wrong you'll have everything covered. Common sense.

 

[Mick]

Quote[/b] (Upminster Blue @ Sep. 19 2005,17:24)]I haven't seen tonight's Echo yet, but apparently it says that 600 fans gave up queing and went home on Saturday without seeing the game.  Talk about a ****-up, there's 600 people that wont be back in a hurry.  Or look at it another way, best part of £10k down the drain.

I can't believe the club placed 100% faith in the new system for potentially our biggest crowd of the season.  Why wasn't it rolled out when a smaller crowd was expected (eg Yeovil next week)?  Or why wasn't it just partially rolled out on Saturday, with the new ticket office open but with a batch of pre-printed tickets available from the old North-East corner ticket office as back-up?  Unbelievable!  

Anyone running a business knows that you should plan for the ****-up factor, especially given this was the first run for the new ticket office/systems - if you assume things will go wrong you'll have everything covered.  Common sense.

Whilst Tilly and Co are producing sterling stuff on the field, the fact remains that our club is still run by somewhat amateurish administrators. I expect they're cheap though.

 

[sufcintheprem]

Perhaps their contingency plan should have been to hold up a sign saying "There's no queues for West Stand U block, even 2 minutes before kick off".

It's a shame to know that a good attendance could have been better

 

[stickyboy]

Quote[/b] (Mick @ Sep. 19 2005,17:28)]Whilst Tilly and Co are producing sterling stuff on the field, the fact remains that our club is still run by somewhat amateurish administrators. I expect they're cheap though.

perfectly summed up.

If thats true about 600 fans turned away , its not just for the Tranmere game its the point of those were fans who potentially could have become regulars where as now they are hardly likely to try again for a long time yet.

 

[Guest]

Silly really. That would have been soo much nicer. So the crowd really should have been 7,400!! tut tut

 

[Hong Kong Blue]

I think the club knew what they were doing.

We always do badly in front of big crowds, and by ensuring 600 people went home without seeing the game it meant that the 600 extra that actually got in will come back.

Also, our game against Yeovil City is, I think, an evening game. I think its better to trial the system on a Saturday, than on a Tuesday when everyone turns up with 5 minutes to go.

 

[overseas shrimper]

How about a sincere apology (excuse free) from the club in the Echo asking for those that gave up last Saturday to please come back again and not let this drive them away?

 

[McScriven]

600 fans didn't go home and it doesn't say that in the Echo.

There was no problem with the system, as just as many terminals were running on that as were on the old system.

It was purely down to the fact that a lot of people turned up late who hadn't bought tickets.

We normally sell about 900 on a matchday we did 2,000 on Saturday. Doesn't take a genious to work out why there were problems.

Having no online ticketing didn't help, but we ended our association with Seatbooker due to other reasons beyond that we were changing ticketing providers. We normally sell around 30% of sales online so this obviously had a knock on effect.

I'm sure the staff that worked there nuts off to clear the majority of the queue in time for kick-off will be pleased with your amateurish comments Mick.

 

[Hooly]

Is not it more remarkable that at just after 2.45 when I came out of the Spread, with the queue from the new ticket office virtually reaching the old ticket offices by the East Stand that nobody of importance had apparently deemed that there might be the vaguest possiblity of a problem!    

  From the length of the queue it must have been like that for some time & would at a normal organisation beggar belief.

What also seems strange (or not!) is that previously we must have had more ticket points open IIRC.  I seem to remember about 4 covering South & 2 or 3 for the East Green/Black in the SE corner with 4 more in the NE corner for that end of the East Stand.  So basically about 10 people selling, plus the concession & pickup windows.  At peak times for bigger games these windows had queues.  How the feck can the simple number game of X = customers (not seaso's) divided by Y = points of sale not give the answer Z = long queue.  Especially where Y is now less than half the cosine of Q which was the previous exponential tangent of the mean radius!  i.e. previous ticket sellers & F (to the power of 2) adjust for the fact that the online system was buggered.  Trust me I'm an accountant!  

As for the Yeovil game.  Ok the crowd may be smaller, but most of us don't get away from work until 5-5.30, therefore can't get to the ground until 6.45-7.00 at the earliest so the practical selling period for that game will be less than Saturday's where people drift in from say 1pm.  Glad I'm a seaso!  Although of course as to be expected I've not actually got a ticket yet for that game either!  

 

[Hooly]

Quote[/b] (McScriven @ Sep. 19 2005,17:55)]600 fans didn't go home and it doesn't say that in the Echo.

There was no problem with the system, as just as many terminals were running on that as were on the old system.

I will obviously bow to your greater knowledge Dave (as with Graeme Jones

) so how many sale points are there in the new ticket office compared with the old windows?

 

[McScriven]

That's where your wrong Hooly. At the start of this season and towards the end of last season we have had four points of sale for the East/South Stand side in the North East corner.

With the new ticketing system we have four points of sale for the East/South side to. So there wasn't more points of sale and there's not been a problem before.

 

[* ORM *]

By Upminster's own admission he hadn't read the Echo so his comments were always going to be the subject of conjecture. Yet again speculation have been jumped upon and treated as hard fact.

Fortunately this was posted at 17.24 rather than earlier in the day where it would have been jumped upon, exploded and all sorts or myths perpetrated by now.

3rd in the table and we're still trying to find faults. When are we ever going to be happy ?

 

[McScriven]

Quote[/b] (Hooly @ Sep. 19 2005,18:03)]

Quote[/b] (McScriven @ Sep. 19 2005,17:55)]600 fans didn't go home and it doesn't say that in the Echo.

There was no problem with the system, as just as many terminals were running on that as were on the old system.

I will obviously bow to your greater knowledge Dave (as with Graeme Jones  

) so how many sale points are there in the new ticket office compared with the old windows?  

Like for like. Certainly since the tail end of last season.

We had four points of sale we still have four.

 

[TrueBlue]

Quote[/b] ]We had four points of sale we still have four.

have as many as you like but if you have a bunch of buffoons running it the club wont get nowhere!

 

[Hooly]

Quote[/b] (McScriven @ Sep. 19 2005,18:04)]That's where your wrong Hooly. At the start of this season and towards the end of last season we have had four points of sale for the East/South Stand side in the North East corner.

With the new ticketing system we have four points of sale for the East/South side to. So there wasn't more points of sale and there's not been a problem before.

What about the South East corner ticket points?

 

[overseas shrimper]

Hhhhhmmmm, what does it say in the Echo?

Who told you the Echo said 600 Upminster?

If this is the case, I certainly retract my comment about the club needing to make an apology.

 

[McScriven]

Quote[/b] (Hooly @ Sep. 19 2005,18:08)]

Quote[/b] (McScriven @ Sep. 19 2005,18:04)]That's where your wrong Hooly. At the start of this season and towards the end of last season we have had four points of sale for the East/South Stand side in the North East corner.

With the new ticketing system we have four points of sale for the East/South side to. So there wasn't more points of sale and there's not been a problem before.

What about the South East corner ticket points?

They were closed towards the end of last season.

There were four Points of sale in the North East and one collection window.

Now we have four POS in the new ticket office and collection window in the North East.

 

[overseas shrimper]

Quote[/b] (TrueBlue @ Sep. 19 2005,19:07)]

Quote[/b] ]We had four points of sale we still have four.

have as many as you like but if you have a bunch of buffoons running it the club wont get nowhere!

Was there really need for that TB? Bit harsh.

 

[* ORM *]

I'm really disappointed about this.

Perhaps for the benefit of those not old enough to remember it would be great if someone could compare this current era with the Jobson era. Where was the mouthpiece between the club and fans in those days ? (and forget the fact that we now have the electronic age).

Find me a club in the bottom two divisions that comes remotely close to having the sort of relationship that SUFC directors, officials and players have with their fans. Virtually every sensible change we ask for gets a response, whether positive or negative usually with an explanation of the club's reasoning.

This is not ORM sticking his tongue up SUFC's *rse. My role is business planning, project management and relationship management. Decisions are always based on facts but I know from bitter (and regular) experience that no matter how these are presented you can never keep 100% of the audience happy.

 

[sufcintheprem]

Quote[/b] (McScriven @ Sep. 19 2005,18:10)]

Quote[/b] (Hooly @ Sep. 19 2005,18:08)]

Quote[/b] (McScriven @ Sep. 19 2005,18:04)]That's where your wrong Hooly. At the start of this season and towards the end of last season we have had four points of sale for the East/South Stand side in the North East corner.

With the new ticketing system we have four points of sale for the East/South side to. So there wasn't more points of sale and there's not been a problem before.

What about the South East corner ticket points?

They were closed towards the end of last season.

There were four Points of sale in the North East and one collection window.

Now we have four POS in the new ticket office and collection window in the North East.

At the back end of last year we sold out the stadium whereas last game we got under 7000. I don't know whether this means almost everyone books in advance or everyone turns up on the day but the circumstances are completely different.

As I've stated in another thread I didn't have any problems. If, however, hundreds of fans are getting turned away, I feel entitled to ask why the club wasn't getting them in the stadium. It's not even just the 600.

Pretty sure when we had a "Why did you start going to the football" thread almost everyone was taken along by someone who went more regularly. Therefore, we are neglecting to benefiit from the multiplying effect of word of mouth for these people. Instead, they will be saying what a shambles it was.

Now, I don't know the complexities, nor should I be expected to, but as a fan, all I can see round the East side is a shambles. Nice idea but we don't want nice ideas unless they work.

Just to emphasise, this clearly isn't a personal dig of any sort but as fans, we want to know why our club that has huge debts isn't trying it's best to reduce them to a more managable level.