Empty Seats

There are families of school age children desperate to go (in general of course, midweek night games are a different animal).

The club are doing great things with the junior cherries ballot to enable a child and one adult to go without needing to be on the points ladder etc.

The issue isn’t lack of demand, or cost of the ticket.

The problem is the lack of a resale option for season ticket holders and if they are indeed unsold seats, that those areas currently cannot be sold online. So anyone wanting to buy those tickets has to do it in person or over the phone and by the evidence of the empty seats in those sections that isn’t being communicated successfully if that’s the case, rather than season ticket seats being unused.
 
Playing Devils Advocate here if a ST holder doesn't want to go , having already paid in advance for their seat, that's their choice. If they then choose not to relinquish that seat for sale , again that this is their choice. There is no law that says you have to turn up. However, and I must must admit I'm not entirely sure, the club don't reimburse an ST holder if they can't go. ( Somebody out me right if that's not the case).
On a very few occasions when I couldn't attend I would call Liz in the Office and she would say thanks, we'll resell it, but no mention of refund.
 
those areas currently cannot be sold online. So anyone wanting to buy those tickets has to do it in person or over the phone and by the evidence of the empty seats in those sections that isn’t being communicated successfully

And to emphasise the point on the article just published on cows...

https://www.afcb.co.uk/news/tickets/all-tickets-issued-for-luton-match/

Headline reads...

All tickets issued for Luton match

Article reads...

There remain a limited number of tickets in the Family Stand, which can be purchase by calling the club on 01202 726300 (option one).
 
To be honest, should I ever be coming to the UK when there is a match on, I genuinely have no idea how I'd go about getting a ticket, other than coming on here and hoping that somebody either had a spare or could give me some advice.

If you are outside of the loop, the whole availability and 'what do I need to do to get a ticket ?' situation is not exactly transparent. I'm sure there are even people in the local area who would like to attend the odd game but are unsure how to go about it. It does all seem quite complicated to an outsider.

Maybe something could be done to make the sale of the seats of non-attendees to non-insiders a bit easier. I'm sure a fair number of additional tickets could be sold in this way. Not everybody in the area is a diehard 'must go to every game' type of fan but there must be plenty who would like to go to games from time to time ( maybe as a birthday present for their kid or something - get the next generation hooked ! ). For these people the whole ticket availability and qualification palaver does seem a bit off-putting.

Back in my day, you just turned up at the gate, paid and they let you in.
Something last minute, along those lines, would probably be appreciated by many and ensure that the stadium is always as full as it can be. Obviously sometimes you would leave disappointed because all tickets were sold but probably often enough you'd get in.

Just my two cents as an absolute outsider these days :thumbup:
 
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To be honest, should I ever be coming to the UK when there is a match on, I genuinely have no idea how I'd go about getting a ticket, other than coming on here and hoping that somebody either had a spare or could give me some advice.

If you are outside of the loop, the whole availability and 'what do I need to do to get a ticket ?' situation is not exactly transparent. I'm sure there are even people in the local area who would like to attend the odd game but are unsure how to go about it. It does all seem quite complicated to an outsider.

Maybe something could be done to make the sale of the seats of non-attendees to non-insiders a bit easier. I'm sure a fair number of additional tickets could be sold in this way. Not everybody in the area is a diehard 'must go to every game' type of fan but there must be plenty who would like to go to games from time to time ( maybe as a birthday present for their kid or something - get the next generation hooked ! ). For these people the whole ticket availability and qualification palaver does seem a bit off-putting.

Back in my day, you just turned up at the gate, paid and they let you in.
Something last minute, along those lines, would probably be appreciated by many and ensure that the stadium is always as full as it can be. Obviously sometimes you would leave disappointed because all tickets were sold but probably often enough you'd get in.

Just my two cents as an absolute outsider these days :thumbup:
E-mail the club about a month before you are travelling and ask if you can be put on the list for International supporters wanting to see a game. I did this and got two tickets to watch us play Arsenal. Lost 1-2
 
E-mail the club about a month before you are travelling and ask if you can be put on the list for International supporters wanting to see a game. I did this and got two tickets to watch us play Arsenal. Lost 1-2
Thanks. That's the sort of suggestion I would come on here and look for, should I know when I was going to be in the area at some point in the future. Definitely worth looking into if I know well enough in advance that I will be over there.

But say you arrived in the BH postcode at short notice and didn't mind turning up and possibly not getting a ticket, it would still be nice to have that option.
If I didn't manage to get a ticket, I'd just go into town, have a nice meal and a few beers and then back to the hotel, no problem.
 
Club really need to work on an easy way for ST holders to release their seats when they can’t attend


I was a poorly boy yesterday and at about 3pm I decided it was going to be better if I stayed at home.

Phoned the ticket office and was on hold for 20 minutes, with my place being "number 5" the whole time. WTF????

So I emailed to let them know my seat was going spare, got a prompt reply telling me they'll get back to me in 2 working days.

That's good.


Grrrr.....................
 
I was a poorly boy yesterday and at about 3pm I decided it was going to be better if I stayed at home.

Phoned the ticket office and was on hold for 20 minutes, with my place being "number 5" the whole time. WTF????

So I emailed to let them know my seat was going spare, got a prompt reply telling me they'll get back to me in 2 working days.

That's good.


Grrrr.....................
Very helpful !

That's exactly the sort of thing they will need to get on top of if there is ever going to be a last minute ticket shop at the gate, they could have made yours available right away. For all other tickets, if they haven't been scanned in by a certain cutoff time, put them up for grabs in the last minute ticket shop. Job done.
 
Very helpful !

That's exactly the sort of thing they will need to get on top of if there is ever going to be a last minute ticket shop at the gate, they could have made yours available right away. For all other tickets, if they haven't been scanned in by a certain cutoff time, put them up for grabs in the last minute ticket shop. Job done.
You reckon that the TO is immune from any shortages caused by the Pandemic? That could be one reason.

Might not be, but don't assume!
 
They could do a lot worse than employ a market research team to get involved to establish what is and what isn't known, when it comes to process... Actually, if money is an issue, it would literally take the TO one afternoon to knock up a simple survey in google forms (or any number of survey design tools) and send it to every one of the 1000s of fans on their database... I think someone said the club had over 100k names on the database so working on the usual 10% return from such things... that is a sizeable amount of user data to work on...

I work in user research and understand the power of user/customer feedback/interaction... It's amazing what assumptions are made by companies about their customer(fan) base, and they have no idea they are making these assumptions...
 
They could do a lot worse than employ a market research team to get involved to establish what is and what isn't known, when it comes to process... Actually, if money is an issue, it would literally take the TO one afternoon to knock up a simple survey in google forms (or any number of survey design tools) and send it to every one of the 1000s of fans on their database... I think someone said the club had over 100k names on the database so working on the usual 10% return from such things... that is a sizeable amount of user data to work on...

I work in user research and understand the power of user/customer feedback/interaction... It's amazing what assumptions are made by companies about their customer(fan) base, and they have no idea they are making these assumptions...
Agree, it needs to be sorted, maybe someone local could send an e-mail to Liz Finny to explain the situation. and what the club are doing about empty seats, I know that if I wasn't able to get tickets to games, I would be writing to the club.
 
And to emphasise the point on the article just published on cows...

https://www.afcb.co.uk/news/tickets/all-tickets-issued-for-luton-match/

Headline reads...

All tickets issued for Luton match

Article reads...

There remain a limited number of tickets in the Family Stand, which can be purchase by calling the club on 01202 726300 (option one).


I've just returned 3 Season tickets in the North Stand as we are on holiday (and we no longer use Twickets) - great seats, great view - Row N behind goal - if anyone knows of anyone that wants them contact the ticket office
 

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