I see Charlton have just released prices for 24/25. They are one of the most expensive in League One along with us for matchday and season tickets.
If you wish to sit on the halfway line in the main central blocks its £630 for 24/25. Last season we were £514 centrally.
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I find it surprising we’ve stopped announcing season ticket prices before the end of the season.
Would make sense to try and push some early bird ones whilst there’s footfall around the club.
Early bird in the Frank Adams was £494 last season, with it being £20 more later.
They'll have to be absolute genius PR merchants if they think they can get away with putting those prices up.
I'd have to check if I'm totally mis-remembering, but it feels unusual for the season to be finishing still in April.
So maybe it's just that it's normally late April we release the prices, which we'll still be in after Saturday's final game?
Could be a big moment for re season tickets this year. What with the amount of games that are going to be able to view on TV and the fact they could be moved around for TV. I know quite a lot of people with season tickets who are going to seriously reconsider having them if prices go up, myself included.
If I remember correctly, the break even for my season ticket was attending 16 of the 23 home games. They sneakily upped individual match day tickets. The attendances have been so poor this season against less exciting opposition. This feels like a very obvious pricing issue for those games. The club cannot continue to charge £20+ on a Tuesday night when we are way out of town on a work/school night competing with champions league, £10 ifollow and ‘dodgy boxes’. Yet, with another £3m loss this season, it feels inevitable prices will rise again.
I do sympathise with people who have to think seriously about the cost of watching football at Adams Park, but to put things into perspective, Maidenhead United charge adults £20 for home games in the National League and the standard of facilities at their ground is way below those at Wycombe plus they are two divisions lower down the pyramid.
I get that it is expensive and everyone's circumstances differ.
But to offer an alternative perspective, my £28.50 subscription for the terrace looks incredibly good value vs my other outgoings. I'd maybe argue it's a bit too cheap.
I think the big issue is pricing for a family. Spending £100 all in to take your kids to a game just isn't going to be very appealing for a lot of people. We have to look at the alternatives in the area, price relative to them and offer a similar overall experience and vfm.
I've said it before but taking my little boy to Odds Farm last summer was an eye opener. There's endless stuff to do, loads of other kids around to interact with etc. If I were a casual supporter I know which one I'd be choosing. As it stands there's absolutely zero chance of getting my partner to come to AP with me and children in the future. She might be persuaded if there were a coffee shop, some kids play areas and entertainment outside of the 90 mins football.
Growing the crowds at AP means attracting young people and those with a passing interest. The starting point has to be sensible pricing for families.
It could be worse, Fulham's season tickets in their new stand cost people £3,000 altho their cheapest season ticket is £600. Bear in mind, that's only for 19 league fixtures! They aren't in Europe and I don't believe that it involves any of the League / FA Cup competitions
Frank Adams early bird (£494) is £21.50 ish per game. That feels reasonable.
When someone else comes with me who isn't a season ticket holder and I hear they pay £29 a game, that's pretty outrageous when even premier league aways are capped at £30
Spot on @Malone. We of course need to look after STHs, but if we want to grow attendances then that'll come from people who begin coming one game at a time. Our on-the-day prices are not at all attractive for casual fans.
£31 in the central FA Blocks for a one off game. I’m happy to pay this to sit with my friends. Dropped my season ticket a few years ago as I can only make 15/16 games as a maximum.
Always easy to get Cup tickets so it’s a no brainer.
Roll on the new pricing announcement.
Assume they're either waiting to deal with JJ and the departing players to give them their dues.
Or wanting to drop the news alongside some positive signings? That approach might be needed if they whop the pricing up
I agree, I recently attended the Maidenhead v Barnet game with my son and we paid circa £20+ each and as you say, the facilities were very poor for that price.
A different perspective to this - I’m going to watch the Women’s FA Cup final at Wembley in a few weeks, £60 for our family of 4 (lower tier down sides too so not the cheapest seats) - £2 more then it would be to come to Adams Park tomorrow.
I think the Odds farm example is really relevant. There are so many other options out there now which offer so much better value for money for families then lower league football to new supporters.
Do really wonder about impact on our attendances of the new sky deal, don’t feel like we’ve attracted many new fans post pandemic and that crowds have very much been propped up by season ticket holders.
That's not putting things into perspective. You've cherry picked a very poor comparator in Maidenhead.
I will now cherry pick Stevenage and suggest that they've increased their average attendance from c3,000 (2012-2015) to c4,500 (2022-2024). Their attendances have grown by 50%. Our attendances are up from c4,000 to only c4,500 over the same time period. Our attendances have grown by 15%.
They're a fairer comparison. They're in our league. They're also going through their club's most successful phase. They're fairly local. They now have a fairly equally-sized following.
Their most expensive ticket is £25. That's a large reason why their attendance growth has tripled ours.
The club are blatantly fudging the figures for Tuesday night games too. They've regularly claimed 3,500+ for the Tuesday night League games when the away attendance has been no more than 400, so 3,000+ home fans supposedly. Go to those games. Look around you. Do some quick maths. There is no way we are getting 3,000 home fans show up at those games.
If the club want commercial help, then I'll spend a few weekends of my free time building reports from the ticketing data and put a presentation together on exactly where they're going right, wrong and offer opportunity to optimise.
Tickets for Georgia's biggest club, Dinamo Tiblisi, go for between 60p and £3.
Are you listening, Mikhail?
Stevenage have had two of the best season in their history in that time. Of course attendances are up. A less charitable man would accuse you of cherry picking them.
The home attendance will always including all ST holders wether they attend or not. So in that respect the reported home attendance may always appear more than the actual bums on seats. That not a mystery.
Of course, non-STs are added to the figure, if purchased, even if they don't actually show up at the gate.
As well to remember that 'attendance' and 'ticket sales' are two different things. These days, attendance usually means ticket sales, which becomes a bit of a nonsense when, as sometimes happens at international tournaments, large numbers of ticket holders don't turn up. As a result a half empty stadium is apparently a sell-out.
Yep. One of the stewards told me during 2nd half of a midweek game (can't remember who, but was this year after xmas) that there wasn't 2000 people in the ground, despite it being announced later on that it was over 3000
As Floyd points out above, you have also cherry picked a club to support your argument. I chose Maidenhead because they are local to us and play in a division two tiers lower in the football pyramid. I believe the average admission price in the National League is £15-20.Also, according to the Football League World website, there are 13 clubs in League One who charge more for their season tickets than Wycombe.
I stated that I cherry picked too!
League 1 & 2 average attendances (of all 24 teams each season) have increased by 25-40% since 2012-2015.
That’s -v- 15% for Wycombe.
Significantly underperforming, despite experiencing one of the better improvements in regular finishing positions.
I know I’m whingeing, but this is the future of the club. It’s a good chunk of the reason why we’ve got a £3m deficit each year. I’m not saying smarter ticketing strategies will solve the problem, but it would reduce the magnitude of the underlying loss.
I don’t disagree that we should be making ticket prices more attractive and if it was my decision I would, for instance, let under 10s in for nothing because they are the future, but Rob has a different philosophy.
They could kick out all the adults who sit in the family stand with no kids as well, and free up the best seats for kids.
Clearly we ought to do something about Odds Farm Park
I looked around my block in the Family Stand at our last game and there were 6 children out of maybe 50-60 people and 2 of those were with me!
Maybe the lack of noise around STs is related to the subscription model, if the sum total of publicity aimed at people who are already AP regulars was to remind them they have a monthly outgoing that they won't use for 3 months they might end up with w cancellation issue.
I don't think our pricing is hideous, £28.50 per month in the terrace is great value and I think around what Barnet were charging for our cup game a few years back.
Any growth outside of promotion or success on the field will come from reaching new folk entirely and persuading very occasional fans that things are happening.
Everything is relative but the matchday prices have been on mission creep. It was £26 for myself and under-10 son a couple of seasons ago, now £29 in the Family Stand. Will this soon be, £30-£35? Plus add parking and a snack (I’m usually fairly frugal in the ground). I can’t commit to 23 games a season owing to many other weekend priorities, and even a subscription possibly wouldn’t justify itself. I’m no business whizz and understand suggestions are easy to make, tougher to implement, but more flexible pricing and incentives for paying for match bundles, possibly with options to split payments, could be attractive. For example, paying in advance for say a ‘Thames Valley bundle’ (yuk) double header of games against Oxford/Reading, with a small bulk discount, or ‘Christmas/New Year’ bundle if we have a couple of home games in late December, might be interesting to some. Likewise, a discounted bundle for bulk games against less attractive opposition.
In terms of making comparisons with other clubs, the likes of Cambridge, Northampton, Stevenage, Shrewsbury always come to mind. They are similarly sized clubs that seem to have grown attendances to 5.5k-6k+. I’m sure catchments, relative success play a part but I’d be interested to know if they’ve done other things we can learn from.