100% agree 'alwaysright' - maybe the Chairman needs to be more proactive thinking on these incentives. We have kept quiet in support of the club all season in regards to the incentives in benefit of the club and match day tickets. However, now we are getting to the part of the season where we are starting to think of the cost of our next ST purchase, I ask what incentives are being considered for us? People may argue that at a cost of £14-£15 a game I already have my incentive but as a ST holder, with work commitments etc, I unable to make full use of my ST. Yes, it probably does still work out cheaper but only just! And for the initial outlay, I believe there is room for improvement. Let us look at it this way, if I had just purchased one ST instead of the two, I would still have had two half price tickets in a book. Add to that the season incentives. Add to that the two games I missed at the beginning of the season (Sept). Add to that the mid week games I missed through work. I might have been able to save money by only purchasing the one ST. I know it is obviously dependent on varied individual personal circumstances but I do feel that ST holders after a season of incentives will be thinking very hard like me about their next purchase. Although I expect as usual heart will overall brain and the powers in the corridors of football know that.
What would you like to see done? Rather than moan about how what you get isn't enough could we get some ideas of some practical options that could be done?
1. Cheaper ST's 2. Discounts on all club shop and catering purchases, including BRC, extending to dine and wine (or whatever its called) 3. Some sort of loyalty scheme which creates future discounts - remembering we are supposed to have a long term plan ie 18,000 seater stadium 4. Travel discounts (this would benefit fans such as alwaysright) subsidised by the club on production of season ticket or account number at point of sale of away ticket I have always argued that one of the biggest failings as I see it is the use of the club data base. What is the point of a data base if you are not going to use it to its full potential. ie understand who your customers are, register all their purchases within it and market discounts accordingly. All I ever see is what I term as generic marketing and not specific marketing. For example if you go to a supermarket and use a points card, that supermarket knows precisely what purchases you have made and markets you accordingly. I know we don't have the same power as the supermarkets and the expense for that type of data base, but I know from my experiences at the ticket office that any data base is not being put to the most effective and consistent use in my opinion.
Season ticket in the Medway stand = £375 Ticket brought pre-matchday ......= £21 If you manage to get to 20 games @ £21 it's £420. Now if you start to take off the special deals your better off without the season ticket. It's a bit like broadband/phone etc. New customers are offered 6 months free or halve price but sod the loyal customer. All that said I'll still be buying mine "MUG"
I've worked out the same comparison against my ticket and although it is difficult to remember all the incentives this season, I would say that my savings are negligible. Also when you consider as an ST holder you are actually restricted by seat allocation, I tend to agree there can only be one word best to describe us...'MUG' Simply put would the club survive on day trippers and £1 incentives...No - Would it survive without season ticket holders...Questionable - so why do we get the raw deal. Talk to me about shirt promotions and the £60 I spent pre season. Why did I need two shirts, because I'm a 'MUG' and a L2 overpriced 'MUG' at that!
If you don't feel a season ticket is value for money against paying per game surely the simple answer is don't get one and pay per game? Mind you, you'll miss out on priority ticketing for one thing. I know where you're coming from with it but it is not easy to attract new money (for want of a better term) to the club. I agree completely that maybe some kind of loyalty based promotion should be done, possibly like a no claims discount on insurance, where the longer you've had your season ticket the bigger the discount you get up to say something like 1st renewal gets a 5% discount, going up to 10 years and more is a 50% discount on new season ticket prices? Some times reading this board people are only happy when they're moaning. Nothing really Gills related to talk about? Let's have a moan. Maybe the world would stop turning if people stopped moaning? I don't know. or are you just grumpy old men?
Well yes we are grumpy old men! But the reason I suspect it is being discussed at this time is that next investment will be due soon. I have seriously considered not getting a season ticket next season or at least speaking to my son, about only getting one ticket and seeing how cost wise it works out in conjunction with half price tickets and match day incentives, more thought needs to be had. I think you are a little unfair in not realising that the season ticket holders have kept more or less quiet and have given welcome applause of the incentives this season for the local community to be able to afford and watch our club play. However, now is the time to start being a little selfish and asking what about the ST holders who are feeling exactly the same financial restraints but demonstrate a more frequent attendance?
GeminiSwiftgfc I agree with brb ( who agrees with me ! ) I am, fortunately, financially solvent to buy my 2 adult season tickets ( and to be able to see all the away games ) - Whilst I applaud Mr.Scally for trying to redeem himself a little, in relation to our expensive ticket prices - but by giving a lot of discounts/incentives/freebies to 'casual' & non season ticket holders - in a successful season, I fear he has made a rod for his back for future seasons. He has created a situation where current STHolders will get out their calculator to see if there is any merit in renewing theirs - instead of assuming that the same number of deals will be on offer next season. So 'throwing' freebies might be counter productive. I feel the number of deals need to be reduced to proportions of previous seasons. There should be more emphasis on creating an adult/child combo or even a family of 4 style deal. Not enough recognition is being given to STHolders with rewards for them that would ultimately be for the benefit of the club. edit -- I wonder if it might be cheaper if 10 of us got together to 'buy' a box ?
I have absolutely no idea on the costings of a box but if you are serious about it then I would like to be in for consideration of such an idea. I would be in for payment of one place, maybe two if I speak to my son(s).
the big incentive last season was with my adult season ticket i got a under 11 season ticket for 25 pounds which was brilliant.
Well I have, at the very least, seemed to have stimulated some more constructive reasoning rather than moaning. All too often in life all you hear is this isn't good enough or that isn't good enough but no answer as to what would be good enough. Personally I'm much interested in hear what you would like than how what you have isn't enough. Hope that makes sense.
Nothing really Gills related to talk about! So a "Gills " season ticket is not "Gills" related. It's not moaning it's having a discussion, we look at the cost and value of all things in life before making a decision on what to buy or not to buy, why not Season tickets. Are you just grumpy old men, I refer the honourable gentleman to my userid.
brb, I'm not sure if I'm coming down with something or not, but your list of points above regarding incentives for s/t holders are very good. Actually (having never been a s/t holder) I'm amazed that the club doesn't do discounted merchandise for those people. Surely "members" (that's what s/t holders are really) should get discounts in any organisation. Here's another idea - how about 2 different prices for a S/T. One S/T being the regular price (maybe even a tad higher) but including some/all of the benefits you mention above like discounts on merchandise, away travel, wine&dine, priority away and cup tickets, etc etc One being priced somewhat cheaper but having no added bonuses, just admission to all home games. full stop. You pay your money, you take your choice. This way maybe both types of purchaser wouldn't be so put out by in-season discounts to on-the-day customers. The lower priced buyers are still getting more VFM, the higher priced buyers are still getting their added benefits.
without the free tickets today back to attendence of less of 7000. very disappointing as we look like winning the league for the first time since 1963
' Official ' attendance was 6796 There were 360 Millers' fans - in the BMS ( capacity 3400 ) This meant that approximately 6436 Gills fans occupied seating sufficient for about 8100. This would mean that there must have been over 1600 empty seats in the 3 other stands ! I don't think so - there might have been about 600 empty seats (probably fewer).......... I suspect that about 1000 people weren't there ! - I'm not saying there is a tax fiddle going on.
the bms stand is about 2000 if filled by Gillingham supporters so the attendence was correct today unlike before when free tickets were included even though everyone was not there.
According to the Football League Grounds records Brian Moore Stand - has a capacity of 3400, irrespective of the colour of the fans. The Rainham End is 2400. The Gordon Road is 2600 and the Medway stand is 3200 . All this adds up to 11600 ( official capacity is 11,582 ) If there were 360 Rotherham fans in a stand that can hold 3400 there must have been 3040 empty spaces. The 3 other stands ( maximum capacity 8,182.) Of the 6796 total attendance 6436 were Gills fans - who had a maximum of 8182 places to sit. This means that of these 8182 places, 1,746 were 'officially empty' My contention is that I doubted that there were more than 600 empty spaces ( other than in the BMS ) & that somehow about 1000 people(1146) had 'disappeared' ---- you do the maths -- but, trust me the Brian Moore stand is NOT so small as to hold only 2000.
At least a third of the Gordon Road stand was empty so on your figures that's 8/900 spaces in that one stand, 6 empty boxes = another 60, block J medway had about 150 empty seats, and there were a lot of other spaces in the medway stand that were spread and difficult to gauge a figure. I don't think it's a good idea to use an open forum to tip of the tax man that there might be a problem.
I expected the turnout to be better but did find the figure strange and did look around to look where all the empty seats were as lots of them were filled and there was only the few left around where I was and I see that there wasn't too many left in the Rainham end.
