More away fans?

[Ferry Dee]

I read on an Aberdeen forum that they could have sold a lot more tickets for yesterday’s game. Are we limiting the away support despite it being an opportunity to make an extra £30k say? Rangers, Celtic, Hearts last season would sell more tickets. 
It is an easier call when we make the extra £1.6m from Celtic’s Euro performance, £1m from the sale of McCowan and £300k from Lochead. But any business has to think about ways to make money. We’d have been desperate in the past eg when we gave the Derry to Rangers (I hated that).

Maybe best word it like this. Anyone in support of giving more of the ground (say more of the centre stand) to generate an extra £200k per season? Or does it cross a (dark blue) line? 

[Prince Buster]

I believe the allocation was somewhere around 4,200 and they sold 4,090 so the idea that they 'could have sold more' is total bollocks for a start.

[BCram]

Not for me. Our support was drowned out. Can't believe we get a dream

 

[Taipei]

To give more seats, you'd have to move season ticket holders in the main stand.

If we write a list of how to pi** off our own support, Id say that that 'Moving our fans to help other clubs fans' would be number one.

[Double Blue]

Charging our PATG fans £30 so we can charge the bigger clubs with a big away support more is obviously putting finance before trying to build your home support.

Yesterday was another example of seeing a lot of empty spaces in the home end. Our team is not successful enough or playing attractive enough to attact some fans to fork out £30.

For many away fans, forking out £30 after paying for travel costs and food and drink is a hit they are willing to take, especially if your team is on a roll, results wise.

[Billy Campbell's Ghost]

2 hours ago, BCram said:

 

Away fans usually drown out home fans. It’s the away mentality. We do it at Hearts, Hibs and Perth usually

I dunno how we grow our support. 

[BCram]

42 minutes ago, Billy Campbell's Ghost said:

Away fans usually drown out home fans. It’s the away mentality. We do it at Hearts, Hibs and Perth usually

I dunno how we grow our support. 

Looking round the Coxy it seems like a pretty mature support. Younger fans seem to be with their older relatives. I think some kind of flexible pricing that encourages groups of youngsters might be something the club could work on. SE seems to be the obvious stand to encourage youngsters but there will be older fans who will have spent decades in there so it isn't just a simple decision.

Think the team are doing their best and having young players used to be a good way of getting younger fans involved. Do the younger players have help, from the club, to meet fans? Not social media, more practical events where young fans can meet their heroes?

[Ferry Dee]

7 hours ago, Double Blue said:

Charging our PATG fans £30 so we can charge the bigger clubs with a big away support more is obviously putting finance before trying to build your home support.

Yesterday was another example of seeing a lot of empty spaces in the home end. Our team is not successful enough or playing attractive enough to attact some fans to fork out £30.

We had that discussion at half-time. Agree, £30 is too steep. We landed on doing more 2 match deals to allow us to effectively price lower than the price charged to away supporters. 

[Mr Sensible]

Probably makes the club around £100,000- £130,000 extra with the additional charges to away fans over a season.

Would there be say two game take up of £50 on both Aberdeen games, or even a 4 game package say of £95 on hearts and Aberdeen for 4 matches

They definitely need to be more creative on pricing these matches, guarantee there will be more dees this weekend than Aberdeen and a lot of that will be down to fans taking a stand on the £30 admission fee

[troodee1893]

20 hours ago, Prince Buster said:

I believe the allocation was somewhere around 4,200 and they sold 4,090 so the idea that they 'could have sold more' is total bollocks for a start.

Shankly holds just a few seats over 3k. The end sections of the main stand just a few over 1100. The two together amount to around 4140 at most including away comps. At every 'full house' a small number cannot attend on the day and there were a few declined entry for drunkenness and other 'anti-social' behaviour so 4090 sounds about right, especially given that Aberdeen were saying the allocation was sold out a few days prior.

With regard to giving more to Celtic, Rangers and Aberdeen I'm not in favour of this. Our home support in the main stand could perhaps be squeezed into the centre stand areas freeing up a whole section at the Provost Road end of the stand but the Police wouldn't allow this for the Old Firm anyway due to fan movements (it wouldn't matter so much for the Aberdeen support because with them travelling more by car a fairly high proportion of them approached the ground from the Provie Road direction anyway). I don't think a fan should be moved from a chosen ST seat in any case and especially not away from the centre stand if the current away main stand section was to be expanded. Finally giving the South to away fans, no, not ever, shouldn't even be considered. Despite being the dump that it is (and that annoys the hell out of me) it is the beating heart of our club and support and should be kept so.

[troodee1893]

4 minutes ago, Mr Sensible said:

Probably makes the club around £100,000- £130,000 extra with the additional charges to away fans over a season.

Would there be say two game take up of £50 on both Aberdeen games, or even a 4 game package say of £95 on hearts and Aberdeen for 4 matches

They definitely need to be more creative on pricing these matches, guarantee there will be more dees this weekend than Aberdeen and a lot of that will be down to fans taking a stand on the £30 admission fee

I agree about the pricing needing looked at. Not the single game price which is more or less in line with other Premier clubs and at least arguably the market price for the product (whatever the price there will be some who unfortunately cannot afford to attend). We are bound by SPFL rules regarding the home and away matchday pricing, like for like, having to be the same. If the Main Stand and South were superior to the Cox/Shankly end view areas, we could, in normal circumstances, charge a premium for these areas as many maybe most clubs do. We could then decide to leave the Main Stand and South at normal levels on premium games but would have to charge the Cox entries the same as the Shankly. Same for the Main Stand we would have to charge the away support the same as the on the day price to our own support unless we priced the wing stands differently to the centre stand. There was a time at Dens where three sides of the ground were all charged the same, as we now do, but the stand enclosure cost more (you could change your mind after entering the ground by paying a few pence to transfer into the Stand enclosure through a strange dark turnstile/tunnel known by some at the time as the Black Hole of Calcutta due to the lack of lighting in it). Similarly the Main Stand cost comparably a good bit more but then you were comparing seated and standing areas. The wing stands cost less than the Centre stand.

As you point out imaginative multiple game pricing is the way forward and allowed under SPFL rules. I would have every premium game, with realistically the exception of a derby, linked to the next 'ordinary' game in a price deal set to try to balance between upsetting ST holders and getting as many of the ordinary non ST punters to the game. Maybe a special ticket to cover the 3 pre split Old Firm games, maybe add in the one or two pre split home Aberdeen games. Maybe a free £2 or £3 voucher to be spent at the canteens in the home ends or in the club shop. Maybe even a similar discount ticket entry 'voucher' to be used at any future game the same season. A lot of maybes but somewhere there or in someone else's ideas there is a solution.

[Mr Sensible]

41 minutes ago, troodee1893 said:

Shankly holds just a few seats over 3k. The end sections of the main stand just a few over 1100. The two together amount to around 4140 at most including away comps. At every 'full house' a small number cannot attend on the day and there were a few declined entry for drunkenness and other 'anti-social' behaviour so 4090 sounds about right, especially given that Aberdeen were saying the allocation was sold out a few days prior.

With regard to giving more to Celtic, Rangers and Aberdeen I'm not in favour of this. Our home support in the main stand could perhaps be squeezed into the centre stand areas freeing up a whole section at the Provost Road end of the stand but the Police wouldn't allow this for the Old Firm anyway due to fan movements (it wouldn't matter so much for the Aberdeen support because with them travelling more by car a fairly high proportion of them approached the ground from the Provie Road direction anyway). I don't think a fan should be moved from a chosen ST seat in any case and especially not away from the centre stand if the current away main stand section was to be expanded. Finally giving the South to away fans, no, not ever, shouldn't even be considered. Despite being the dump that it is (and that annoys the hell out of me) it is the beating heart of our club and support and should be kept so.

This was the first time in god knows how long that Aberdeen used up their full allocation, don’t even fill the Shankly most times they have visited dens.

Id put money on them not needing the 4100 seats the next time they visit dens, was a special set of circumstances that led them to have a bigger than usual support on Saturday