Ticketing 2024 Discussion Document
The club has asked fan groups to consider two main issues:
1. Policing STH usage so that the stadium is full and STHs pass on their season-tickets if they cannot use them – to avoid there being empty seats, especially at ‘sold out’ matches.
2. Improving the away ticketing allocation
There are already several concerns about the operation of the home ticketing regime. These must be resolved before tackling either of the issues raised.
The general principles for all ticketing should be fairness, transparency and honesty.
Big issue is transparency. Club doesn’t communicate what is happening well. It needs to share information with us. We also need to have joint meeting with Ticketmaster and understand the commercial restraints imposed in that partnership.
We also suggest the club carry out a fan survey on ticketing – with us involved in setting the questions and blind testing. This will inform discussion and flag priorities. We believe the club (FAB) should survey fans regularly. This could be the first such survey and would demonstrate the FAB was truly engaging with fans.
The black market has filled a void. Clamping down on the black market without an alternative that fills the void is not acceptable. In many ways, selling tickets on Facebook is more transparent and fair than the official channels.
Whatever applies to home match ticketing should apply, as closely as possible, to away tickets.
This document is not a panacea. It raises some issues and, where ideas have been discussed, it presents them. But without the fan survey answers, ticketing and banding data and understanding of the Ticketmaster relationship, it is not possible to identify the best solutions. There will also be wider issues involving the FSA and PL as many of these matters will only be resolved if more widely implemented.
Home ticketing
Some people argue that they have bought their ticket and it’s up to them if they choose to use it or not. The club has got the money so should not hassle them.
Do we reject this argument? We want seats filled for atmosphere and cannot accept people buying up season-tickets and keeping their seats empty, depriving other fans who want to attend.
People are concerned that they will be penalised if they cannot make a match every now and then.
We need to alleviate these fears and ensure missing the odd game without being able to find someone else to come is not punishable (particularly if the game is not sold out).
When a game is not sold out, but the STH can’t go, the ticket exchange is not available for STHs to sell their ticket.
This needs to be fixed as other SHTs may be prepared to buy seats near them but not unsold seats in different parts of the ground. This might also help people sell their seat. The club will want to sell the unsold seats first, but it cannot them penalise people unable to sell their seats. Unsold seats are often single seats, STHs could be selling pairs or several seats next to teach other, which would be in greater demand. The issue has to be about having a full ground on match days to create the greatest atmosphere and not on tiny amounts of additional club revenue.
The ticket exchange only pays in club cash, not real money, so it’s not worth doing.
This needs to be fixed with real cash refunds (fiat currency) and not ‘club cash’. One alternative we have already suggested is that club cash can be spent in the bars. Delaware point of sale (POS) systems can accommodate this – but would need to be linked to a loyalty card or mobile app.
The ticket exchange only pays STHs a proportion of the ticket sale price, not the full whack.
Is it a 10% admin fee plus the Ticketmaster fee? The amount deducted should be only the necessary fees from Ticketmaster (£1?), not further profit for the club.
The ticket exchange sells the tickets at the rate appropriate for the game and may sell a concession ticket at full price. Refunded amounts therefore vary.
This needs fairness and transparency.
The ticket exchange will only sell at the full price for the match category, whereas the STH might be prepared to accept a lower offer in order to get at least some money back.
Can there be a bid price or a way of accepting a lower price offered?
It’s easier, faster and there are no middlemen and fees, to sell on Facebook, direct between fans.
Technically this is against the law and the buyer has no protection. It would be better if the club system were so competitive that the black market were eradicated.
STHs sitting near each other sell to each other when one cannot attend. Sometimes this involves upgrading a child seat and the buyer paying the difference.
Again technically this is against the law. It would be better if the club system enabled fans to approach people near their seat saying they were interested in a ticket and the exchange being so competitive in only deducting a £1 transaction fee that people used it.
Ticket forwarding is not user friendly. The language is all about completing a sale. So you forward a ticket but it isn’t forwarded until you go to your basket and complete the transaction. The receiver then gets two and sometimes three emails (one including the subject line “You're Forwarded Ticket” – which is incorrect, it should be “Your forwarded ticket”) and must log in, sometimes twice, before they get confirmation the ticket has transferred. It may then be several hours before the ticket arrives, often unnervingly close to kick-off.
This needs to be improved, streamlined and with a better user experience.
Tickets are regularly passed on without using the ticket exchange and the club is complicit in this. It will, for example, uprate a child concession ticket to an adult ticket fully aware that ticket is being passed on.
Can the club share data on this? Can we produce a transparent explanation of the circumstances when this is acceptable?
Any tout who had a season ticket(s) at The Boleyn was able to get two additional tickets when we moved.
That needs addressing. Is the club aware of each seat’s usage? Can the club share available data?
At other clubs, fans who do not use their tickets are contacted and three no-shows may result in sanctions, including having the ST removed. West Ham would like to introduce something like this.
Support for any such regime would only be offered after the club has fixed the other issues first and made ticket sales and transfers easy and fairly priced. There must be a reasonable allowance for those suddenly unable to attend a game and therefore unable to list their ticket in time for resale. There needs to be clear and transparent prices and appeal mechanism. There is also scope for creating resentment and animosity over a badly communicated policy. We need to stress this is about filling the stadium with West Ham fans.
The club now has a policy of reducing the number of season ticket holders and getting more seats sold on a match-by-match basis. This gives it greater revenue and potential spend in the club shop. West Ham have by far the largest percentage of season ticket holders.
We need to know numbers. How many does the club want to cut and by when? In specific seats/bands?
Concessions are being withdrawn.
This is unacceptable in principle but again is being done with no transparency. The club must share the details of the number and types of concession seats in each bands and why it is targeting certain bands.
Relocation
Lots of things could be done to improve the relocation mechanism. Getting a new family member to sit with you is very difficult to achieve. It was described on KUMB as “like playing battleships”.
When relocation opens, the first people in the priority order will have access to only those seats either unsold from previous seasons, or from those who have not renewed. People further down the queue will also have access to those who have relocated.
You also have to have renewed on the basis that you cannot get a refund if you are unable to relocate. This fails the fairness test.
At other sporting clubs, regardless of when you renewed, you are given a 36-hour window to log in and you can see all the seats available to you and you select the ones you want to move to.
West Ham’s system needs urgent reform, especially if no new concessions tickets will be sold as families will need to relocate.
Away ticketing
WHUST has already sent this to the club:
The club can allow supporters to apply in advance and only deduct the money if successful. This ought to allow people to indicate they want away tickets well in advance with a single closing date and time for all away ticket applications. The tickets would be issued on the same points basis but done all in one go, with all successful purchases announced at the same time.
In more detail, we see it working like this:
1. People apply regardless of points all at the same time.
2. They indicate if they need more than one ticket and who the other tickets are for, acknowledging that they will be issued the tickets when the points required meets the loyalty point tally of the person with lowest number of loyalty points - as it currently works.
3. Once the closing date has passed, the club allocates the tickets based on points, exactly as it would do now. But this happens automatically and all on one day.
4. Assuming it sells out, all those who have applied but were unsuccessful are entered into the ballot, which is drawn the same day too.
5. The club can still announce that the match sold out on XX number of points, but the allocation will have been completed much earlier and with only one deadline for everyone to apply.
We think that would be simpler for the club and for fans. It would also get all the tickets allocated much earlier, allowing fans to plan travel and accommodation. Would that work for you?
However, there are more issues:
In general there is widespread acceptance that allocating the limited supply of away tickets on the basis of past support and attendance (points), with a small number available by ballot, is the fairest way. If that system worked as it is meant to, it would be supported. But it does not work that way.
People are buying to sell, not buying to go – that is the problem. Some ASTHs only go to two away games yet get tickets to them all.
The club needs to police it better.
Away tickets are meant to be allocated to the named STH who had the points that qualified. There is no ability to transfer to family and friend or to use the ticket exchange. Many people who purchase away tickets have no intention of using them and pass them on. Others intend to go but something comes up that means they have to cancel so they pass on their ticket to someone else.
There is a significant black market in away tickets, sometimes for the ticket only and sometimes for a match ticket and advanced-booked discounted train ticket (when the seller had intended to travel). This happens mainly on Facebook, with tickets changing hands at face value.
In addition, for rarer games some people sell at significantly inflated rates on touting sites.
All of this results in there being West Ham away fans who:
· do not have home season tickets
· do not have the necessary points
· never attend home games.
And it means people who secure the tickets but who rarely, if ever, go away, continue to accrue significant points. This gives them access to future away tickets and prevents other fans – even those who do go away – from accruing the points for attending.
Shared tickets
STs are often in one person’s name when in reality they are shared between family or friends. One person may pay for multiple STs in various family members’, or friends’, names. It’s not uncommon for the named person to attend only half the games.
This is fine for home games as there is a method of transferring the tickets but distorts the away allocation.
NFC tickets can be transferred via the Ticketmaster transfer system. But they can also be transferred by email forwarding. The recipient can then click the download to wallet button and the ticket goes into their wallet, or they can print it out and use a paper ticket.
Key here though is that, whoever attends, the named STH gets the loyalty points that count towards the away ticket allocation system.
That is a flaw. The points are for purchases and not for attendance.
This means that the only way a member of the family or friendship group who is not named on the season ticket can go to away games is to do so with a ticket passed on via the black market.
We need to fix this.
At present there is very little checking of tickets at away games. It is possible for adults to use children’s concession priced tickets, bought on the day near the away ground, to get in. Even the European away games, where ID, passport numbers and flight and accommodation details have to be provided in advance, these are rarely checked. People not named on the ticket can and do attend these matches.
There is talk of clubs becoming increasingly tough policing the ID of away fans, with spot checks and a random proportion of tickets being cancelled so fans have to turn up in person to get their replacement ticket. There is likely also to be a move to more NFC/digital away tickets.
Questions for the club
We need to know the number of people in each points band – Manchester United and other clubs publish this, so there is no commercial sensitivity.
Regardless of which method is used to transfer home NFC tickets, does the ticketing data on home games show not just if a season ticket has been used but who used it? If this data is not currently collected, can it be in the future?
Could points be allocated not to the named STH, but to whoever attended?
Could there be a way of season tickets more accurately having shared ownership, perhaps up to three people per ticket, who could then be correctly named on away tickets?
Could away tickets be transferred using the Ticketmaster system, even if only to a limited number of people or a limited number of times? This could be to a limited number of previously identified ‘friends and family’ group, or to people with the right number of points, or to people who applied for an away ticket but were unsuccessful?
Does the club monitor which away tickets are used? Can the club identify whose tickets were not used? Do clubs share this information with each other? Will that increase with more digital ticketing? If the data is available, what sanctions are taken when away tickets go unused? If the data is currently not available, can it be in the future?
Without answers to these questions, it is difficult to suggest improvements.
The Premier League and FSA are looking at some of these issues. With away ticketing, there needs to be a consistent approach across all clubs for it to work.