So whats the plan

SeasideSid said:
Surely you’d rather sell those 2500 tickets at say an average of £20 for 4/5/6 games than not sell them at all for £25+?

Also, to Phil’s point about the fan survey.. what was the point? I don’t recall seeing the results of this nor do I think the club paid any attention to it. Yes, I expected prices to increase with promotion but I think we’ve limited ourselves to who can attend. It’s mentioned time and time again that we are a deprived town.

To be clear, I renewed my season ticket before people start questioning.
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Sid

The point of the survey was twofold :

  • to give the club's management some up to date intelligence about attitudes and likely spending patterns based upon whether we were promoted or not
  • and to give our Members and others a chance to have some input into the process. Around 1100 took up the opportunity

The results were widely publicised at the time, published on the BST website (in the "Members Section") and discussed in some detail with senior figures at the club, who found them extremely valuable.
 
SLO_BFC said:
The BST survey: what was the point? To get opinions from as wide a base of fans as possible (and not just BST members). The results were made public. The club definitely reviewed the survey and took its contents into consideration.
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Which may have been part of the issue.

The club are seeing that and thinking well a decent amount of pool fans are fine with x price for a season ticket or whatever.

But that is hardcore pool fans group really isn't it.

Its not the casual fans or new fans were looking to attract, often from much poorer backgrounds.

Its good we have got some games still at 20 quid. Thats not bad for the Championship. But the bigger games will be more, am sure some people will find money where they can.

But to me the struggle with wealth of the area has maybe been a little underestimated, as proven imo by the friendly prices.
 
BlackpoolSupportersTrust said:
The results were widely publicised at the time, published on the BST website (in the "Members Section") and discussed in some detail with senior figures at the club, who found them extremely valuable.
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I don't doubt the intention or the veracity of the initiative but 'in the members section' isnt widely published, indeed some on here have only now been aware of the finer details.
Not having a go (honest) - but this is a problem with Trusts including say Derby amongst others and certainly you know who,that good work is lost because it tries to promote its own group rather than being representative of the entire fanbase.

This was reflected in the Fans Led Review which really was the FSA Led Review and as such the impact was reduced.
 
Lytham_fy8 said:
Bit negative, that's not like you.

Anyway, do well on the pitch, that's it really, it's going very well so far. No fuckers signing up to anything if we're shit.
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I’m most definitely going to sign up if we’re shit in future, we’ve been pretty shit for 2/3rds of my life and to be honest they were some of the happiest pool supporting years I’ve had , having said that I suppose it’s not a good selling strategy to get new fans in
 
Graham berrys plastic bag said:
I’m most definitely going to sign up if we’re shit in future, we’ve been pretty shit for 2/3rds of my life and to be honest they were some of the happiest pool supporting years I’ve had , having said that I suppose it’s not a good selling strategy to get new fans in
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That's my point, we've got a core support of what, 4K? The idiots like us who'll turn up for anything, we've tried all kinds in the past, free games, cheap tickets, giving tickets away to school kids, you inflate the crowd for one game but they don't come back, they're not interested in supporting a team through thick and thin, if they were they'd be in the ground already. It's not really the cost, they'll be off spending it somewhere else anyway. It's not worth the club losing money for.

The only time in the past 40 years that we've consistently sold out, the only time you saw kids with Blackpool shirts, was 2010/201, because success gets them in, nothing else comes close.
 
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Play good football, win matches.

It's been that way as long as I've been going, remember us being 7th about half way through the season under McMahon, we played Cardiff at home and had over 7000. That was the peak, think we drew that game 1-1 and quickly settled back into mid table with crowds reverting back to 5-6 thousand.

Looks like we'll be around 10k with away fans and if we start winning games and competing in the top half that'll stretch to 12-14k.

School outreach would be a good idea, fans of the future and all that, for a long time we've lost thousands to Man U and Liverpool, under Holloway we started to see pool shirts around town and in school with a lot more regularity.
 
Success always brings more fans in, but engaging with the community has its benefits. Players going to schools is always worth a go, but there are many who will wait and see how we do in the first couple of months. If we’re in with a shout after Christmas, you’ll see crowds increasing.

Forget trying to attract those with little money, their priority is putting food on the table.
 
Another thought. I’m guessing the age profile of season ticket holders is mainly in the older groups, say 50 and up. I’m also guessing that, like me when I was around 20, young people don’t have the cash for season tickets and pay at the gate.

The club can easily do an analysis of age and gender profile of season ticket holders and use that to target the groups they need to attract.
 
SLO_BFC said:
The BST survey: what was the point? To get opinions from as wide a base of fans as possible (and not just BST members). The results were made public. The club definitely reviewed the survey and took its contents into consideration.
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And thats the problem

The survey appealed to the over 50s and existing season ticket holders

Those were the demographics

No wonder we ended up with a price increase and ridiculously expensive match day tickets
 
BlackpoolSupportersTrust said:
Sid

The point of the survey was twofold :

  • to give the club's management some up to date intelligence about attitudes and likely spending patterns based upon whether we were promoted or not
  • and to give our Members and others a chance to have some input into the process. Around 1100 took up the opportunity

The results were widely publicised at the time, published on the BST website (in the "Members Section") and discussed in some detail with senior figures at the club, who found them extremely valuable.
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And that in a nutshell is the problem...
 
Phil_bfc deux said:
Sorry but that response from the fanbase question is pretty shit

Did anybody push them on the ticket prices or the East stand away fans question

All very nicely nice that

Very non committal....
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So you've been banging on about how we're going to build the fan base, Steve comes on here and gives you an answer and because you don't agree with it it's a shit answer.

You can please some of the people some of the time, you can please some all of the time. You Phil, I'm afraid will never be appeased 🤷‍♂️
 
The plan might be as simple as to be the best we can and attract as many fans through the turnstile as possible as many times as we can including plastics, former fans and general bandwagon jumpers as possible THEN we look at retaining them.

We certainly don’t know how it’s going to pan out this season but I’m sure the board are delighted at 8000 sales every match guaranteed and possibly another 1000 pay on the day hone supporters.

With an increase in away fans - out of scope here - gates should hover around 10,000.

Once established in the Championship maybe that is the time to look for incentives, at the moment interest is high and it might already be as good as it gets!
 
Phil_bfc deux said:
Few things that would have helped

- A young person season ticket price
- An affordable family package for match days
- Cheaper match day prices
- A complete freeze on all season ticket prices from last season
- A monthly payment scheme
- A part season ticket
- Ticket bundles for non season ticket holders
- Subsidised friendly games with a season ticket
- All child tickets the same price as the family stand

Just a few from the top of my head
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Personally think that’s too complicated and the club are under lots of presser as it is anyway with recruiting/covid issues/improving stadium etc.

Yes it would of been nice to have a freeze on ST’s but we have moved up a division and we are improving every where so the money has to come from somewhere.

Imo the main thing we missed out RE: Season tickets was a 16-21 price. Don’t see an issue with the rest. Think you’re asking too much if I’m honest. 😬
 
SLO_BFC said:
The BST survey: what was the point? To get opinions from as wide a base of fans as possible (and not just BST members). The results were made public. The club definitely reviewed the survey and took its contents into consideration.
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i think the responses suggest it wasn’t made public. First I have heard about the results being anywhere and the BST website is not one I look at, let alone the members section as I’m not a member.

I will however take a look when time allows and see what the results were and if those results correlate to the current pricing.
 
BlackpoolSupportersTrust said:
Sid

The point of the survey was twofold :

  • to give the club's management some up to date intelligence about attitudes and likely spending patterns based upon whether we were promoted or not
  • and to give our Members and others a chance to have some input into the process. Around 1100 took up the opportunity

The results were widely publicised at the time, published on the BST website (in the "Members Section") and discussed in some detail with senior figures at the club, who found them extremely valuable.
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I have no issues with getting supporters to provide thoughts on “attitudes and spending patterns” but I think 1100 out of the fanbase is a poor showing and doesn’t give a true reflection.

Interested to know the breakdown of how many of the 1100 are members and how many aren’t? Do you know, if so would you say? Again, this could prove the survey was not successful if say a 1000 are members who are season ticket holders anyway.

Reading this thread we all want the same outcome, increase in attendances and the next generation of fans. Which all feeds into more spending power for the club to become more successful, which in turn then brings in fans as well. Maybe more thought needs to go into the next survey or maybe the club should conduct some questions directly. The size of the database they have will surely see a response rate of over 6000 which gives a better pool of results to go from.
 
I think we need to remember it's a business and is to be run as one. If they thought having even cheaper tickets would intice on a regular basis so many more people which in turn would make them more money then they would do it. My guess and I think they are right actually is that on running the numbers it wouldn't make more money.
With that in mind then in order to grow a fan base ultimately you need to be successful and grab them early and grab the parents too. Maybe a family ticket in that case could be used but limited to the family stand to try to fill up that end. Personally me and my kids wouldn't want to sit in there but maybe new fans could benefit from a welcome deal for the 1st family season ticket
 
Phil_bfc deux said:
Whats the plan is to increase our fanbase?

Its something i thought may have been asked tp the board at the very structured dialogue meeting, probably a bit more important for the long term future of our club than vegan sausage rolls ..

We have around 8k season ticket holders which is ok ish on the face of it but our ground holds 16k so we have a guaranteed 50% occupancy

So not that great really when you think of it and given there is a plan to give away fans the East stand we could have a situation where away fans have around a third of our entire capacity

Be like Man Utd giving away fans 25k for league games

Not exactly fortress Bloomfield if we start giving away fans around 5k tickets

Price obviously isn't part of the plan when you consider season ticket prices have gone up considerably as well as the match day price hike

And i haven't seen any sort of match bundle or any incentives for people to buy home tickets yet

We haven't even sold out in the family stand, so what's the plan for the future Blackpool fans?

Given we have had years of anti fan measures by the Oystons and we've probably lost generations of local fans i would have thought building up our core support would be high up on the agenda

It appears not ...
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You are so unbelievably negative. For God’s sake start looking on the bright side…
 
SeasideSid said:
I have no issues with getting supporters to provide thoughts on “attitudes and spending patterns” but I think 1100 out of the fanbase is a poor showing and doesn’t give a true reflection.

Interested to know the breakdown of how many of the 1100 are members and how many aren’t? Do you know, if so would you say? Again, this could prove the survey was not successful if say a 1000 are members who are season ticket holders anyway.

Reading this thread we all want the same outcome, increase in attendances and the next generation of fans. Which all feeds into more spending power for the club to become more successful, which in turn then brings in fans as well. Maybe more thought needs to go into the next survey or maybe the club should conduct some questions directly. The size of the database they have will surely see a response rate of over 6000 which gives a better pool of results to go from.
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1. We thought 1100 responses was excellent. It equates to over a quarter of season ticket holders for 2020/21, for example. It was especially so given that we conducted the Survey over a much shorter time frame, and earlier in the year, than we normally would. The reason for this was that we wanted to be able to give the club some feedback on how supporters felt about pricing for both League 1 AND the Championship, which was still to be decided at the time

2. We didn't ask whether responders were Members, actually, but I can tell you that a sizeable majority of them are season ticket holders, around 60% live on the Fylde Coast and slightly over half are aged 50+

3. A lot of thought went into the survey and its methodology and most of it was done by someone who develops pricing strategies for a living. Hopefully you will have a more positive view when you have read it. We don't think a small number of complaints on this thread necessarily reflects anything, and not when compared with the very positive feedback we got at the time. If you have ideas on how we can approach the task next year we are always open to them and you can contact us by e-mail at bst-secretary@blackpoolsupporterstrust.com

4. The Members Section of our website can actually be viewed by anyone, and you can study all the slides at your leisure

5. You can also use the website to join the Trust if you wish. Our Membership rates are very competitive and get you access to regular Newsletters and other e-mail updates, the right to vote in our Elections and much more

6. On publicising the survey - we put it on the website, advertised it on AVFTT, e-mailed our Members and publicised it extensively on Facebook and Twitter. We're sorry you missed it, but it wasn't because we didn't try to reach as many people we could

Hopefully that helps.
 
Some sort of incentive to get 'casual' fans into the North end of the East? The lesser facilities in there allow the club license to charge a flat £20 admission right up to KO. Better still pay on the gate (card payment) on the day?? Any supporter who uses the facility 7 times gets admission for the rest of the season at £15??
 
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BlackpoolSupportersTrust said:
1. We thought 1100 responses was excellent. It equates to over a quarter of season ticket holders for 2020/21, for example. It was especially so given that we conducted the Survey over a much shorter time frame, and earlier in the year, than we normally would. The reason for this was that we wanted to be able to give the club some feedback on how supporters felt about pricing for both League 1 AND the Championship, which was still to be decided at the time

2. We didn't ask whether responders were Members, actually, but I can tell you that a sizeable majority of them are season ticket holders, around 60% live on the Fylde Coast and slightly over half are aged 50+

3. A lot of thought went into the survey and its methodology and most of it was done by someone who develops pricing strategies for a living. Hopefully you will have a more positive view when you have read it. We don't think a small number of complaints on this thread necessarily reflects anything, and not when compared with the very positive feedback we got at the time. If you have ideas on how we can approach the task next year we are always open to them and you can contact us by e-mail at bst-secretary@blackpoolsupporterstrust.com

4. The Members Section of our website can actually be viewed by anyone, and you can study all the slides at your leisure

5. You can also use the website to join the Trust if you wish. Our Membership rates are very competitive and get you access to regular Newsletters and other e-mail updates, the right to vote in our Elections and much more

6. On publicising the survey - we put it on the website, advertised it on AVFTT, e-mailed our Members and publicised it extensively on Facebook and Twitter. We're sorry you missed it, but it wasn't because we didn't try to reach as many people we could

Hopefully that helps.
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Very thorough response, I have no complaints :).

I agree it was a good idea to do and completed it myself, I just think we need more responses to give more detailed results. Majority of the responses being season ticket holders doesn’t give the wider view, as it’s not those people the club really should be targeting.

IMO - majority of season ticket holders from last year would renew this year regardless of price - unless it went ridiculously expensive. We’ve been at this price point before so it’s nothing new, but this isn’t the demographic we should be targeting. Go after the casual fan who is purchasing a number of individual tickets over the season. See what there thoughts are and attitudes around buying a season ticket?

Memberships and flexi tickets worked great previously, seems a little a daft not to include either this coming year. Memberships create an additional income, albeit a small sum but as Tesco say, every little helps. Plus it then encourages members to come to games to make it worthwhile getting a membership.

Flexi tickets creates that little bit of commitment and gets fans in the ground. What they lose on the general admission price I am sure they’ll make on the kiosks so wins all round.

Half season tickets will happen, they always do and those who have had a flexi ticket and seen the benefit of it, hopefully see some great games and results would be the prime target for this. Statistic say, get someone in for 3 games and you have them hooked - or something like that 😂

I am sure the club have the resource, facilities and data to be able to target specific group of fans with different ideas.

Up the pool!!
 
Phil_bfc deux said:
Just run that by me

How does wanting more Blackpool fans in the stadium on match days constitute being negative?
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You cone across as Job’s comforter. if you could just see how far we have come in such a short time, you would be able to envisage where as a ‘proper’ football club, we are now heading. As for wanting more fans in the stadium, the season hasn’t kicked off yet!
 
aquaduck said:
Some sort of incentive to get 'casual' fans into the North end of the East? The lesser facilities in there allow the club license to charge a flat £20 admission right up to KO. Better still pay on the gate (card payment) on the day?? Any supporter who uses the facility 7 times gets admission for the rest of the season at £15??
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You'd have to do some membership scheme for that to work as you have to charge the away fans exactly the same.
Not sure that makes good business sense charging them 20 quid for Championship football for a few hundred who might if your lucky extra turn up.

Clubs want advanced sales now not thousands turning up on the day that's why they increase the price for POG so they know how much security/policing to get in and that's before the food for the concessions.
 
Rock and Roll Star said:
You cone across as Job’s comforter. if you could just see how far we have come in such a short time, you would be able to envisage where as a ‘proper’ football club, we are now heading. As for wanting more fans in the stadium, the season hasn’t kicked off yet!
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Granted i haven't got a crystal ball but season ticket sales are highly unlikely to go up that much now the early bird has finished

I also doubt many folk will be spending close on £60 to take themselves and a couple of kids to a home game on the day of a match

Granted if we are top of the league we may get some extra fans rock up
 
Phil_bfc deux said:
Just run that by me

How does wanting more Blackpool fans in the stadium on match days constitute being negative?
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I think it's more the shooting down of every answer you get. Almost like nothing will please you. Why is it so important to you that the club whore itself out anyway?

Things like increased ticket prices go towards the renovations done at the training ground, buying in players for more money than Oyston would have, work done on the pitch and stadium, recovering lost revenue from last season and the fact we're playing in the Championship again for the first time in 7 years. Success will bring in new fans, playing attractive football will bring in new fans. Short of giving away tickets I don't know what more the club could/should be doing.
 
GodBlessTheSouthStand said:
I think it's more the shooting down of every answer you get. Almost like nothing will please you. Why is it so important to you that the club whore itself out anyway?

Things like increased ticket prices go towards the renovations done at the training ground, buying in players for more money than Oyston would have, work done on the pitch and stadium, recovering lost revenue from last season and the fact we're playing in the Championship again for the first time in 7 years. Success will bring in new fans, playing attractive football will bring in new fans. Short of giving away tickets I don't know what more the club could/should be doing.
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Why is it important that we build our fanbase

Is that a serious question?
 
Phil_bfc deux said:
And thats the problem

The survey appealed to the over 50s and existing season ticket holders

Those were the demographics

No wonder we ended up with a price increase and ridiculously expensive match day tickets
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It’s not ridiculously expensive .
It’s a round of drinks in a decent bar
 
Phil_bfc deux said:
Why is it important that we build our fanbase

Is that a serious question?
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You do know how football fandom works right? You draw your support in from locals. Now if you're a club with a pedigree of being in Europe for a prolonged period of time then you usually get a wider catchment area. Now you've already scoffed at the idea of playing attractive football and being succesful as a way of building our support, so I don't see any scenario in which you're appeased. If people within the town don't like football then the vast majority are never going to attend a game.
 
The one thing BFC should be looking at is the way that attendances have always gone down after an increase following the new stands opening/promotion. What is more important than attracting new fans is to keep the ones you have and that's what I would be focussing on in the next 9 months making the matchday experience so enjoyable that fans carry on going and then you can start to build on that.
 
We are a small town with a decent support. No amount of deals and incentives will bring in a significant increase in fanbase.

They just aren't there.. Forget the prem season, that was full of locals wanting to watch the opposition and get pictures of the prem stars on there phones. Proved it as we couldn't sell out the lesser games and a lot of the away fixtures.

I think we have sold a decent number of ST's and the match day tickets are pitched just about right for us..
 
GodBlessTheSouthStand said:
You do know how football fandom works right? You draw your support in from locals. Now if you're a club with a pedigree of being in Europe for a prolonged period of time then you usually get a wider catchment area. Now you've already scoffed at the idea of playing attractive football and being succesful as a way of building our support, so I don't see any scenario in which you're appeased. If people within the town don't like football then the vast majority are never going to attend a game.
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Never mind the play off finals

The home game against Southend proves that we have locals who will watch football at Bloomfield Road

4 stands full for that game in lg 1

Its those people who went to that game who don't have season tickets who we need to target

If people can't see that then there really is no point in these discussions

Just crack on with the I'm alright Jack attitude and be happy with empty seats in the home stands whilst giving away fans as many as they want
 
That was a one off game with word of mouth buzz and an ‘I was there’ factor.

I spoke to people at the game who didn’t know players/who we were playing next etc so doubt they were even full on Blackpool fans.

We need to target the next generation more.
 
Phil_bfc deux said:
Never mind the play off finals

The home game against Southend proves that we have locals who will watch football at Bloomfield Road

4 stands full for that game in lg 1

Its those people who went to that game who don't have season tickets who we need to target

If people can't see that then there really is no point in these discussions

Just crack on with the I'm alright Jack attitude and be happy with empty seats in the home stands whilst giving away fans as many as they want
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Away fans have a quota you melt.

Unlike you, I only care about the quality of the the support not quantity.

No, if people can't see that then you haven't got a point, if you want a full stadium go to Old Trafford.
 
People in this thread saying that because the survey was mainly filled out by existing fans, or older fans, seem to be missing the point that younger fans and non-season ticket holders still filled out the survey. Yes, not in greater numbers but still enough to be able to separate their answers from older season ticket holders and see if there was much of a difference in terms of trends. It's not like the club and BST just looked at the headlines and have no clue about demographics. For people who claim they're positive, they seem to take a very dim view of those running the club.
 
Phil_bfc deux said:
Are you suggesting 7 year old children attend matches by themselves?
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Why not?, character building.....especially negotiating 5,000 pissed up Stoke fans on the walk out after they’ve been stuffed 5-0 👍


edit to add.....about half will be coked up also ....the Stokies not the 7 year olds
 
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BWseasider said:
It's not like the club and BST just looked at the headlines and have no clue about demographics. For people who claim they're positive, they seem to take a very dim view of those running the club.
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Any professional club will be clued up especially someone like SS who's been a very successful businessman, but not so BST who have already said they target their members first as a priority.

That said the Football Supporters Association have a number of Trusts who are London-centric and many people run/are heavily involved in their Trusts, so on a general point these Trusts have no idea on local economic demographics and the affordability for local fans.

I've no idea if this applies to BST but it bears all those hallmarks,given my experience and attendance of FSA AGMs etc over the years.
 
Johnno said:
What’s wrong with wanting a stadium full of our own fans?
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This was put forwarded at Huddersfield a few years ago and they sold thousands more season tickets, in an initiative supported by the HT Supporters Trust -all of whom lived and worked in the area and the prices would have been capped if they'd been promoted to the PL (which they subsequently were)

HT prices for the 2017 season:

Adults: £199

8 to 17 y/o: £79

Under 8 y/o: £29
 
GodBlessTheSouthStand said:
Away fans have a quota you melt.

Unlike you, I only care about the quality of the the support not quantity.

No, if people can't see that then you haven't got a point, if you want a full stadium go to Old Trafford.
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Whats a melt are you some sort of Cockney geezer?

Oh and the away fans quota will be the whole of the East stand if they can fill it

Oh and i want a full stadium of Blackpool fans why wouldn't a Blackpool fan want that?

I take it you weren't about in the 80s and 90s when away fans used to take over the town

Clueless....
 
The Accy chairman touched on this the other week quoting to build a fan base is the hardest thing to do , it's a results based business so if we get a good start people won't worry about £30 For a ticket, 10k plus realistically with a full North stand is where we are gonna be a few good results and the walk ons will start to come.
 
Phil_bfc deux said:
Whats a melt are you some sort of Cockney geezer?
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A very good question indeed there seems to be a hidden element who are trying to undermine you, given your suggestions tick every box that the Trusts and their parent group have raised over the years.

'20s plenty' was the call and heres the link, so all you're doing is calling for a policy that Blackpool Supporters Trust are choosing to ignore.

Twenty's Plenty - fans have their say - Football Supporters' Association

The Twenty’s Plenty petition is going great guns with almost 5,000 fans signed up – add your name today if you haven’t already done so. Why not help spread the word via Facebook, Twitter and whatever other social media the cool kids use?
thefsa.org.uk thefsa.org.uk
 
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