Season tickets down 20%. Why?

[CaleyD]

I fully appreciate that there's those who will not have renewed for other reasons...and to be honest, I would have been surprised if we had not seen a dip regardless of the whole Rangers/NewCo fiasco.

However, that does not excuse those who made promises which they are not keeping. If people had no intention of renewing, then they should have not have used a promise to do so as a means to put pressure on the club. Some of these people are among those who were accusing the club of being underhand and/or making deals to secure favour with the fans which they would then renege on. As it transpired, the club were true to their word...it's just a pity that the same cannot be said of others.

The outcome would very likely have been the same and our position as a club no different than what it is right now, but at least the club would have known not to rely on money promised, which has not been delivered.

We're not talking about one or two people here, there's a significant number of people who have done it and that does not reflect well on our fan base. What kind of person sits tight lipped and refuses to own up whilst watching fellow fans attempt to make excuses and give reasons on their behalf where none are merited?

There is no excuse....these people are refusing to act with the same integrity that they asked demanded of the club. The last thing we should be doing is trying to defend their embarrassing and shameful (non) actions.

[gordieict]

I do think that it is easier to keep players that came up through the divisions with the club and were settled I the area. Perhaps just a natural progression and one of the down sides of being a consistent SPL club that pays at the bottom end of the SPL pay table

[caleyboy]

We need a very serious cash injection so we need change at the top! The whole club needs a boost to encourage people to support their local team not dwellers or 3rd divi newboys!

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

Proctor might be touching on something here. Maybe I am getting all misty eyed over some of our previous players but I think a lot of us felt a real connection with the squads we used to have. There was an affinity there between fans and players. These guys looked like they really cared about the club as much as we did. Is that the same now? Very questionable to be honest.

That said, the reasons why this may be the case might not be down to the players themselves and I am certainly not writing off the new guys.

It is the loss or lack of the "togetherness" factor. There are no real "characters" in the team - in fact there are few who have shown the genuine "heart" for the shirt. The manner of performances and particularly the inane excuses after games added to the loss of faith. The majority of us have given all concerned another chance, the minority have decided that it aint worth waiting around.

[supercaley]

I would like to offer another reason as to why season ticket sales may be down.

It can be difficult to buy one!

A guy I work with went to buy one on Saturday morning, but the club shop was shut. It's only open Monday - Friday until 5.30. The shop only opens on Saturdays when a match is on. Also, when he went to buy it online he was unable to do so. Explanation for this is confusing, but something to do with once the fixtures have been released then they can't sell them online. We work until 6 or 7 every evening, miles away from Inverness which makes visiting the shop impossible.

If the club made it easier to buy a season ticket, then perhaps more people would have.

[Proctor]

I would like to offer another reason as to why season ticket sales may be down.

It can be difficult to buy one!

A guy I work with went to buy one on Saturday morning, but the club shop was shut. It's only open Monday - Friday until 5.30. The shop only opens on Saturdays when a match is on. Also, when he went to buy it online he was unable to do so. Explanation for this is confusing, but something to do with once the fixtures have been released then they can't sell them online. We work until 6 or 7 every evening, miles away from Inverness which makes visiting the shop impossible.

If the club made it easier to buy a season ticket, then perhaps more people would have.

When the club used Ticketmaster to sell tickets it was a rather frustrating experiance. First the girl on the phone at the call centre (a Yorkshire lass) tried to charge me full price for a season ticket because I was allegidly 23 (I think I was 20 at the time and she had my date of birth). I was then told to buy it from the club and was said something along the lines of "it's a small club". I think I know the size of my team. What made me laugh was she ended the call with "Thank you for calling Inverness Caledonian Thistle".

At least the girls in the club shop are nice. I was able to renew my ticket no bother with them over the phone.

Edited July 30, 2012 by Proctor

[Alex MacLeod]

Dont telephones work where you are?

[+DoofersDad]

I would agree that if folk pledged to renew their season ticket if the club voted to keep newco out, they should ensure they keep their word. However a lot of people who have pledged support were not season ticket holders before so cannot be criticised for not buying them. Some have bought season tickets even though they know they are not going to get to too many games and that is a brilliant gesture which should be acknowledged and applauded.

Many others have simply said they will try to get to more games and support the club that way. As we haven't had any league matches yet those folk have not had the opportunity to put their money where their mouth is. There is a difference here which is important to recognise: those who didn't have a season ticket before but who go to more matches are putting extra money into the club whereas those who renew their season tickets are not. Whilst it is really important to try to persuade as many season ticket holders to renew in order to maintain a previous income stream, it is also important to persuade the less regular attender to attend more often.

I don't know if anyone has done any research on this? I would be interested to know what the make-up of a typical crowd is. What percentage are season ticket holders, what percentage pay full price and what percentage pay concession rates. That's the easy bit. The hard bit is do some research to identify how often the non-season ticket holders actually attend matches and to find out what makes them decide whether they will attend or not.

For the sake of argument if in a crowd of 3,500 there were 1,500 home supporters who were not season ticket holders, then my guess would be that some of those will only go to one or two matches a year whilst some will go to most and there will be everything in between. What is certain is that it won't be the same 1,500 every week. There may be 5,000 or more who go to at least a couple of games a year and who are not season ticket holders. The key to getting bigger crowds is to get these folk through the turnstiles more often - and to bring someone with them.

So the next bit of reseach would be to find out what would encourage them to attend more often. Without doubt the quality of the entertainment on offer will be a big factor here and for this reason we need to see a more entertaining style of play if we are to get more bums on seats. So whilst it is annoying that some who have pledged to renew season tickets haven't done so, the real need here is to attact others to the games more often. If we do that by playing a more entertaining style of football then the season ticket sales will look after themselves.

[Proctor]

I think another valid point is that fans have only had one home pre-season friendly against opposition similar to what we would face in the SPL (Coventry City). The rest of our games have been against lower league teams away from home. While these games are designed to get players fit they are a poor indication of how a team will play week in week out. We go into our first game against St Mirren with a new squad. We don't know how they will play or even who will play. Perhaps people are waiting for an indication of how we play based on our first match?

If the first half of the season goes well there is a chance of a greater uptake of half season tickets. I know that they are less lucritive for the club but if we are on a good run the club has a good chance to market these as Christmas presents.

Edited July 30, 2012 by Proctor

[supercaley]

Yes Alex, phones do sometimes have signal, but i was just making a point that the club could make it easier for people to buy tickets. If it was easier to buy the tickets then maybe more people would buy them, along with some merchandise. I dont think it unreasonable for a club in the SPL to be able to sell tickets online or open their shop on a Saturday.

This thread is about why sales are down and I was only offering a reason for this.

[Alex MacLeod]

The shop is open on a saturday on matchdays. Tickets were on sale online up till a couple of weeks ago. The shop was open late and on saturdays when the earlybird deal was on the go. So basically you'd like the club to shell out wages for extra staff to be available to suit you.

[+Tree]

We need a very serious cash injection so we need change at the top! The whole club needs a boost to encourage people to support their local team not dwellers or 3rd divi newboys!

So we are not to be dependant on the old firm, we can't be dependant it seems on the fans, so the answer is for some unknown investor to come in and solve our problems?

Fan power, apart from when it comes to dipping hands into pockets?

[supercaley]

No, suited to a lot of people. I was told there were people outside the shop along with him. The first game of the season is only a few weeks away, the last pay weekend before that has just passed, so i think the shop should be open on Saturday to take advantage of the fact that people would come to the shop to try and buy tickets. Also, I don't understand why tickets aren't available online. Seems a bit stupid to me. Can't see how there would be too significant a cost involved in that.

Perhaps the club shop could close on a weekday to free up wages for Saturday opening. Just a thought.

[CaleyD]

I'm pretty certain there's a sign beside the shop door telling people to go to reception when the shop is shut. Had they done that then they would have been sold anything they liked, including a season ticket.

[bigman]

If the football that is played is like the coventry game I could be tempted to renew.

[Oddquine]

Dont telephones work where you are?

I'm sure they probably would though it would

a) kinda depend on where you are and if the phones were working

b) kinda depend on the cost.....as in if you only have a mobile phone and no land line, or are living in Outer Mongolia.

c) kinda depend if you had sod all to do all day or not...like work..between the opening hours of the place selling the tickets

which appears to be the opening hours of the vast majority of businesses in the UK.

d) kinda depend if you have an all day free package with your phone company or not.....because I don't and will absolutely

not phone anyone before 7pm unless forced to (I've found I can whine quite adequately by email)..because 99% of the

time I get the "we can't be arsed talking to you just now, but we might get round to you when we feel like it" muzak,

which costs me a small fortune for the privilege of boaking at the really bad music choices made by others.

e) kinda depend if you are inclined to go to the effort of looking for another way to do it. A spur of the moment decision rather requires an immediate easy option to follow through...otherwise you might think about it and having thunk, change your mind and not bother.

[Oddquine]

I think another valid point is that fans have only had one home pre-season friendly against opposition similar to what we would face in the SPL (Coventry City). The rest of our games have been against lower league teams away from home. While these games are designed to get players fit they are a poor indication of how a team will play week in week out. We go into our first game against St Mirren with a new squad. We don't know how they will play or even who will play. Perhaps people are waiting for an indication of how we play based on our first match?

If the first half of the season goes well there is a chance of a greater uptake of half season tickets. I know that they are less lucritive for the club but if we are on a good run the club has a good chance to market these as Christmas presents.

Done that in the past...bought a half season ticket as a Christmas present. Not, tbh, that I thought the recipient was or would change into being an ICT supporter, but just because he wanted to see his preferred SPL team, at that stage hadn't "earned" the away game ticket option, and was happy to let me spent around £60 for him to attend one game (I think it was one)..and I was happy enough to be able to stop obsessing about what to get him and start worrying about the others I had to get for.

[ICTGAZ]

Totally agree with a lot of the good points on here. I pay at the gate, due to work commitments, but wangle shift swaps etc to make most home games and occasional away trips.

I will always attend as much as i can, being brought up following Caley from a young age in the Highland League. However we have been pretty pants the last couple of seasons and this might put fans off as they cant see us progressing. We had threatened top six on a couple of occasions in the past, but we never quite make that final push forward.

We have gone down the road of buying in players from lower English leagues and this on the whole hasn't worked in my opinion. I would prefer to see a couple of seasoned SPL pros that could give us a couple of seasons and help a long the younger guys. These would be guys that have been across the course on numerousd occasions and know what it requires to progress in to top six perhaps.

True we have a local presence in the younger members of the squad, but they now need to kick on and take their chance as the squad is pretty thin across the board.

[Rasczak]

Proctor might be touching on something here. Maybe I am getting all misty eyed over some of our previous players but I think a lot of us felt a real connection with the squads we used to have. There was an affinity there between fans and players. These guys looked like they really cared about the club as much as we did. Is that the same now? Very questionable to be honest.

That said, the reasons why this may be the case might not be down to the players themselves and I am certainly not writing off the new guys.

I can see where you are coming from, and I think some of that connection is due to the short history of the club. The club has grown in living memory and so what would would be a significant but not extraordinary amount of time with any club of 90 or more years history seems to be much more significant for ICT, can you think of any other senior club where a player has just left after being with the club for nearly 90% of its existence ?

Of course it is good for the players to have a feeling for the club and what it means to the fans, but that does not necessarily mean you have to be local to understand that, does anyone here think that Richie Foran doesn't care a jot about ICT ?

On the other side of the coin if we had the finances to be able to attract the Messis, the Xabi Alonsos, the Iniestas, the Pirlos or the Balotellis of the world to the TCS would we say we don't want them as they don't understand the club ? I think we have to strike a balance between getting the best players we can where they are available and giving them a reason to want to care about the club, and finding the local gems who are brought up caring about the club anyway. And that can start by getting the youngsters to follow their local club rather than glory hunt the "big teams".

[bauhaus]

Its because of the hideous choice of strip this year. Well, not really, had 5 season tickets for us and kids until last season (only got to two home games last season and cant afford to throw cash away). Now cant make many games due to work, but still think our strip is hideous.

Also, on the loyalty theme, with our desire to sign players on one year deals, why cant we get them with the option of a second year. Loyalty only goes so far as players are concerned, how many of Oldco Rangers players who played for the shirt stayed with the Newco, even on huge wages. If the same were to happen to ANY club, the majority would jump the sinking ship, even if the money was good.

Edited July 30, 2012 by bauhaus

[lukemackay]

i think im going to miss the first, month, but im hoping to get into the inverness city first team so wont be able to make every week. so not sure how its going to work out yet, however il be at midden on saturday, and will definatly make as many games as i can.

[Joe DiMaggio]

Almost every team is up or closing in on last years sales, except for us. I don't believe the standard of football argument as the standard is rubbish across the league, we are no exception in that. But still the other clubs sales are going well with their fans getting behind the team when they most need it, again except us!

Does anyone know how many season tickets we sold last year? 20% is a massive amount of fans who have given up their tickets and this only seems to be really happening here.

[Alex MacLeod]

Yes we are down on last season but I wonder if there was a boost last season and the season before from the promotion season. I would also be willing to put money on the figures from other teams not being a true reflection of the truth. For example Aberdeen have had falling figures year on year for the last three or four years. This season they say they are up. As do some of the other teams who previously reported falling figures. Have former fans come back because they see a better possibility of success without Rangers?

[RiG]

Apparently Aberdeen have hit their target of 6,500 season tickets. That's not too bad given the horrendous stuff they have endured over the years.

[Renegade]

I don't believe the standard of football argument as the standard is rubbish across the league, we are no exception in that.

It's not about the standard of football - it's about the style. St Mirren and Kilmarnock seem capable of retaining possession, but last season ICT were still playing a style akin to a team in the English Division 4 in 1982. That's one of the main factors turning people away.