The latest from Mr Savage......

[Kingsmills]

I tend to agree with Caley D on this one. If ICT are not occupying a tidy little 8,000 stadium somewhere else in town with a seven figure sweetener in the bank within the next five years I will be very surprised.

The club spent a relative fortune in being instumental in opening up a valuable part of the water front and are set to reap the dividends before too long.

[caley100]

Don, cant agree with you, If land is made available at the west end of the bypass ( when its completed by 2012) it will a hellofalot more valuable for retail than Stadium road, same goes for the new east a96/ring road connection,  there will be lots more traffic using that route which in turn will be much more appealing to ther large retailers/multi-national concerns.

So if the council can get 4 times the rates for retail than for an open sports stadium, what do you think they will do?

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

How do we make enuff money fer a new stadium. I think I may just have feckin cracked it. Will get going with ma business plan and pass it on to Orion:

Artesian well water. Water from a well that taps an aquifer--layers of porous rock, sand and earth that contain water--which is under pressure from surrounding upper layers of rock or clay. When tapped, the pressure in the aquifer, commonly called artesian pressure, pushes the water above the level of the aquifer, sometimes to the surface. Other means may be used to help bring the water to the surface.

According to the EPA, water from artesian aquifers often is more pure because the confining layers of rock and clay impede the movement of contamination. However, despite the claims of some bottlers, there is no guarantee that artesian waters are any cleaner than ground water from an unconfined aquifer, the EPA says.

Artesian well water. Water from a well that taps an aquifer--layers of porous rock, sand and earth that contain water--which is under pressure from surrounding upper layers of rock or clay. When tapped, the pressure in the aquifer, commonly called artesian pressure, pushes the water above the level of the aquifer, sometimes to the surface. Other means may be used to help bring the water to the surface.

According to the EPA, water from artesian aquifers often is more pure because the confining layers of rock and clay impede the movement of contamination. However, despite the claims of some bottlers, there is no guarantee that artesian waters are any cleaner than ground water from an unconfined aquifer, the EPA says.

[Sir C the 3rd]

Depends what you put in a new stand.   We are crying out for new corporate hospitality facilites.  We could move all that over there,  put new boxes in the back and some padded seats,  similar to aberdeen.

We could put in a proper TV gantry and commentary area,  with a TV Studio box.   In a new stand we could put a bar, gym, kids after school and saturday morning club,  office space, physiotherapy room,  new club shop anything we can think of. 

I also think more people would sit in it rather than the North.  The north stand could be used by the singers more freely,  it would create a better atmosphere as the ground would be closed in.

If we did move stuff over to a new stand it would create more room in the main stand we have now.  We could have raigmore motel sized concerts,  more casino nights, awards evenings,  charity dinners,  conferences loads of stuff by making some extra room and a little imagination.

We could introduce things like a pie and bovril tickets.  Pay 20 quid at the start of a season and get a pie and bovril at every game.

With a new stand we will make some more money with increased attendance at the big games,  maybe even some at smaller games due to the fact we have this new stand.  But if we can increase the corporate attendance by even just 200 we could make an extra  ?16,000 a game if they're charge ?80 each.  With new facilities and private boxes we could probably go higher than ?80 a skull a game.  For the old firm you could be talking ?100-?150 per person.

I thought a new stand was a load of nonsense at first,  but the more i think about it the more it can work.   I was thinking somthing along the lines of a scaled down Sheffield Utd stand.

http://www.stadiumguide.com/bramalllane.htm

(the 1st picture down)

[mainstander]

But if we can increase the corporate attendance by even just 200 we could make an extra  ?16,000 a game if they're charge ?80 each. 

Simple as that eh?

As far as I know their already struggling to fill the present corperate places at bogstanderd games never mind fill 200 odd more just by magic. Look, for 4 or 5 games as year against Dons and OF the stadium is a near 7500 sell out. Otherwise your talking about 3500 to 4500 fans or something like that. Most of the time their are already 3000 to 4000 empty seats so what the hells the point in spending a million or two to add a couple of thousand more. Fair enough theres not enough space in the main stand for things like offices and so on but theres no way Caley could justify huge expense on another stand which would either be empty or would make the present ones even emptier.

[Guest macgint71]

think a new stand west stand would be a good idea if done in the right way.

i would focus more on incorporating top class conference facilities, press area and hospitality plus a new bar and shop for supporters and training facility for the players. seating could be kept to a minimum, along the lines of seating the size of the old terrace, because we really dont need loads more empty seats but do need improved facilities and things to generate more revenue.

the stadium would look more complete and at the same time suit our needs more than a stand for the sake of it which would probably just get filled by the old firm anyway

I totally agree with this post, there is a great amount of revenue to be made from the prawn munchers and sponsors so building larger dining rooms, conference facilities and boxes with some rows of seating below would be ideal, good idea to put the family section in here aswell.

[CaleyD]

As has been said already, the club aren't filling the hospitality spaces they have available now...why increase it?

Also, don't forget the fact that we are extremely limited in the size of the footprint for any West Stand, so all these dreams of state of the art conference and banqueting facilities on the far side of the park are never likely to be a reality....even if we were set to remain at the current location.

The club has far more important issues it needs to deal with in order to help promote atmosphere at the stadium and it's problems that will only be further hindered by throwing millions of pounds at pointless extensions.  The club have a necessity to extend certain facilities, but none of these would be met by building a monster West Stand.

We do not need more empty seats.

We do not need more empty hospitality

We do need to improve/expand medical facilities and changing rooms.

We do need to improve/expand office space.

We do need to get rid of that monstrosity they call a shop and replace it with something proper.

A bar is a nice to have (and it will allow all the power hungry stewards to clock you having a pint before the game then throw you out for it when you get inside the stadium  :tic01: )

An argument exists for training facilities at the stadium for players.

The only worthwhile development I could see for the West side of the ground at present would be some kind of structure which would allow all media activity to be moved out of the Main Stand.  You wouldn't believe the space these guys take up on a match day, and just how much they get in the way of normal operations.

Lets just say the club wanted to spend ?1 Million and write it off over the next 5 years.  I'd rather see the club cut it's income by 200,000 a year by offering cheaper tickets than increase it's outgoings 200,000 a year by building unneeded seats.  If you want to improve the atmosphere and get more bums on seats then spend the money on initiatives which will do just that.  Run more buses from other parts of the city and outwith, run a lucky programme/seat and draw a ?1000 winner every week....if the seat/programme is not sold then roll it over and watch the stadium fill as it reaches big figures.  Give away free hats, scarfs, rattles, noisemakers etc.

Do a survey of the city, find out why some people don't come to the football and work on removing those barriers.  Work with Tulloch and put vouchers for 4 free tickets inside the welcome pack for every new house that gets built in the area.

Some of that may all seem a bit pie in the sky, but it's the kind of stuff they need to be doing to increase crowds and improve atmosphere.  It's certainly far more sensible than this "Build it and they will come" mentality.

[+Tree]

Several posters have correctly said that the Kingsmill Suite is not full for many of the games. What is lacking is corporate boxes and there remains some degree of demand for this side of things.

Incorporating some more would be viable, however I would suggest completing the main stand and incorporating additional boxes in this way is more cost effective (it avoids having to service the West side of the ground as well as the main stand).

[caley89]

football is going down the wrong route. if ticket prices were much cheaper than they are now we would see much more people in the stadium and we would probably get better atmospheres. instead we want to comfort the big buisness people who don't support the club like us real fans do. why build big lush boxes and hospitality when we can't even fill the ones we've got just now. as a small club we should be looking at bringing in a better home support by lowering ticket prices not building posh boxes for the prawn sandwich eaters (who will leave us without a doubt if we get relegated by the way).

i have no doubt that we would make more money if we had more fans coming to games because of lower ticket prices than we are now with the stupid "premier package" stuff!!

[Guest TinCanFan]

Maybe if ticket prices were lowered to say, ?5 more people would go to games and the club might actually make a profit.  It would also mean more kids can go on a weekly basis which would mean ICT would have a strong support in the future.

[CaleyD]

Caley4life...like it or not, ALL clubs need the corporate support and would not survive on gate money alone in the current financial climate.  I also think it's way out of order to say that these "big business people" don't support the club and are not real fans as you could not be further from the truth in many instances.

However, I do think the club are guilty of allowing the relationship between themselves and your average punter to deteriorate and they no longer have a finger on the pulse of what fans want/need.

At the end of the day a club needs both, and as important as the money generated via the corporates is, the fans are equally, if not more important in the long term.  It only becomes an "us and them" situation if the club allow it to, and that kind of mentality does nobody any favours.

[Scotty]

Maybe if ticket prices were lowered to say, ?5 more people would go to games and the club might actually make a profit.  It would also mean more kids can go on a weekly basis which would mean ICT would have a strong support in the future.

The club have made a profit in recent years ... one of the very few to do so.

TCF - If we lowered the price to ?5 a ticket, we'd be out of business within a year or two. If you very unscientifically pluck some figures out of the air and take an average crowd of 5000, lets assume that 4000 of them have paid around ?20 (allowing for kids tickets, season tickets etc) to get in. 4000 @ ?20 = ?80K, drop that to ?5 and its only ?20K. Caley Thistle could not survive on ?60K less per match x 18 matches minimum which equates to over ?1M per year !!!

Like it or not, hospitality is also a necessary evil. Some people will pay more to watch a match in comfort or to mingle with the players or just to support the club (as some do) but again, like the normal punter in their ?25 seat, your corporate fan also needs value for money. I am not sure what it is like now, but when I was last in hospitality it was not worth the ?80 per head we paid. basic meal, slow drinks service (designed to make you consume less presumably), and nothing much in the way of entertainment (speeches, comments, or what you might call "hosting") from the floor - felt more like a high priced works cafeteria to be honest.

The end result is that normal fans are becoming more selective about which games they go to because of the cost and so are the corporate types as neither feels they are getting value for money .... so building more seats, adding more stands or any other fanciful ideas are ludicrous and what is needed is to evaluate what we have and see how the club can make it better for all fans.

The problem Caley Thistle face is that whatever they do is restricted by the size of the ground. If you have a 20K all seated stadium you can do a lot more with your pricing structure, corporate boxes, trying out new ideas etc etc etc .... but in a 7700 seater stadium its far harder to do something radical as every single seat has more impact on the money you make (or dont).

I liked what Toronto FC did this season.

They sold one complete section of 3000 seats as the "supporters section" and discounted the price heavily. There are no concessions, oap prices, student prices or anything like that and every single seat is held by a season ticket holder.

In that section we are allowed to stand, chant, sing, bring in things like drums, streamers, flags and banners and generally make some noise and mayhem. This section is full for every single game and people are on a two year waiting list to get into it because of the atmosphere alone !

In the rest of the ground, it is a little more sedate and the prices get increasingly higher depending on how close you are to the centre circle. It was $220 in the supporters end and $2500 at the centre circle with plenty of different price points in between. There are also corporate boxes and all sorts of other stuff.

In the end, TFC sold over 14,000 season tickets for their first season and could have sold the other 6K too .... except they held them back for "matchday sales" at normal prices ($75) !!!

During the game there are things like lucky seat numbers where the whole row might win a slice of Pizza or a match ball for the seat holder and stuff like that and there are also other things that make you feel more valued, not least of which are little giveaways from time to time (supplied by sponsors)

So how could ICT use the TFC model ?

1. Offer season tickets at a price that really encourages you to buy and market it aggressively long before the current season ends. If its ?25 for a normal matchday ticket, then offer it to punters for the equivalent of ?15 (no concessions). Offer further discounts on family or child tickets when purchased at the same time.

2. Offer the tickets early ! I have already paid for my 2008 TFC tickets and the season starts next April ! TFC already have my money (and that of 14,000 others) in their bank earning them interest which offsets the cost of the discount.

3. Singing Section / Supporters Section - lobby the SPL to allow standing in a controlled environment. It is not illegal in law (just in rules) and if not policed in a heavy handed manner is not dangerous .... ask the 3K who do it every week at TFC. The atmosphere generated by this section percolates the rest of the stadium and also to the journalists who report on the games and never fail to mention the atmosphere. TFC tickets are now the "hottest" sporting ticket in Toronto.

4. Ambience - The police at TFC games (and in Canada in general) carry guns !!! However, they are far less intimidating to most supporters than SPL stewards who (sometimes) try to bully and harass you for no good reason. The stewards at TFC are there to ensure safety and they do this politely, even when checking tickets or dishing out warnings about behaviour that is too rowdy. SPL stewards could learn a thing or two from them.

5. Improve whats on offer - a couple of grotty hatches serving either lukewarm or mouth-burningly hot Bovril and burnt pies is not really enticing. There's a lot more that could be done. ****, back in Div2 days we could get Burger, Chips and mushy peas at Palmerston in a stall no bigger than the Pie stalls at TCS so its not that hard. It all makes for a better matchday feeling.

6. Get some of the sponsors to chip in for cheap freebies .... so far this year at TFC games we were given seat cushions, stress balls, noisemakers, and for some reason, at one game, a box of spaghetti (not sure about that one but it was wholewheat and quite nice). Apart from the seat cushions that were given out before the game (and ended up on the pitch when we scored) these were all handed out as you left the stadium and you were like "oh, thats nice ..... very thoughtful". At one other game, 3000 people who got to the ground early were given TFC baseball caps (paid for by the main sponsor) ... its all nice little touches that make you feel good or valued !

7. If you want corporate sponsors or hospitality customers, treat them accordingly. Dont charge them ?80 and give them something worth ?30 so you can make a huge profit from them. give them better value and word will spread and the currently empty spots will get filled up. It would be interesting to know whether Ross County still fill their hospitality suites? for years all we ever heard was people comparing the bad impression of TCS hospitality compared to what they gave you at RCFC. As many businesses use these to entertain clients or good customers, they are not going to want to go back if their customer thinks its crap.

[Guest TinCanFan]

Why is it that teams in Germany and the Netherlands have prices pretty low (?8ish) don't go bust but ICT will?  I see as well this season Clyde offered kids season tickets to kids for about ?25 pound maybe ICT should try something like that to bring in a bigger crowd.

I see as well that TFC have brought in a bar like area with tables and beer etc.  Maybe ICT could take a leaf out of their book but I would have thought that the SPL would put a stop to anything they see as fun.

[CaleyD]

The whole financial infrastructure of clubs abroad (Europe) is different and makes it very difficult to do a "like for like" comparison.

If you were to look at the accounts for many (if not all) European clubs you would see they are losing millions every year, but due to the way they are financed it rarely has any major impact on the teams.  Because most of them are owned by large corporations/banks or whatever this isn't really an issue for them.  The concept of borrowing money is alien to European clubs, they simply survive on handouts.

That is my broad understanding, although I would be happy to bow to anyone who knows better or can be more specific.

[Guest macgint71]

As has been said already, the club aren't filling the hospitality spaces they have available now...why increase it?

It's certainly far more sensible than this "Build it and they will come" mentality.

I must agree with a lot of your very good ideas to assist the club. I'm not saying its a must and to move out now and build a new stand if we can invest the money more wisely in better schemes however hospitality is a money maker and if we are struggling to fill seats at the moment then they must be asking themselves why, is the right person doing the job?, is it our facilities?, what are we giving them is the price right etc etc.

I don't know about the access for another stand but there is nothing stopping people making suggestions and if your ideas were to be put to the test, and if this was to increase support then a new stand should be considered.

[Scotty]

A good thing about threads like this (and others where constructive criticism is handed out) is that although it is seldom acknowledged, people from the club do read them and after wading through a ton of stuff that might be impractical, fanciful or even complete bull**** there is the odd wee nugget that might spark an idea ....... so keep the ideas coming and you never know !!!

[EWS]

Is that why you keep pushing your ideas based on TFC's set up Scotty? ;)

[Scotty]

Is that why you keep pushing your ideas based on TFC's set up Scotty? ;)

Why not?

TFC are 'owned' by the multi billion dollar corporation  - Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment - who have succesfully run a number of sports teams in the NBA, NHL and now MLS as well as TV channels for those sports teams and the venues for those sports teams which also double as concert venues.

Each team is run in a different way, depending on the market forces. The Maple Leafs for example are regarded as being almost totally corporate oriented as ticket prices are ridiculous, the Raptors is kind of half and half and TFC has been setup to be very fan friendly and not as "orchestrated" or "choreographed" as other North American sports.

Having been present at the birth of Caley Thistle, I have seen a lot of similarities between that and the birth of TFC and if you take away the economies of scale, there are lessons that can be learned from a company with a record of sporting success that spans the last 80 years in a very tough market. Not every idea might fly for ICT, but if there are even one or two gems to come out of it, then dont you agree that this would be a good thing?

One final thing ..... despite crowds of more than 20,000 at every game, TFC management and players remind me of what ICT used to be like - very approachable, very fan oriented, and very willing to not only listen to fans but also have a dialogue with them .... whereas many people say that ICT are going in the opposite direction ...... I have thoroughly enjoyed my first season of TFC football, despite the shocking record on the pitch and it seems that other fans did too with an over 95% renewal rate for season tickets !!!

[Scarlet Pimple]

Two excellent posts Scotty. I particularly liked item number 7 in the first post. Like an arrow going through the centre of the bull.

Scotty is right, it's the excitement, fun and atmosphere that counts and you have a hard time achieving that with a half empty, dead quiet stadium.

Although sometimes it gets a bit wearing here in North America, all the razz-ma-taz and promotional gimmicks do work and they also do let the fans  know that the team needs their money and support and Management is at least trying to get them in the door.

Reducing prices should be a priority, if at all possible. 8,000 fans at , say, 15 pounds each is much better all round than 5,000 at 20 pounds each. Who would not rather be in amongst a big crowd than a small one sharing the anticipation and excitement. And even if you do lose at least you feel that you have had a good time and it hasn't cost you an arm and a leg. As Scotty says, the bottom line is a sense of appreciation from Management and a sens eof having received value for money.

[clacher_holiday2]

As I've said elsewhere, we actually arent that far off filling the home sections of the ground every weekend, even if we did have a bit more razz -ma -whatsit around the place we would only be aiming to fill another 8-900 seats.

No amount of price changes or promotion will fill the 2,000 empoty seats that glare back at ICT fans in the away end every other week.

The time to drum up more support is in the pre-season, when we're selling season tickets, its many times more difficult to promote walk-up bums on seats than it is to promote season tickets, which offer a large discount over the year.

If we built a new stand we could easily fill it with season ticket holders at the right price.

[Scotty]

The time to drum up more support is in the pre-season, when we're selling season tickets, its many times more difficult to promote walk-up bums on seats than it is to promote season tickets, which offer a large discount over the year.

If we built a new stand we could easily fill it with season ticket holders at the right price.

spot on. exactly what I was saying (or trying to) in my first two points ..... make it a worthwhile offer, and offer it early enough that people are still enjoying the current season and interested in football. Lets face it, most fans know whether they are going to renew or not so getting them to renew for next season in April or May is not a big deal ......

[CaleyD]

Put out an incentive for fans to become self promoting.

Thinking outside the box a bit here.....

- The club puts a discount voucher in the season ticket books.

- They set a base level at whatever the current sales are for this year...lets say 3500 for sake of argument.

- Lets say 100 season ticket holders brings in an extra ?20,000 (averaging for the full range of adult and kids tickets).

- So for every 100 additional season tickets sold, the club gives the season ticket holders ?20,000 back by way of value on the voucher.

3600 = ?20,000 = approx ?5 each

3700 = ?40,000 = approx ?10 each

3800 = ?60,000 = Approx ?15 each

etc etc etc

On the surface it looks like a waste of time as the club are giving back all the additional income...but they aren't really!!!

1.  Many people may never claim their discount

2.  If the club have an average 100% mark-up on stuff in the shop (and many items will be far more than that) then in reality it only actually costs them half.

3.  Most folk will spend far more than the value of the voucher.

4.  You have more people buying programs, food, merchandise etc on a regular basis.

Everyone is a winner and fans feel like they are sharing in the success as they are getting something back.

To top it all off it's a doddle to administer, would take no additional resources and there's no financial risk for the club.

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

I suggest that we also have to take the Away supports into consideration. We must have the steepest prices in the SPL fer the away supports. We can charge the OF cnuts full price but there should be reductions and family packages for most of the other visiting teams. Many of the Away support numbers have dwindled and it is probably becos of support. It is regularly raised as an issue on P&B.

Is this not supposed to be Mike Smith's territory.  :024:

[Kingsmills]

I agree with that. Every SPL side should be obliged to have a family section for away fans charging the same prices as the home fans pay for their family enclosure.

[Guest macgint71]

I e the club are reading this, instead of moaning and bitching there a are number of excellent ideas from people whoare no receiving or asking for a financial gain. There are people at the club who are taking a wage and I suspect not coming up with half of these ideas, why? because maybe they don't care.

The family section for away fans, better advertisement, family packages for home fans like most other major attractions, come and try vouchers for season ticket holders to encourage friends/family to see what they are missing (thefirst ones free idea) the list goes on.

I'm maybe coming across as niave but does the trust have a say with the board, are these suggestions being addresses and heard by the club, I suspect that they aren't. The club shop is an excellent example of how the club should be promoting a business in a more positive way - better premises, advertising, location, thinking bigger.