Thetownend.com

A truly great end to the season and congratulations all round win or lose it's been a fantastic season.

Now here's my gripe.  Ticket sales for Wembley.

I know swindon have no say in the value of a ticket and I'm plumping for the mid range seats hoping I get a decent view.

But  I have to pay a further £3 and £2 per ticket because we are not selling from the County Ground.  Then another £1.65 per transaction for P & P.  £364 for the tickets and £21.30 for the privilege of buying them.

This is a great leap forward from the last time we  got to Wembley.  god Bless the middle men.  This doesn't improve my county Ground experience.  I see this as the bitter price of success.

Do you seriously think the Ticket Office could cope with selling 35,000 tickets?

great step forward.  How many tickets did we sell last time we got to Wembley, or the time before that and the time before that.

It seems to me and now Im speaking of the country as a whole, we are less capable as every year goes by.  We manage to achieve less and less.

It seems odd to me that they cant just hire some temps for £10 an hour and sell them at the County Ground.I hope the club are getting a cut of the booking fee,I think they must be? Its a way to make some money out of ticket sales because they dont get much from the actual gate reciepts from Wembley.

They did twice in the 90's, and I don't think they were any more organised then

I think the prices are a disgrace, I've paid up to 20% less for England games before now... Gotta be done though, can't miss something as big as this because of a few quid

"Bookings fees have been added to cover the cost of an outsourced ticketing solution. Swindon Town Football Club will not benefit financially from these booking fees."

hmm well that sucks

booking fee should be per transaction not per ticket.

Prices are set by Wembley/Football League, but yes they are shocking. Making us pay for their fuck-up (ie Wembley) that they couldn't even get the most important aspect of right

I was thinking about this last night, and it is dear, but to be fair how many people will be working that day 5000? The running costs must be huge. Not as if it's an 8000 crowd at the CG.

And there's your problem right there. That concisely sums up the views of 99% of Town fans (or even football fans in general - and I'm one of the 99% btw) If the fans were to say, "bollocks, we're not paying these prices", the prices would come down.  We all know that won't happen though. It's emotional blackmail.

And it stinks.

£60 and your pitch is shit.....£60 and your pitch is shit.

:) we should get that chant going as soon as the first player falls over.

I suppose times move on with the introduction of the internet.....

The two lovely old men would keel over!!!
I would rather pay a few extra pounds and spend a few minutes ordering tickets over the phone than spending hours queuing at the County Ground!

That's bollocks, sutton. The overall costs will be higher, but the costs per head will if anything be lower. We're being fleeced by Wembley to subsidise their inability to deliver a stadium on time and on budget. And even to put a bloody football pitch in the national football stadium properly. Jaw-dropping.

OST's right though - I'm no more likely to make a rational "value for money as a consumer" based decision about whether to pay these prices than anyone else is. I'm going and that's that. And it would be the same if the tickets were 100 quid if I'm honest, fleeceable idiot that I am. Although I might leave the missus at home at that price :)

Exactly. That's the way it usually works isn't it?

Also, I've noticed the booking fee goes up according to how much your ticket costs. The admin work of selling an expensive seat is exactly the same as a cheap seat!!!!

Means tested booking.

No, they treat the expensive seats much more reverentially so it takes longer - 60 quid and up and your tickets are hand crafted by quill on parchment and left to dry on velvet cushions. 30 quid and they scribble a note on the back of an old fag packet saying "This bloke's all right, let him in"

:Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick: :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick: :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick: :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick: :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick: :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick:

As you say even if it was a ton a ticket i'd still be going, and get my missus to work it off outside.

Also I think the club are losing out on merchandise sales by people not having to go to the County Ground

They'll be flogging at wembley though, or at least get a percentage. Yes 14 flags and a moonraker outfit please!

You're also paying for the credit card charges on the ticket, as credit card companies charge a percentage of the price, so the higher the ticket price, the higher the charge.

Could be worse, we could be queuing for hours on end.

these days happen once in a blue moon for us.i dont give a shit about cost i'd pay £200 a ticket if i had to.
i think allowing season ticket holders 6 tickets is too much.should have been 4 max.
out sourcing it is a good idea though,as our ticket selling at the club is a bit of a joke innit?

Exactly, I'd rather pay a tenner in fees than queue for three hours.

Time is money.

I don't. Approx 4500 x 6 = 27k. But that's a maximum if every season ticket holder took up their full allocation. But season ticket holders will combine. Even with the fairweathers we have used 3 season tickets where 5 were available to us.



Its the only sensible option. The service charge on top of the already rip off Wembley prices is unwelcome. But preferable to a 5 hour queue or not getting through on the phone. And I'm sure they are cheaper than ticketmaster :)

Be brilliant if we could sell the whole 37000 though....will be mental.

dont we have more season ticket holders than that?
i know people who have tickets ordered,who have never been to a swindon match.
loyals have to wait just because they dont have a season ticket.

6 tickets per season ticket holder is excessive i think

Oh , do we? Watkins said on the radio earlier in the unlikely event of a sell out he was sure he could twist some more seats out of Wembley. You'll be fine.

From what I have seen, many of the people the STs are buying tickets for in their allocations of 6 are regular (non-ST) fans anyway.  As Batch says, there are going to be plenty to go around.  Don't panic.

They said we had over 5000 ST holders for next season end of April, so that could be 30000 gone,  The 6 i have bought only myself could be classed as a regular, so reckon there will be a mix. I think Blackpool have sold 34000, i would expect us to get near that figure.

I'm a season ticket holder, but I've only bought two, and the second one is for another season ticket holder, who is currently on holiday, but is back next week, subject to ash cloud !!

They'll be plenty of tickets left. We sold around 33k in '90 and 35k in '93, and that was for, in effect, the Championship play-off final.

When I got a ticket for the Leicester match, I drove up through the night, queued from about 5pm - then promptly fell asleep driving back home on the M4 - scary !!!

I see Millwall are selling tickets from the ground as well as the ticket line. I wonder if the decision not to sell tickets from the ground will have an effect on the number of tickets well sell? Some people only carry notes and hate cards.

I took the day off (only from college, mind), hopped on the train out of Paddington and hardly had to queue at all at the County Ground. I then went back straight to London and kept them in an envelope pinned to the wall in my room, hidden behind a Manic Street Preachers poster. Who the fuck I thought was going to nick them I have no idea, but they just seemed so precious :-[