Stadium Development

[Sheffsteel]

If it is Wembley making the rules , how come we differ so much from the pigs ticket office ?

Normally it's the clubs that sell the tickets
but because United were selling season tickets at the same time
to take the burden off the ticket office United decided to out source the sales operation to Wembley.

Wednesday decided to sell their playoff tickets direct from the club because their season tickets went on sale months earlier.

 

[Rodders]

The Derby County at home match has been classed as cat A which means they never go on general sale and you have to have 300 loyalty points to get in. No casual or new fans will be able to attend and fans with young children who are going for their first match or 2 are also excluded.
Its Derby - madness

There is a thread in the ticket section, someone called the ticket office and got sorted for tickets, but you're right - 300 LP's for a Championship game that isn't the Pigs is utter madness. Fans shouldn't have to think "yes I'll subvert the official communications"; if the club are happy to supply tickets for these games on a nudge-nudge-wink-wink basis then it makes a mockery of these communications.

 

[Sheffsteel]

Bloke from work paid £52 for a ticket against Leeds. Told him to give his head a wobble.

You hear this type of rip off pricing propaganda all the time.

The £52 cost is because he chose to go in the most expensive seats.....that's his choice.
If price is an issue then why not go in cheaper seats??

Also when we play Leeds it will be a A* match, that's £46 + £1 booking fee = £47
which again confirms there's only a 10% difference between our prices and there's.

 

[petcharlie]

If Uncle Kev were here we’d have sold everyone at first bid to cover the losses during the covid season.

It’s all well and good him saying we’d have been this and that if he’d have sold to Pace or still being in charge, but the fact is we’ve only been properly ambitious once in my lifetime and it wasn’t him that was in charge.

And as far as i can remember we have only failed once to pay our commitments and been placed under an embargo .

 

[bladesmanluke]

The Derby County at home match has been classed as cat A which means they never go on general sale and you have to have 300 loyalty points to get in. No casual or new fans will be able to attend and fans with young children who are going for their first match or 2 are also excluded.
Its Derby - madness

^ this is absolutely stupid. Why do we do it? It won't even be close to a sellout

 

[Ndiayewillalwaysloveyou]

^ this is absolutely stupid. Why do we do it? It won't even be close to a sellout

It's stupid how we structure the tickets I agree.

Disagree on the second comment though. They'll be 30k+ against derby (31.7k full capacity)

 

[PrestwichBlade]

^ this is absolutely stupid. Why do we do it? It won't even be close to a sellout

It's one of the reasons I very rarely go now. I'm the sort of person who ideally would go 2 or 3 times a season, but it's just become a right old faff getting hold of tickets, so I just don't bother, unless someone I know has a spare and offers it up.

 

[bladesmanluke]

It's one of the reasons I very rarely go now. I'm the sort of person who ideally would go 2 or 3 times a season, but it's just become a right old faff getting hold of tickets, so I just don't bother, unless someone I know has a spare and offers it up.

Usually if I wanna take a mate who doesn't usually go I have to find someone on my friends and family list who isn't going and get a ticket in their name. It's an absolute ball ache

 

[Oohaah! Bob Bookah!]

Most fans haven't seen a Blades win for over a year.
My grandson is a season ticket holder and he missed the Wolves and Brentford games last season.
We were saying last week, he hasn't seem us win for going on 2 years ha ha.

When you consider how miserable the fanbase is....then over 26K average home fans for both matches is incredible support.
Imagine if SWFC had gone nearly a year without a win...their gates would now easily be below 20K.

United match day prices are one of the highest in the league, think they are 4th highest (behind Leeds, Sheff Wed and Middlesboro).

Our prices in general are 10% below Sheff Wed, so hardly reasonable ??????
It was £37 cheapest ticket on the Kop against QPR, £42 elsewhere, so over 27.5K with hardly any away fans is again excellent support.

Last season was the worse season in United's entire history, the fans have never been as low as last season....totally demoralising and not enjoyable.
This season there were rumours that almost every player would leave and we'd have a totally new team that might end up relegated.
Even the most positive fans had this season as a rebuilding exercise and were hopeful we could be comfortable mid table.
So to manage over 22,000 season ticket renewals is simply incredible support.

Sheff Wed have their greatest manager in years, everything on the up with massive positivity, with many expecting a promotion push
and barely scraped 18,000 season ticket holders. Now there's a realisation that SWFC wont win the league,
then crowds down at S6 will be back around the 24 to 25,000 mark again.

1981 says hello!

 

[Bladeloyal]

Nobody has more than four friends
The rest are just people that you know

Make one of your friends a fan liaison committee member .and bring the subject up with him or her

 

[MobileBlade]

It's one of the reasons I very rarely go now. I'm the sort of person who ideally would go 2 or 3 times a season, but it's just become a right old faff getting hold of tickets, so I just don't bother, unless someone I know has a spare and offers it up.

I'm not saying that it is not right, but we don't know what sort of restrictions the club has on ticket sales particularly since the kop fiasco two seasons ago. Having said that, if you have been to THREE games in the last what 15 years or so since the scheme was introduced then you can get tickets for most games with absolutely no issue. The club will give you 100 points if you ask them just for signing up. There are games galore where tickets are available to zero points where you can buy to get up points. The Wrexham game was 150 points, the Swansea game you just need to signed up and you get 150 points if you buy a ticket. Is it really that hard?

 

[Scoips]

Our ticket prices are not cheap. If you look at the prices for our next home game and the Wendy's next home game, they are virtually identical. Its over £40 to sit on the South Stand, nearly £40 on BLUT. That, and the ludicrous decision to demand loyalty points before being able to purchase tickets puts loads of people off. You can buy a membership and still not have enough points to buy a home match ticket! Its as if those making decisions in the ticket office want to sell as few tickets as possible. We must be the only club in the country that actively dissuades potential supporters from attending matches. The Wembley fiasco and before that the Forest play off semi, show the level of competence in the ticket office management. It will be interesting to see if new American owners (if they appear) are into the detail enough to change any of this. I think its down to Bettis and he should have sorted it out years ago. If we had a competent ticket marketing/sales team, we could easily get another 3-5,000 regular home fans.

 

[SRA76]

Are you sure you're a Blade. Sounds like something a Pig would write. There was 26500+ and 27000+ home Blades for the first 2 games. Hardly any away support . After last season I'd call that excellent against the opposition. You lot Pigs only had 24000 fans for their second game of the season against their second biggest rivals losing 4000 fans after thrashing Plymouth and having a miracle season. As for ticket prices, we are charging £36 Kop ticket for the next home game which is a Category A fixture while they are charging £37 for a Category B fixture.

I can assure you I’m probably more of a blade than you will ever know. lol. But I call bullshit when I see it. I always have always will. I. Don’t listen to stupidness from blades pigs Leeds or Liverpool fans. All my circle of mates. Tbf they all same. I can’t listen to bollox. It makes me laugh.

 

[UddersBlade]

You have to hope that if new owners come in they seriously take a look at our whole ‘ticketing policy’. I’m a season ticket holder & I can tell you when I have family / friends wanting to visit & go to a match it is really difficult to get tickets. I know health & safety is also very important but we really do seem to make it a lot harder than other clubs & I have no idea why.

 

[PrestwichBlade]

I'm not saying that it is not right, but we don't know what sort of restrictions the club has on ticket sales particularly since the kop fiasco two seasons ago. Having said that, if you have been to THREE games in the last what 15 years or so since the scheme was introduced then you can get tickets for most games with absolutely no issue. The club will give you 100 points if you ask them just for signing up. There are games galore where tickets are available to zero points where you can buy to get up points. The Wrexham game was 150 points, the Swansea game you just need to signed up and you get 150 points if you buy a ticket. Is it really that hard?

Probably not, no, but compared to other things (not including oasis!!), it seems unnecessarily complicated. I'll concede though, it's a couple of years since I last tried, so it may have improved. As a floating buyer as such, I guess I just want to be able to log in and buy a couple of tickets next to each other without too much fuss and need for everyone to be registered and have various points requirements etc. Perhaps it's me being unrealistic and I'd hold my hands up to that, but I can't imagine I'm alone in terms of potential ticket buyer.

 

[YES Blade]

I’ve always found it pretty simple and straightforward to use our online ticket sales system.

Yes, other tickets such a music gigs are easier to buy as only the person buying the tickets needs to give their details. But this is football and while ever there are people attending matches that can’t behave themselves, there will be a requirement for everyone to give their details for security reasons.

 

[Nedski]

To continue this ridiculous ticket situation, as I've mentioned in the Portsmouth away thread, it's been a right pain trying to get tickets.

Firstly, I get that regular attendees should get priority on buying tickets. Fair enough.

All I want is a ticket for myself, my son, and my dad. My dad is a season ticket holder but only has about 15k points. We've reached out to a friend with 60k points but he can only get two tickets, and seems to be having issues doing that. It'll be my son's first ever football match so obviously my dad would love to be there but we've gotta hope there's still tickets left for him tomorrow!

The one ticket thing just seems ridiculous. Even if it went to general for those with over 200pts, I can get one for myself (300 points) but looks like I can't get one for my son. Where the logic in that?

I assume the club are aware we have an awful system in place?

 

[Hobgoblin]

You have to hope that if new owners come in they seriously take a look at our whole ‘ticketing policy’. I’m a season ticket holder & I can tell you when I have family / friends wanting to visit & go to a match it is really difficult to get tickets. I know health & safety is also very important but we really do seem to make it a lot harder than other clubs & I have no idea why.

maybe new owners will put the prices up as they are investing for a return

 

[VictoryBlade]

To continue this ridiculous ticket situation, as I've mentioned in the Portsmouth away thread, it's been a right pain trying to get tickets.

Firstly, I get that regular attendees should get priority on buying tickets. Fair enough.

All I want is a ticket for myself, my son, and my dad. My dad is a season ticket holder but only has about 15k points. We've reached out to a friend with 60k points but he can only get two tickets, and seems to be having issues doing that. It'll be my son's first ever football match so obviously my dad would love to be there but we've gotta hope there's still tickets left for him tomorrow!

The one ticket thing just seems ridiculous. Even if it went to general for those with over 200pts, I can get one for myself (300 points) but looks like I can't get one for my son. Where the logic in that?

I assume the club are aware we have an awful system in place?

Don't bank on it, I'd email them direct and complain about it!

 

[Rocketmark66]

To continue this ridiculous ticket situation, as I've mentioned in the Portsmouth away thread, it's been a right pain trying to get tickets.

Firstly, I get that regular attendees should get priority on buying tickets. Fair enough.

All I want is a ticket for myself, my son, and my dad. My dad is a season ticket holder but only has about 15k points. We've reached out to a friend with 60k points but he can only get two tickets, and seems to be having issues doing that. It'll be my son's first ever football match so obviously my dad would love to be there but we've gotta hope there's still tickets left for him tomorrow!

The one ticket thing just seems ridiculous. Even if it went to general for those with over 200pts, I can get one for myself (300 points) but looks like I can't get one for my son. Where the logic in that?

I assume the club are aware we have an awful system in place?

I really think that these will go to general sale, so you should be fine getting the tickets that you need.

 

[ColinHill]

You hear this type of rip off pricing propaganda all the time.

The £52 cost is because he chose to go in the most expensive seats.....that's his choice.
If price is an issue then why not go in cheaper seats??

Also when we play Leeds it will be a A* match, that's £46 + £1 booking fee = £47
which again confirms there's only a 10% difference between our prices and there's.

Do you not think that £47 or £52 to watch second tier football is a rip off? Balls generally in play for 60 odd minutes. Not far off a quid a minute proper action??!

Not really bothered what the % differential is, think supporters of both teams who wish to go to games as and when they can are being ripped off. Sheffield is by no means a well off city, looking at half a days wage for a the 'average' worker just to buy a ticket, seems wrong to me that.

Obviously its in the news due to Villa's CL prices, but clubs need to think about what theyre doing. Pricing future generations out of the stadium, especially when its very simple to (illegally) stream matches. Bar Pigs, Leeds and Boxing Day unless we are pushing towards the end of the season for promotion United will get nowhere near selling out.

BL upper last season was mainly a tourist seating area, which is fine by me as clearly we couldnt sell all tickets to our fans only had to look at SS end of Kop every game to see there's loads left. Wont be many tourists coming this season. And the supporters who come now and again could easily be put off by the high level of ticket prices.

First two games id guess there were at least 4000 empty home supporter seats. Appreciate its been school holidays but if those seats were on for £15 for example more without a doubt would have been sold

 

[Cappy]

To continue this ridiculous ticket situation, as I've mentioned in the Portsmouth away thread, it's been a right pain trying to get tickets.

Firstly, I get that regular attendees should get priority on buying tickets. Fair enough.

All I want is a ticket for myself, my son, and my dad. My dad is a season ticket holder but only has about 15k points. We've reached out to a friend with 60k points but he can only get two tickets, and seems to be having issues doing that. It'll be my son's first ever football match so obviously my dad would love to be there but we've gotta hope there's still tickets left for him tomorrow!

The one ticket thing just seems ridiculous. Even if it went to general for those with over 200pts, I can get one for myself (300 points) but looks like I can't get one for my son. Where the logic in that?

I assume the club are aware we have an awful system in place?

If you call the ticket office, they are excellent and always wanting to help

 

[Sheffsteel]

1981 says hello!

1981
I went to half the home matches that season, we were comfortable mid table virtually the whole season.
Our away record that season was rubbish but our home record that season was really good: played 23 won 12 drawn 6 and lost just 5.
2 of those 5 defeats were our last 2 home matches of the season.

No one even thought about relegation. Even in the final week there needed to be a string of unlikely results for us to be relegated
but incredibly all the teams threatened with relegation started hitting promotion form in the last 3 weeks
and we were relegated on one of the highest ever points totals. We even went down on a +2 goal difference.

The end of the season was the lowest we've been in our history but the season it's self wasn't as demoralising or depressing as last season.

2023
Last season home record was played 19 won 2 drew 4 lost 13.
We scored 19 goals and conceded an incredibly bad 57 goals, that's averaging 3 goals conceded every single home game.

This must be the worse season in our history when before the match starts most of our fans are convinced we don't stand a chance.
What made it worse was ironically, under Wilder we started most matches really well, playing front foot football, giving it a go creating a few early chances. Then they'd catch us on the break and score with their 1st shot on goal. We've still push for an equaliser playing reasonably well
but we were too open at the back and would unluckily go 2-0 down. Then heads would drop and in the 2nd half we looked really poor.

Put it this way I've never known so many Blades walk out leaving matches at half-time, as there was last season.
I was watching matches with zero hope and accepting we have no chance, never known anything like it.
If we're promoted again....we'll be much better prepared next time and will at least be competitive.

 

[Keen Blade]

Usually if I wanna take a mate who doesn't usually go I have to find someone on my friends and family list who isn't going and get a ticket in their name. It's an absolute ball ache

It's almost as if the club don't understand how support grows.
A person doesn't suddenly say "I'm going to start being a Blades fan" all on their own. And go though all the computer registration bollox.
They get invited / encouraged to go by a friend and then maybe enjoy it and start to develop a liking for going.
So you have to make it easy for them to go on a casual basis at first.
So a registered Blade with a purchasing history should be allowed to buy an extra ticket or two for such friends without any faff.

 

[Cappy]

It's almost as if the club don't understand how support grows.
A person doesn't suddenly say "I'm going to start being a Blades fan" all on their own. And go though all the computer registration bollox.
They get invited / encouraged to go by a friend and then maybe enjoy it and start to develop a liking for going.
So you have to make it easy for them to go on a casual basis at first.
So a registered Blade with a purchasing history should be allowed to buy an extra ticket or two for such friends without any faff.

Isn’t it an FA/EFL thing?

 

[S64 Blade]

It's almost as if the club don't understand how support grows.
A person doesn't suddenly say "I'm going to start being a Blades fan" all on their own. And go though all the computer registration bollox.
They get invited / encouraged to go by a friend and then maybe enjoy it and start to develop a liking for going.
So you have to make it easy for them to go on a casual basis at first.
So a registered Blade with a purchasing history should be allowed to buy an extra ticket or two for such friends without any faff.

Exactly this. Unless it's through family, you're probably going to have to go through a year or two of being a casual fan, attending sporadically, to catch a bug for it.

I really do not understand why, especially for a low risk game like Derby, you need to have an account.

The last time I recall issues in the home end, with away fans, was when we beat Leeds in the league cup in 2002... 22 years ago... Even then, it was only a couple of blokes on John Street. Hardly a big issue.

 

[Shakespeare blade]

Our ticket prices are not cheap. If you look at the prices for our next home game and the Wendy's next home game, they are virtually identical. It’s over £40 to sit on the South Stand, nearly £40 on BLUT. That, and the ludicrous decision to demand loyalty points before being able to purchase tickets puts loads of people off. You can buy a membership and still not have enough points to buy a home match ticket! It’s as if those making decisions in the ticket office want to sell as few tickets as possible. We must be the only club in the country that actively dissuades potential supporters from attending matches. The Wembley fiasco and before that the Forest play off semi, show the level of competence in the ticket office management. It will be interesting to see if new American owners (if they appear) are into the detail enough to change any of this. I think it’s down to Bettis and he should have sorted it out years ago. If we had a competent ticket marketing/sales team, we could easily get another 3-5,000 regular home fans.

This , I struggled to get my son and myself tickets for Wembley, knowing it wasn’t going to come close to sell out, dragged it out way to long with families unsure if they could go, only have to look across the city and our porcine neighbours wheel out granny ffs who attends once every ten years, the ticketing for randoms like me is a nightmare to navigate, I rarely go for good reasons, when I do I try and bring my son, I have attended matches since 1986, have brick in the wall, buy merchandise every year, have had membership for me and my son and still struggle, students who’ve just rocked up in the city and the like need a pathway into our stands, it’s just to much dicking around, can’t make plans as you don’t know wether you can get a ticket, which we all know you can get at every single match this year.

 

[Sheffsteel]

Do you not think that £47 or £52 to watch second tier football is a rip off? Balls generally in play for 60 odd minutes. Not far off a quid a minute proper action??!

Not really bothered what the % differential is, think supporters of both teams who wish to go to games as and when they can are being ripped off. Sheffield is by no means a well off city, looking at half a days wage for a the 'average' worker just to buy a ticket, seems wrong to me that.

Obviously its in the news due to Villa's CL prices, but clubs need to think about what theyre doing. Pricing future generations out of the stadium, especially when its very simple to (illegally) stream matches. Bar Pigs, Leeds and Boxing Day unless we are pushing towards the end of the season for promotion United will get nowhere near selling out.

BL upper last season was mainly a tourist seating area, which is fine by me as clearly we couldnt sell all tickets to our fans only had to look at SS end of Kop every game to see there's loads left. Wont be many tourists coming this season. And the supporters who come now and again could easily be put off by the high level of ticket prices.

First two games id guess there were at least 4000 empty home supporter seats. Appreciate its been school holidays but if those seats were on for £15 for example more without a doubt would have been sold

Yes of course.....I think anything over £35 is a rip off. Most I'd pay is £30, that's why I feel like I've no choice but renew my season ticket.

My point was more about the Wednesday propaganda machine....making excuses for their lower crowds...of course there's always an excuse.
Even SRA76 has fallen for it hook line and sinker....my point was they do have rip off prices but so do we
and we'll still early average more than them again and that's with a much smaller away end.

Think the Prince is being clever.....he's looked at Sheff Wed pricing and slightly undercut them on everything, which makes business sense
but as their prices are so high...then it means our match day prices are also really high, the 4th highest prices in the Championship.
As you say Sheffield is a relatively poor area.....so it's madness that both clubs are charging such high prices.

Our prices were really high 2 seasons ago too when we averaged nearly 29,000 in the Championship
and that's when SAG closed down the back of the Kop from Nov to April reducing capacity to 30,200.
Most games that season were virtually home sell outs, excluding restricted views.

However these high match day prices have arguably proven to be a success on both sides of the city.
Match day prices are so high at SWFC, that if you intend to watch at least 50% of the matches then a season ticket on early bird is a no brainer.
Same with United, match day prices are so expensive but it makes the ST price look a bargain, resulting in over 22K season ticket sales.

I'm on the Kop and it was such a depressing season that loads around me were feeling 50/50 regards renewing their season tickets
but we all agreed, match prices are so expensive that season tickets seem cheap/ great value in comparison, so we all renewed.

 

[Keen Blade]

Exactly this. Unless it's through family, you're probably going to have to go through a year or two of being a casual fan, attending sporadically, to catch a bug for it.

I really do not understand why, especially for a low risk game like Derby, you need to have an account.

The last time I recall issues in the home end, with away fans, was when we beat Leeds in the league cup in 2002... 22 years ago... Even then, it was only a couple of blokes on John Street. Hardly a big issue.

If the purchase is being made by a Blade with an account and a purchase history , then I can't see the problem in he/she being able to buy one or two extra tickets for adjacent seats - the account holder being responsible for his/her "guests".

 

[S64 Blade]

If the purchase is being made by a Blade with an account and a purchase history , then I can't see the problem in he/she being able to buy one or two extra tickets for adjacent seats - the account holder being responsible for his/her "guests".

Exactly.

Even so, new customers should be able to buy tickets for any game other than say Wednesday, Leeds, Forest. Once it’s gone through the points brackets (which shouldn’t be dragged out over weeks).

I’ve not been a member at loads of foreign sides’ and been able to sign up and buy a ticket with no issues. I don’t know why we’re more precious about this compared to some of the biggest clubs in Europe.