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Can tickets be too cheap


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£65 is too cheap, this working class thing doesn’t wash, there’s 100,000’s following football up north every week all under 30 spending more that £65 on a Saturday.

Cheap prices only attracts a certain market, the game consistently cheapens itself. If the product and the game day experience is good (not just the 80 minutes) people will come and happily spend money.

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8 hours ago, POR said:

But your only telling half the story

It's £65 for under 30's including juniors

They are selling others at £125 for over 30's including concessions

They are also selling  some season tickets for £90 and £220

That seems more reasonable. Adult season tickets for my team, Canberra Raiders, start at around £100.

Clubs also need lots of match day money-making opportunities too.

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9 hours ago, Sir Kevin Sinfield said:

I see Huddersfield Giants have started selling season tickets at £65 for Adults!

This is far too cheap, sadly they seem to have no ideas to draw in home fans other than rock bottom prices.

No doubt they’ll still ask away fans to pay £24, over a third of the price of a season ticket and not far of half the price. Scandalous.

My ticket for the Leeds v Hull KR game costs £32. I bought 2 so that's pretty much a season ticket at Hudds there and then.

Hudds do this every year and it never works, the public of Huddersfield just do not want to pay money to watch Huddersfield Giants.

With Ken Davy around Hudds can compete in the bottom half of Super League. Without him they would be a League 1 club.

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2 hours ago, northamptoncougar said:

£65 is too cheap, this working class thing doesn’t wash

Cheap prices only attracts a certain market, the game consistently cheapens itself. 

Exactly. We appear to attract the Weatherspoons/Caravan Park demographic, and virtually nobody else. 

While these people are an important core group, the sport will remain marginalised and invisible if it does not widen, and become more popular with (even slightly) wealthier sections of society.

The size of the broadcast deal tells us all we need to know about how advertiser's perceive the sport.

 

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1 hour ago, Johnoco said:

If only RL could attract a quarter of the ‘Wetherspoons Crowd’ it would be in a much better position. But I suppose we don’t want those dreadful people near RL, much better to hold out for the Guardian crowd. 

Fortunately, the Political Sub Forum People's Rebellion Coalition cadre don't run the game. 😃

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1 hour ago, Johnoco said:

If only RL could attract a quarter of the ‘Wetherspoons Crowd’ it would be in a much better position. But I suppose we don’t want those dreadful people near RL, much better to hold out for the Guardian crowd. 

Suppose you gave a culture war and nobody came?

Huddersfield are charging Wetherspoon's prices but not getting a crowd ... is that a good thing, do you think? If it's not just the price then what's going on?

Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. (Terry Pratchett)

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Good luck to Huddersfield, they are at least doing something, Bradford City were being held up as a good example recently and their tickets are cheap. 

At a business level it does feel a little extreme to me - even the £125 full price ticket is half the price of a standard full price SL season ticket. If you are going to halve your prices you need to see a 100% uplift really, whereas I suspect the uplifts are far lower than that. 

I often make the point, we need a wider range of experiences and prices - cheap prices for the cheap seats, and then premium offerings with a better experience for those happy to pay it. We need to diversify our market to cater for less affluent, but have an offering for the more affluent and aspirational markets. 

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9 hours ago, DimmestStar said:

My ticket for the Leeds v Hull KR game costs £32. I bought 2 so that's pretty much a season ticket at Hudds there and then.

Hudds do this every year and it never works, the public of Huddersfield just do not want to pay money to watch Huddersfield Giants.

With Ken Davy around Hudds can compete in the bottom half of Super League. Without him they would be a League 1 club.

How do you know "it never works"

What is it the club are trying to achieve by it "never working"?

As for you last paragraph, wouldn't it be true of most clubs without owners?

Isn't that the whole point of having money men owning the clubs?

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15 minutes ago, Johnoco said:

Bradford City do not have particularly cheap tickets .

They are certainly at the lower end of what I have seen. 

For adults they charge £198, versus £250-380 at Northampton and £306-391 at Forest Green. 

What's clear is that there are wild variations in pricing based on loads of factors. 

Where I think Hudds could work is if they go big on all other aspects of themselves as a source of entertainment. In effect, with prices like this they have ruled out the excuse of the prices being too high. Pretty much nobody can claim that. So if you go big on match day experience, catering, player signings, communication etc then you will have a good reflection of demand and interest in your club, without price sensitivity being a factor. If the only thing they are doing is putting out cheap tickets then I think it will fail. 

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31 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Where I think Hudds could work is if they go big on all other aspects of themselves as a source of entertainment. In effect, with prices like this they have ruled out the excuse of the prices being too high. Pretty much nobody can claim that. So if you go big on match day experience, catering, player signings, communication etc then you will have a good reflection of demand and interest in your club, without price sensitivity being a factor. If the only thing they are doing is putting out cheap tickets then I think it will fail. 

That's the key point for me. Huddersfield have tinkered with their pricing for a long time now and I don't think it has made a discernible difference to crowds. So it's fair to ask "what's different about this time?" And if they do succeed in pulling in punters with these deals, how do they then convert those punters into "full price" payers. 

As the saying goes, turnover is vanity.... 

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16 hours ago, whatmichaelsays said:

The objective is sound, but I think it's fair to question if, and how, Huddersfield have concluded that price is the thing that's keeping under-30s away. If it is, then great. But if it isn't, all that the you do is end up giving away margin, developing a reputation where supporters come to expect a perpetual stream of discounts and having less money to invest in areas like match experience. 

You might attract some new supporters, but if you don't meet their expectations in terms of what they want from a day/night out, all you do is establish Giants games as "a cheap thing to do" - and those usually end up becoming "a cheap thing to stop bothering with". 

I don't think you can just write-off Huddersfield Town's growth in this area as being down to cheap tickets. Speaking to people who I know are Town fans, there has been a big emphasis on enhancing the matchday experience and it's that that is making Town games events that people want to go to. 

Again, the first two paragraphs could and probably is true of RL as a whole, not just Huddersfield?

It seems people are using the ills of the game, the cheap ticket culture which is prevalent across the sport as yet another stick to beat Huddersfield with, which is unfair IMO,

As for the last paragraph, I wasn't insinuating the only reason for Town's crowd increases was cheap tickets, it was a combination of a feel good factor around the way Hoyle and Jarvis etc marketed the club, an improvement of fortunes on the field,they also attracted a huge amount of fairweather/armchair fans who would watch the big clubs on TV but who suddenly realised they could watch their local team for £20 etc, they also created a sense of belonging at Town, which has all but dissipated now, but there was a real feelgood factor, they did things right, lure people in, but keep them in with a good product on and off the field, as I've alluded to, sadly the Giants don't seem capable of that.

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To be fair to the Giants, we used to have our home gamedays as Sundays, that worked fairly well when we introduced the cheap season tickets, it was affordable for families, there was a good matchday experience for them, the entertainment on the field was good, we had a good team who were competing at the top end and we had increased our average crowds to over 7,000, unthinkable even 10 years previously.

We (Ken) then decided he wanted to follow the Leeds model, where we moved to Friday nights and targeted the corporates and 18-30's to offer them a night out experience, the idea being that those children who came with their families would then grow into the next generation of fans, the ones who would make a night out of it at the rugby etc.

Unfortunately, that age group drifted away from the club, from the game as a whole and lots of them have never returned, however, the corporate side of things seems to have done well, the dilemma the club face is who and what they market the games at?

By offering the cheaper tickets to under 30's it still appears we are going down this route, but again, it doesn't seem to be working due to lack of marketing or ideas by the club, the same ideas that Huddersfield Town were able to put to use aren't there at the Giants.

Sadly, Sunday gamedays seem to be a thing of the past due to the 5 day turnaround criteria now, so it looks like we're stuck!

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1 hour ago, Dave T said:

They are certainly at the lower end of what I have seen. 

For adults they charge £198, versus £250-380 at Northampton and £306-391 at Forest Green. 

What's clear is that there are wild variations in pricing based on loads of factors. 

Where I think Hudds could work is if they go big on all other aspects of themselves as a source of entertainment. In effect, with prices like this they have ruled out the excuse of the prices being too high. Pretty much nobody can claim that. So if you go big on match day experience, catering, player signings, communication etc then you will have a good reflection of demand and interest in your club, without price sensitivity being a factor. If the only thing they are doing is putting out cheap tickets then I think it will fail. 

The Bradford City and Forest Green supporter demographics are from different planets tbf.  

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1 hour ago, meast said:

Again, the first two paragraphs could and probably is true of RL as a whole, not just Huddersfield?

It seems people are using the ills of the game, the cheap ticket culture which is prevalent across the sport as yet another stick to beat Huddersfield with, which is unfair IMO,

As for the last paragraph, I wasn't insinuating the only reason for Town's crowd increases was cheap tickets, it was a combination of a feel good factor around the way Hoyle and Jarvis etc marketed the club, an improvement of fortunes on the field,they also attracted a huge amount of fairweather/armchair fans who would watch the big clubs on TV but who suddenly realised they could watch their local team for £20 etc, they also created a sense of belonging at Town, which has all but dissipated now, but there was a real feelgood factor, they did things right, lure people in, but keep them in with a good product on and off the field, as I've alluded to, sadly the Giants don't seem capable of that.

If you're making the case that Huddersfield are a bit of an easy target to gang up on here, you'd have a very fair point. But it's also fair to say that Huddersfield have arguably made themselves that easy target with what seems to be a perpetually confused and erratic ticket pricing policy. 

But I think it's fair to say that if the cheap season tickets don't work, then what? Where does the club go from there? As you say yourself, the club seems incapable of enhancing the matchday experience to appeal to those younger demographics and, unless Davy is prepared to subsidise that investment, giving away margin on ticket sales is only going to make investment in that area even harder. 

 

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"Research into how cost affects our perceptions shows that price matters so much to our understanding of value that we sometimes rate pricey things as superior or more effective, even if they are the exact same quality as the less expensive option."

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20171006-the-psychology-behind-spending-big

There is absolutely such a thing as too cheap. Offering a range of experiences at different price points allows for different types of customers and their needs. A £20 ticket on match day will work for some.

Others clearly will want the more exclusive expensive option that allows them to show off to their mates about how they spent 20 mins talking to Ken Davy last night.

It's about how the Giants respond to those very different markets overall to increase turnover and margins.

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9 minutes ago, tiffers said:

"Research into how cost affects our perceptions shows that price matters so much to our understanding of value that we sometimes rate pricey things as superior or more effective, even if they are the exact same quality as the less expensive option."

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20171006-the-psychology-behind-spending-big

There is absolutely such a thing as too cheap. Offering a range of experiences at different price points allows for different types of customers and their needs. A £20 ticket on match day will work for some.

Others clearly will want the more exclusive expensive option that allows them to show off to their mates about how they spent 20 mins talking to Ken Davy last night.

It's about how the Giants respond to those very different markets overall to increase turnover and margins.

Agreed - I always bang on about having a range of options.

I went to a music festival in Warrington a couple of weeks ago. The ticket price was £150 for three days. We upgraded and paid £265 for VIP tickets. In reality we got little - we got a private area with a viewing platform, and a place where you could go to the toilet and bar without queuing, fasttrack access and some comfy seating areas. 

And we will upgrade again next time without question. 

Finding those nuggets that people see value in are priceless, and that is what we should be focusing on.

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24 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Agreed - I always bang on about having a range of options.

I went to a music festival in Warrington a couple of weeks ago. The ticket price was £150 for three days. We upgraded and paid £265 for VIP tickets. In reality we got little - we got a private area with a viewing platform, and a place where you could go to the toilet and bar without queuing, fasttrack access and some comfy seating areas. 

And we will upgrade again next time without question. 

Finding those nuggets that people see value in are priceless, and that is what we should be focusing on.

Precisely how all clubs should be pricing their match days through to season tickets. The value you perceive in not having to queue or to wait whilst busting for the loo is worth it in your eyes. Others wont value you that as much and subsequently quite happy to queue. I'm a bit like how you describe and would def be upgrading in those circumstances! Similarly I'll upgrade regularly on trains, airport lounges, Club Wembley (when at CC finals) etc.

In RL terms, when I manage to make the epic journey from the deep south west to Headingley, it's such a bloody long way that I always pay for some kind of upgraded experience. A bog standard experience just wouldnt justify the journey and energy it takes to get there. If you're a student that happens to live just off Kirkstall Lane then you may well be quite content with the match ticket alone. I sure as hell was back then!

The danger point comes when you start to price yourself so low, in the lower ticket categories, that those customers perceive this as too cheap/low value to the point its so easy to not bother turning up "its only a few quid". Or psychologically they get so used to paying so little that any price movement is a major hurdle as their perceived value is so low. Unless you are driving other revenues from that group then you may well have to swallow the fact you'll lose a proportion of those exceptionally price sensitive customers when you do eventually have to move the price. Either intentionally as part of a long term strategy, or just through sheer inflationary pressures!

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Nothing wrong with trying different pricing. 

I'd just question two things:

- Huddersfield have been doing this (perhaps intermittently) for ages without a massive obvious effect. 

- It seems odd/wasteful to me to charge someone £65 for something they would happily pay £250+ for.

Either way it's for Huddersfield to decide what is going to work for them and what they can afford.

I can confirm 30+ less sales for Scotland vs Italy at Workington, after this afternoons test purchase for the Tonga match, £7.50 is extremely reasonable, however a £2.50 'delivery' fee for a walk in purchase is beyond taking the mickey, good luck with that, it's cheaper on the telly.

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Two things that, I think, are worth noting although I don't necessarily know if they're relevant here:

(1) The very successful Bradford City model does a great deal about breaking down both the basic price and upgrades into a monthly and quarterly model and then quoting those prices. (So, for example, the first upgrade to the ticket isn't referred to as costing £120 but, depending on plan, either £10pm or £30 per quarter). I'd not seen that so clearly with regards to a season ticket before.

(2) A lot of what people are talking about on here with regards to event price points and deals/upgrades relates very specifically to one-off events. Perhaps there's more in that with regards to young people than tying them to a season-long deal, whatever the price of that.

Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. (Terry Pratchett)

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14 hours ago, The Frying Scotsman said:

Exactly. We appear to attract the Weatherspoons/Caravan Park demographic, and virtually nobody else. 

While these people are an important core group, the sport will remain marginalised and invisible if it does not widen, and become more popular with (even slightly) wealthier sections of society.

The size of the broadcast deal tells us all we need to know about how advertiser's perceive the sport.

 

That’s true about most clubs but Leeds have a big number of corporate attendees at every game. They’ve worked hard to build it up over many years and expanded the corporate capacity massively with the stadium renovations. 

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2 hours ago, ATLANTISMAN said:

Making tickets too cheap.sends out all the wrong vibes.

NEVER 

Sensible affordable pricing yes 

 

P

The problem we have is when I look at Wires pricing for the playoff next week. Its a quarter final, and I'm sure it will be a great game, but we'll probably get around 6k. The tickets are full price, and it'll be a bit of a damp squib. 

I know these are SL events so the clubs are a little limited, but I hate the fact that non-season ticket games like this and the cup are so empty. 

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