RAWA Supporter's collective meeting with SAFC - March 12th

Guinness Guzzler

Guinness Guzzler

Striker
SMB RAWA Rep.
I see the thread from the previous meeting has been bumped so thought I'd just start a fresh one for the next meeting which has now been confirmed for the 12th of March.

Apologies, just busy at work at the minute but I'll reply to the ticketing thread later on this evening. Basically there's nothing much yet to report, but to be fair to the club at least they're listening and the new ticket office manager seemed eager to implement improvements, albeit it'll be next season before things change (which I know won't be popular especially in terms of point bracket drops). But aye I'll get to that in a bit!
 


Just going to add about ticketing here:

Yesterday I went for a meeting with Rob Holmes, who is the relatively new ticket office manager at the club.

There's not an awful lot to report back on because this was an initial discussion and they were using it very much as a listening exercise, which is fair enough. There were only 3 fans there because he wants to meet a few different people/ groups in smaller numbers (rightly he probably thinks it would be a bit harder to have a decent conversation with too many involved at once).

The idea is that he hears from people over the next couple of weeks to get feedback and then there'll be a larger workshop in March where they'll discuss what they can do, prioritise things and I believe make some firm commitments.

Just to temper expectations, the plan is to improve things for next season, so unfortunately there won't be changes immediately (including the phases for away games, although I did say it would be a very popular move if it was amended now).

I brought up everything from the ticketing thread (better communication needed, more resource, less big drops between phases, ability to purchase more than 7 tickets in a transaction, someone answering a phone, the issue with time dropping when you get to the basket, expanding it to include apple pay/ pay pal, how away tickets are allocated, ease of using the ticketmaster site for purchasing etc).

It sounds like they're happy to make changes and there will be a budget for it. Also sounds like he's keen to make sure they get it right. Lots of people are being spoken to, including some fans who aren't part of any group etc which I think is important. My opinion is that they deserve a bit of benefit of the doubt on this one and I'll wait and see what concrete improvements come in for next season but, as of now, pretty much everything is on the table. For me, the bloke was very happy to listen, understood frustrations, and is very keen to improve things so that he can feel he's made an impact and made things better for the supporters, he was a decent fella.

One thing I brought up is allocations, and specifically whether our approach to away fans is harming our allocations. Robert said that this is categorically not the case. We offer clubs three options (I believe 2950 was the highest figure). Very few sell that many and most take a lower allocation. He confirmed that we always take the highest allocation that we're offered and will continue to do so. The minimum clubs have to offer us is 2000 and he says its just unfortunate that we're in a run where we're playing clubs who won't offer much more. In some cases it's because the likes of Southampton have something to play for and are trying to sell to their fans and keep away numbers low. Anyway, I'm sure people will have their own thoughts on that, but that's the message from the club, we take as many as we can get and we aren't being punished by any club for the measures at the SoL.

I'll update as much as I can when further meetings are held, and obviously when concrete decisions are made the club will presumably want to announce them.

Non digital option will 100% be available as per the collective meeting discussion. Again, one of the things we'll be discussing is making that as easy a process as possible so people aren't having to queue, and making sure it's not just a white piece of card that looks like it opens a hotel room door.
 
Guinness Guzzler said:
Just going to add about ticketing here:

Yesterday I went for a meeting with Rob Holmes, who is the relatively new ticket office manager at the club.

There's not an awful lot to report back on because this was an initial discussion and they were using it very much as a listening exercise, which is fair enough. There were only 3 fans there because he wants to meet a few different people/ groups in smaller numbers (rightly he probably thinks it would be a bit harder to have a decent conversation with too many involved at once).

The idea is that he hears from people over the next couple of weeks to get feedback and then there'll be a larger workshop in March where they'll discuss what they can do, prioritise things and I believe make some firm commitments.

Just to temper expectations, the plan is to improve things for next season, so unfortunately there won't be changes immediately (including the phases for away games, although I did say it would be a very popular move if it was amended now).

I brought up everything from the ticketing thread (better communication needed, more resource, less big drops between phases, ability to purchase more than 7 tickets in a transaction, someone answering a phone, the issue with time dropping when you get to the basket, expanding it to include apple pay/ pay pal, how away tickets are allocated, ease of using the ticketmaster site for purchasing etc).

It sounds like they're happy to make changes and there will be a budget for it. Also sounds like he's keen to make sure they get it right. Lots of people are being spoken to, including some fans who aren't part of any group etc which I think is important. My opinion is that they deserve a bit of benefit of the doubt on this one and I'll wait and see what concrete improvements come in for next season but, as of now, pretty much everything is on the table. For me, the bloke was very happy to listen, understood frustrations, and is very keen to improve things so that he can feel he's made an impact and made things better for the supporters, he was a decent fella.

One thing I brought up is allocations, and specifically whether our approach to away fans is harming our allocations. Robert said that this is categorically not the case. We offer clubs three options (I believe 2950 was the highest figure). Very few sell that many and most take a lower allocation. He confirmed that we always take the highest allocation that we're offered and will continue to do so. The minimum clubs have to offer us is 2000 and he says its just unfortunate that we're in a run where we're playing clubs who won't offer much more. In some cases it's because the likes of Southampton have something to play for and are trying to sell to their fans and keep away numbers low. Anyway, I'm sure people will have their own thoughts on that, but that's the message from the club, we take as many as we can get and we aren't being punished by any club for the measures at the SoL.

I'll update as much as I can when further meetings are held, and obviously when concrete decisions are made the club will presumably want to announce them.

Non digital option will 100% be available as per the collective meeting discussion. Again, one of the things we'll be discussing is making that as easy a process as possible so people aren't having to queue, and making sure it's not just a white piece of card that looks like it opens a hotel room door.
Click to expand...
Thank you for your efforts.
 
Why does it take till next season to amend phases? Club X allocates us 3000 tickets, phase 1 starts 40 then 30 then 20. What is difficult about that and why does it need to wait till next season? He’s talking utter shite.
 

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