(h) v Middlesbrough League (Carabao) Cup 3rd Round - Tue 26 September 2023 7.45pm

It’s annoying but I guess the club have to pay fees to the company who operate and manage the ticketing site.
A. It could be a fixed figure
Or
B. It could have been agreed to be on a per ticket sold basis.

who knows, but nothing is free in life.

as a side note I see Boro have sold all their 4000 tickets yet looking at our sales on the seat plan it’s looking quite empty.

 

Maybe it’s the football we are seeing under Hughes holding custom back ? No matter the price,if the football is boring then word gets around and season ticket holders even hold back.

 

Correct, sometimes time is worth more than money.
This game could be free entry and I still doubt it would be full.

 

I know what you’re saying but somebody somewhere maintains that ticketing website and BCFC will need to pay for it. The 1.50 fees per ticket is probably how they’ve decided to accommodate those costs.
Alternatively, you could visit the ticket office in person and pay zero fees and zero postage but I’d hazard a guess that the time, inconvenience and petrol/travel costs of doing so would be greater than the £1.50 web sales fee.

 

I phoned the ticket office who were excellent and only paid £5 each ticket. I couldn’t sort out the online tickets.

 

The problem if everyone started doing that to save £1.50 is that phone lines would be permanently busy and ticket office staff overwhelmed.

 

The ticketing company need to make their money so they put a fee per ticket which also covers the cost of the transaction. When they input the details in person, ticketing companies don't charge for that and card fees are with someone else. Our deal with Advanced ticketing expires this season and they are pulling out of football so we will have a new provider next season.

 

Yes I know. I didn’t go because I wanted to save myself £3. I was highlighting the good services but nothing to pay. It was a question of do I jack buying tickets altogether or ring up!

 

I think you’ve highlighted how people think. You see this automation as free and should be no cost but what about the software developers and IT backend people who keep it running? Should they work for free?
Would you buy a bag of nails and some wood from B&Q then expect a joiner to build you a fence for free?
Or would it work better for you if those bag of nails cost you £500 and the joiner was included?

where there is a service, there’s a cost however it’s hidden or not hidden in the case of BCFC tickets.

 

Regardless of the poor football had we been playing one of the ‘top 6’ it would be a sell out. VP is always poorly attended in the early rounds. I remember in 16/17 playing some great football under McCall the first round of the FA cup against Accrington was terribly attended, may as well have been a pre season friendly.

 

I do get what you’re talking about but unless Bradford City are willing to pay whatever the costs are of operating the ticketing site and not pass this cost onto their customers, then we are stuck with this ‘tax’ on the product at point of sale.

it’s the same as shops imposing a minimum spend for card payments to cover the transaction costs. That might even be banned now.

but like I say, we can always go back to the dark ages where you had to visit the ticket office in person.

 

Wilsden, I did say 'Maybe' but I have my own evidence of the boredom of Hughes football and it is my own season ticket brother who usually would buy a ticket for this sort of game even at full price with his lad have better things to do when it comes to City at the moment.

I know it's a very small sample but I hear it around me on the kop about the football and I think the last 5 or 6 years of awful footy is catching up with some people and I put my brother in that bracket but I will be there

 

The sales fee is a joke. It should be per transaction not per ticket

 

Or simply advertise the ticket at a price including the sales fee.

 

And if you pop into VP to buy, the club make more, happy days

 

The intent of automation is to save operating costs and mitigate risk.
By automating, you create benefits to the customer and improve the customer journey.
You don’t then pass on the cost of the saving to the end customer. You automate to control price increases or reduce prices.
Anybody who adds costs off the back of automation are taking the mickey.
If automation costs more then it’s not offering any improvement.
City are charging us to save them money.