I suppose it’s more above board dodginess, they’ve never hid their aims and business model from day one..

100% Restore Blues Bar to its former glory, utilise the ‘Fan Zone’ outside the BEnd much better. Plenty to work with on our own footprint without buying bloody pubs!

We usually sell more than PNE, so he is dubious that they will suddenly sell more than us this year. Fair enough position to take. But he wasn’t aware of their enticing pricing and the figures they are publishing on their own official website, until we told him, so it’s fairly obvious that they have overtaken us, and why, but he still won’t have it!

Of course there are success stories. However, bit of a silly comparison, McGrath and Keane were playing in the first team of English top flight big boys at a way younger age. Keane was 19 at Forest and already on the way to being a big star. All the others were also playing in the PL regularly in their early 20s. This lad is 24 and couldn’t get a game in a middling Championship side last season. He might turn out to be a decent squad man and there’s no harm in having him around as he’ll be on buttons. But let’s be realistic, we need to be upping our standards on recruitment if we want to compete at this level.

Or maybe bring in players with a better pedigree than 24 year olds from semi pro leagues?

Can you clarify this point you keep making about Preston? ‘Crest of a wave’, ‘highest point they’ve been in years’ etc. They really weren’t on one, they finished 13th, never had even a sniff of the top 6, it was one of their worst seasons in years. Their fans were certainly not happy in the run in. Without cheap tickets they would’ve sold their standard 7/8k. Their spike is purely on price (plus a very proactive marketing campaign). Rovers are a different club with different issues, however post JDT we are also on a bit of a ‘wave’, therefore I believe a £300/£325-ish entry point (note not Bolton style £219, or even PNE £280), would have harnessed that spike much more than our actual entry point of £400 to £430. Also charging potential new and retuning ST holders more is a bizarre way to try and grow, very Royston Vasey. One product, one price. Lets hope everything we’ve seen across the local clubs this summer and the struggles here is food for thought next summer (though unfortunately I believe SW is far too entrenched in his thinking to change course now).

No, but he’s 24 and has played just one dead rubber game outside a semi-pro league, a very big ask to now try and make it at Championship level, at least academy grads have the excuse of being ‘kids’.

So you weren’t happy with the price then, as you want to see the fanbase grow and this ain’t the way to do it, me too, and I also bought one in April. P.s how about not having me or a dozen other folk on ignore and just try having a debate

‘Led to believe’, it’s literally on their club website (12,000, by the way, not 13, but perhaps they’ll hit that by KO). If you don’t bother looking at what other clubs have sold, fair enough, but you can’t then come on here making comparisons! Its not a ‘miracle’, they were just offering tickets £120 to £150 cheaper in the ‘normal stands’ than us.

No you weren’t, you made multiple posts outlining how you would have priced it much cheaper with examples.

Yet we’ve sold substantially less than them, which is a bit odd considering it’s a fair price and a significantly better product…

Yes Biz, I understand turnover. A middle ground is all I’m after, I.e not giving them away, but not an entry price of £400/£430 up to £500 to £530 that is at the very top end of Championship pricing either.

I specifically said ours don’t need to be that cheap up the page.

Yes, I’ve just replied to that. Seats even at ‘entry price’’ at Ewood is £100+ more expensive, nearly £200 more than Bolton.

I’m talking non ST holders and post early bird, I.e trying to grow the actual base.

Ok £399 to £429 in BBEnd and Riverside early bird. £280 at PNE, £219 for standard stands at Bolton.

Point scoring? With who? I’m giving my view. It’s a forum. Nowt wrong with pricing? Second most expensive early bird in the league says wrong, £530 a ticket in the JWU says wrong, c7k sales when the club went into panic mode and they had to extend early bird for a second time says wrong. It is what it is at this stage, but to say it isn’t expensive in a town like this is a ridiculous statement when we are £100s pounds more than our local peers and thousands of sales down despite a universally positively heralded managerial appointment and buzz around the fanbase.

Burnley are a red herring, they are keeping hold of residual PL support as most relegated teams do for a while. So I’m not really paying much attention to them. However, in what way are PNE ‘close to the highest they’ve been in years’? They just had their standard mid table second division finish, they’ve been generally where they are now give or take a spell in L1 for twenty years. They’ve sold significantly more because their tickets were reduced significantly, simple as that. For us, it’s a little more nuanced, I believe we need a bit of excitement over appointments/signings or a good season the year before to get some momentum - plus cheaper (not cheap) STs, I.e early bird tickets that aren’t some of the most expensive in the league, this gives you a chance of a big spike. So, the buzz and positivity need to go together with enticing pricing. In 2014/15 we reduced pricing on the back of some decent signings and just finishing out the playoffs under Bowyer - we then sold our most we have in any season between 2012 and now. On the flip side, If we had reduced prices this summer and TM had just been given another year or some scrap heap manager has turned up - no spike. You need to be canny with it. We’ve had half a spike on the back of JDT alone - now in my opinion, if that was coupled with an entry point of say £300/£350 up to £400-ish instead of £429 up to £529 we would be north of 10k already with five weeks to push for more. We are never seeing big sales again outside the PL, but four figure sales? Of course we can do better than that

That paragraph is literally it. Unfortunately, four years in the present CEO still doesn’t get it…

‘50 men’?! Thought it was ‘act like 10 men?’ This inflation ay! 😁

After half ST sales we weren’t actually far from that in the second half of last season. I suppose it depends on how many of those who bought them in the BEnd have renewed, many of them were young lads that are obviously key to atmosphere.

Most things a football club does doesn’t ‘turn a profit’, but they are all part and parcel of a football club, from the Premier League to the Northern Premier. A club at our level exists on owner largesse and TV money, the pennies you are losing on a bloody fortnightly bit of paper is neither here nor there, but symptomatic of a hierarchy that has no interest in the match day experience as one look around the ground tells you. Though maybe we should try and ‘turn a profit’ on the likes of Rothwell and Lenihan instead of consistently reducing what is on offer at Ewood for a saving of buttons, though I imagine the later goes down well on Swag’s profit and loss reports, the former, ‘well, what can you do?’

Still a long way from 10k, only possible if a high percentage of the 2.2k existing season ticket holders who hadn’t renewed by last weekend now do so. Is, say 9k an achievement for a club that wasn’t far off 20k when this lot bought the club? Or even had near 11k under Bowyer? Of course not, however it is bloody preferable to the appalling 6,995 we crawled to last summer and it would get us over the 8.5k we finished the season with, so it’s something to build on. It’s frustrating as we have seen an absolutely horrendous looking seating plan last Monday have a sustained spike since JDT’s appointment, plus the club now postponing the £30 surcharge for a second time can only help, but that spike will still probably see us only with four figures sales, and considerably under other local clubs, just imagine what this positive vibe could’ve seen us sell with attractive pricing! But what it does show is how vital it was the club changed direction, another year of Mowbray or some manager from the managerial scrap heap would without doubt seen a sub 7k total. The next step is in future summers to ensure any momentum around the club (and therefore fan excitement) and enticing pricing go together and just watch sales fly! (alas we would also need a new direction in the CEO chair for that to be a possibility).

‘Yeah so my stats say you can ignore all those comments on brfcs about supposed failures re ticketing policy, they are just a bunch of moaners and half of them don’t even go, so crack on Steve. Same time next week?’

Yep, that many of us turned up at the ticket office they opened up the Blackburn End concourse! I was a lucky one.