Why has Cardiff not sold out?

[kdncfc 27]

Looking at the online ticketing there looks to be a few hundred tickets still avaliable, second v third in the league I would have thought this game would comfortably sell out. Cardiff sent some back but there''s still a few left in other parts of the ground, is it cos people are skint after Chrimbo?

[DOGGER 0]

No enough sheep to tempt them over

[CharlieFarlie 0]

I am also very surprised , Sure it will sell out by kick off

[Canary_on_the Trent 0]

Easy for season ticket holders to question why it''s not sold out but the casual ticket prices are very high now and many people simply cant afford it, especially after Christmas.

[coops 0]

Ticket prices are far too high for championship football. All those extra seats that were installed  were a waste of time and we are in a recession.

[Canary_on_the Trent 0]

Not a waste of time when the club are making more money than before because of the price increases.

[Gingerpele 0]

Were not in a recession.......Everyone still has money.

And ticket prices aren''t ''far too high'' Earlier in the season, someone posted up averages from all the championship clubs, and although we were high up, we weren''t the highest!

Its quite simple, if its too much for you don''t go. The club are trying to make enough money, to pay of debt and to give Lambert money to spend on new players, charging £15 for a 2nd vs 3rd game in the championship, wouldn''t help that ..

(even £25... 25 x 26,500 = £662, 500......... £33 x 20,000= £660,000... So even at 20,000, which is less that will be sold, the club will be making only a little bit less, but add the extra 4,000 on top of that (there will be at least 24,000) Thats another £132,000.... Oh look more expensive prices, even if 1/2000 less people, makes more money!)

[Yellow Rider 0]

[quote user="Gingerpele"]Were not in a recession.......Everyone still has money. And ticket prices aren''t ''far too high'' Earlier in the season, someone posted up averages from all the championship clubs, and although we were high up, we weren''t the highest! Its quite simple, if its too much for you don''t go. The club are trying to make enough money, to pay of debt and to give Lambert money to spend on new players, charging £15 for a 2nd vs 3rd game in the championship, wouldn''t help that .. (even £25... 25 x 26,500 = £662, 500......... £33 x 20,000= £660,000... So even at 20,000, which is less that will be sold, the club will be making only a little bit less, but add the extra 4,000 on top of that (there will be at least 24,000) Thats another £132,000.... Oh look more expensive prices, even if 1/2000 less people, makes more money!)[/quote]

You might have mate but a lot of people are now losing jobs (or will soon) and many are having zilch by way of pay inrease whilst fuel prices and general cost of living rises inexorably. Note - I''m not a rabble rousing ''left winger'', quite the opposite in fact!  

Your basic maths is spot on but the fact is that our casual prices are too high and we are ripping customers off. Cardiff are being fleeced for £33 tomorrow I believe? Too expensive when added to the coach fare, petrol cost etc.

I''ll give you another example. I have a friend and his son both Nowich fans who now live near York. Two casual tickets for Blades game at Christmas cost £64!!! (Jarrold stand). The return next week will cost them £33.50! Now you can spin that however you want but that is an astonishing and quite frankly embarrassing difference. Oh yes I forgot they could pay to be members and wpuld have ''saved'' a wopping £4!!

NCFC casual prices are over the top. That may not be an issue at the moment as we ''sell out'' largely with 100% season ticket take up. That won''t carry on forever and then you''ll see the real impact of the curent pricing policy.       

[canaryfan68 0]

People should bear in mind that Cardiff fans coming all that way have fuel costs too...so along with relatively high ticket prices there''s the added costs. The best part of £80-100 per person including travel,ticket and food.

Also, being January some people are having to stretch the wages for 6 weeks having been paid early in December.

Lastly being on the telly on the Football League show.

[Blofield Canary 11]

It is simply down to excessive ticket prices. Every game we have you have away fans complaining about our prices. Cardiff should easily be a sell out but it will not be. Cardiff will bring less than 700 fans and have only taken an allocation of 900 now.

This poor away turnout is despite their club subsidizing coach travel "because of Norwich City''s prices". Coach travel is only £10 for supporters club members.

[Gingerpele 0]

Which makes their tickets less than an a typical away game for Norwich? I''m sure whenever i have looked at away game prices+coach it costs £40+......

[PurpleCanary 5,554]

This has been gone into before a few times, but it would be rather a surprise if we sold out for Cardiff. We have only sold out the ground once (Ipswich) and only got above 26,000 two other times. Leeds (which has become a high-profile fixture) and QPR on New Year''s Day. I don''t know how many home sell-outs we have had (although it is by no means anything like all) but in terms of revenue that figure is irrelevant. It is the total attendance that matters.

So far our average League attendance is 25,223. That is 390 above our highest seasonal average since the rebuilding of the South Stand.

As for the new seats, they increased our effective capacity from around 25,500 to 26,600 (as evidenced by the Ipswich attendance of 26,532). So far, in terms of working out whether it made financial sense to install those seats, we have had four attendances out of 13 above that 25,500 figure. Ie four attendances where those extra seats became useful:


26,315
26,532
25,809
26,273

That adds up to 2,929 tickets sold this season that otherwise would not have been. Only those inside Carrow Road would know how much financial sense, if any, that is making.

 

[kdncfc 27]

I would estimate that the club have so far only recovered about a tenth of the cost of putting the new seats in but if we do go up they would sell comfortably and we''d need more, think it was more an investment for the future than a short term one for this season. If we want to see a better team I think high ticket prices are something we''ll have to live with unfortunately, I paid £389 for my season tiket but would gladly pay more if it meant having a better team. Obviously money is tight for some people so it isn''t so easy to find an extra few quid for what basically amounts to something they can do without.

[ca 1]

We are charging Cardiff £33 for the game so add that to their travel and food and thats a good reason why they aren''y bringing many fans.

As for our fans its £29 if you''re a member but £31 for the casual and in these times thats a lot for a championship game.

[PurpleCanary 5,554]

[quote user="kdncfc"]I would estimate that the club have so far only recovered about a tenth of the cost of putting the new seats in but if we do go up they would sell comfortably and we''d need more, think it was more an investment for the future than a short term one for this season.
If we want to see a better team I think high ticket prices are something we''ll have to live with unfortunately, I paid £389 for my season tiket but would gladly pay more if it meant having a better team. Obviously money is tight for some people so it isn''t so easy to find an extra few quid for what basically amounts to something they can do without.
[/quote]

 

kdncfc, I''m sure that''s true, and no doubt they will, sooner or later, end up paying for themselves. The question, though, has always been whether it was sensible, as we were trying to put together a squad good enough for life in the Championship, to spend a lump sum on a long-term off-field project.

 

[rondy 0]

I''ve been lent 2 season tickets for the cardiff game as my mates are away.. unfortunately the friend who was going to come with me now cant make it and so I have a spare seat at the back on block E in the barclay lower if anyone wants to take it off me... first come first served 

[Rupethebear 0]

I am bringing 2 Cardiff fans to the game tomorrow, the first thing they said to me was;

Blimey £44 for me and my 9 year old, the most expensive away tickets of the season!!

Sorry, I know it''s a business and we need to make money but we should be more flexible. £33 for an away game in Jan on top of a 5 hr journey!! Hardly a great offer.

Take the Leeds game, they always sell their allocation, suppkly and demend, charge them £35, there''s another £5K from one game, and anyway their game is more expensive to Police.

[NorwichCasual 0]

[quote user="PurpleCanary"]

This has been gone into before a few times, but it would be rather a surprise if we sold out for Cardiff. We have only sold out the ground once (Ipswich) and only got above 26,000 two other times. Leeds (which has become a high-profile fixture) and QPR on New Year''s Day. I don''t know how many home sell-outs we have had (although it is by no means anything like all) but in terms of revenue that figure is irrelevant. It is the total attendance that matters.

So far our average League attendance is 25,223. That is 390 above our highest seasonal average since the rebuilding of the South Stand.

As for the new seats, they increased our effective capacity from around 25,500 to 26,600 (as evidenced by the Ipswich attendance of 26,532). So far, in terms of working out whether it made financial sense to install those seats, we have had four attendances out of 13 above that 25,500 figure. Ie four attendances where those extra seats became useful:


26,315
26,532
25,809
26,273

That adds up to 2,929 tickets sold this season that otherwise would not have been. Only those inside Carrow Road would know how much financial sense, if any, that is making.

 

[/quote]

 

From memory last season the new seats were circa £300 each to install.  You do the maths.... (£87870)

[PurpleCanary 5,554]

[quote user="NorwichCasual"][quote user="PurpleCanary"]

This has been gone into before a few times, but it would be rather a surprise if we sold out for Cardiff. We have only sold out the ground once (Ipswich) and only got above 26,000 two other times. Leeds (which has become a high-profile fixture) and QPR on New Year''s Day. I don''t know how many home sell-outs we have had (although it is by no means anything like all) but in terms of revenue that figure is irrelevant. It is the total attendance that matters.

So far our average League attendance is 25,223. That is 390 above our highest seasonal average since the rebuilding of the South Stand.

As for the new seats, they increased our effective capacity from around 25,500 to 26,600 (as evidenced by the Ipswich attendance of 26,532). So far, in terms of working out whether it made financial sense to install those seats, we have had four attendances out of 13 above that 25,500 figure. Ie four attendances where those extra seats became useful:


26,315
26,532
25,809
26,273

That adds up to 2,929 tickets sold this season that otherwise would not have been. Only those inside Carrow Road would know how much financial sense, if any, that is making.

 

[/quote]

 

From memory last season the new seats were circa £300 each to install.  You do the maths.... (£87870)

[/quote]

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That is the first costing I''ve seen for those 1,100 new seats. I''m not aware the club ever released a figure. Is that really for those seats, which were fitted in to various parts of the ground, and so probably expensive per seat, or just a general (less expensive) figure for installing seats at Carrow Road in easy to manage rows?

If the new seats WERE £300 then that would have cost £330,000, of which we have then so far (at a generous guesstimate of £30 a seat a time) recouped £87,870.

 

[NorwichCasual 0]

[quote user="PurpleCanary"][quote user="NorwichCasual"][quote user="PurpleCanary"]

This has been gone into before a few times, but it would be rather a surprise if we sold out for Cardiff. We have only sold out the ground once (Ipswich) and only got above 26,000 two other times. Leeds (which has become a high-profile fixture) and QPR on New Year''s Day. I don''t know how many home sell-outs we have had (although it is by no means anything like all) but in terms of revenue that figure is irrelevant. It is the total attendance that matters.

So far our average League attendance is 25,223. That is 390 above our highest seasonal average since the rebuilding of the South Stand.

As for the new seats, they increased our effective capacity from around 25,500 to 26,600 (as evidenced by the Ipswich attendance of 26,532). So far, in terms of working out whether it made financial sense to install those seats, we have had four attendances out of 13 above that 25,500 figure. Ie four attendances where those extra seats became useful:


26,315
26,532
25,809
26,273

That adds up to 2,929 tickets sold this season that otherwise would not have been. Only those inside Carrow Road would know how much financial sense, if any, that is making.

 

[/quote]

 

From memory last season the new seats were circa £300 each to install.  You do the maths.... (£87870)

[/quote]

--

 

That is the first costing I''ve seen for those 1,100 new seats. I''m not aware the club ever released a figure. Is that really for those seats, which were fitted in to various parts of the ground, and so probably expensive per seat, or just a general (less expensive) figure for installing seats at Carrow Road in easy to manage rows?

If the new seats WERE £300 then that would have cost £330,000, of which we have then so far (at a generous guesstimate of £30 a seat a time) recouped £87,870.

 

[/quote]

 

Im confident that this is correct as the source was reliable from the major building contractors (who shal remain nameless) based in drayton.

He also said that they wanted to pay over 2 seasons, but i dont know if that was agreed or not

[Felixfan 53]

The new seats are of course there forever and will recoup the outlay in spades.

Not sure why we are concerned about how much tickets are costing Cardiff supporters.

If we get promoted todays prices will seem like a bargain so get used to it.

[Woman in the Stands (WITS) 0]

[quote user="Rupethebear"]I am bringing 2 Cardiff fans to the game tomorrow, the first thing they said to me was;

Blimey £44 for me and my 9 year old, the most expensive away tickets of the season!!

Sorry, I know it''s a business and we need to make money but we should be more flexible. £33 for an away game in Jan on top of a 5 hr journey!! Hardly a great offer.

Take the Leeds game, they always sell their allocation, suppkly and demend, charge them £35, there''s another £5K from one game, and anyway their game is more expensive to Police.[/quote]One club has to be the most expensive in each league for away fans. This season it''s us in the Championship. At least away fans are coming to a decent ground. As I recall when we were in the Premiership, Palace was one of the most expensive away games and that''s a dump!

[Bill 1,788]

£300 a seat ! Carta Schmarta !

Farque me, that would mean that it would have cost £2,400,000 to put the seats in the new South Stand - that''s about a third of the cost.

It would also mean that it would take around ten games to get the money back - however it would be a few more games if you factor in kids prices and VAT liability on tickets.

[Lambert is King 0]

This old chestnut again and the comments re pricing do not match the facts. The fact is we have a lot of supporters quite happy to pay big prices to watch Ipswich /QPR / a game over Christmas,but unless we are about to get promoted do not want to attend cheaper games. As far as I am aware our season tickets are if taken across the board the cheapest in the championship and account for all but 5000 of our capacity. Of course every game also has the attendance of away supporters and the number of those in a lot of games determines the size of the overall gate. If you take out the Watford game I would suggest the to expensive option is blown away as the higher the price the bigger the gate and vice versa. In fact tomorrow the majority of tickets left for sale have just been returned by Cardiff or are the cheapest tickets available in the family enclosure. If it is the cheap option why not buy those tickets in the family enclosure - same view of the pitch.

4 of our last 5 games Ipswch, Leeds, Sheff Utd ( our Christmas game ) and QPR were all top priced games. They were all sell outs for home fans with buy back in operation and Ipswich and Leeds were complete sell outs due to the away end being completely full. In the middle of those games we played Portsmouth - reduced the prices and guess what - we did not sell out. Our cheapest game of the season was Gillingham - lowest gate of the season second cheapest Orient second lowest gate of the season. Before you say season ticket holders would have paid we would apparently easily get 35000 every week if prices were cheaper so if 10000 season ticket holders turned up + these 15000 casual supporters that say they would come every week if it was cheap turned up we would have 25000. Also if you look at the other games the cheaper the price was to fill the ground against the likes of Barnsley the lower gate is. Why dont people just admit they will pay mega prices to watch certain games but only then get to want a ticket every week when we are about to get promoted. Thats how it works at most clubs ours is no different. Looks to me that our pricing structure avarages about £50000 more per game or looking at it another way we would have to get about 3500 more people per game under the old pricing structure to acheive the same results ie an average gate much bigger than our capacity. To bring down the cost of casual tickets you need to increase season ticket prices - aint going to happen.

The agreements were made with the banks allowing us to consolidate our loans and spend some money so cheaper prices would have meant almost certain administration or mass player sales. Following this thread through should we get promoted our tickets prices following most in the premiership will increase to between £40 and £50 for casuals. Our ground would therefore be empty other than season ticket holders attending. But let me guess prices will be £75 for Man U / Chelsea / Arsenal ect and we will sell out. Prices in our second season will be reduced to £20 adults £10 kids against WBA and we will have one of our lowest gates of the season.

No I dont work for the club I just beleive that McNally making pricing decisions like this has saved the club. Should Doncaster have still been here with his cut price football we would be in league 1 still and probably - 10 points for going into administration. The cost of football is the players fault not the decision makers. Should you want the return of cheap football to FCR you must demand the likes of Holt take 50 % pay cuts or get out of the club and be replaced by somebody that will play for peanuts. We are in the position we are in because of such decisions on prices not in spite of. Sorry guys but there is no choice.

[Lambert is King 0]

[quote user="City1st"]£300 a seat ! Carta Schmarta ! Farque me, that would mean that it would have cost £2,400,000 to put the seats in the new South Stand - that''s about a third of the cost. It would also mean that it would take around ten games to get the money back - however it would be a few more games if you factor in kids prices and VAT liability on tickets.[/quote]

McNally said it would take 3 years to recoup the cost based on 2 sell outs per year. We are now way ahead of that figure as you must also remember some gates have lots more Norwich supporters in and not a lot of away supporters. The extra seats have all been used now on 5 occassions.

[PurpleCanary 5,554]

[quote user="Lambert is King"]

McNally said it would take 3 years to recoup the cost based on 2 sell outs per year. We are now way ahead of that figure as you must also remember some gates have lots more Norwich supporters in and not a lot of away supporters. The extra seats have all been used now on 5 occassions.

[/quote]

 

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I''m sorry but this simply isn''t true. The extra seats have not been all used five times. We have had one sell-out this season (Ipswich). That means the extra capacity has been used up entirely only once.

As I posted earlier, there have only been four games this season when the attendance was above last season''s effective capacity of 25,500. So far from the extra seats been totally used five times, they have been fully used once and partly used three other times.

 

[Lambert is King 0]

[quote user="PurpleCanary"][quote user="Lambert is King"]

McNally said it would take 3 years to recoup the cost based on 2 sell outs per year. We are now way ahead of that figure as you must also remember some gates have lots more Norwich supporters in and not a lot of away supporters. The extra seats have all been used now on 5 occassions.

[/quote]

 

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I''m sorry but this simply isn''t true. The extra seats have not been all used five times. We have had one sell-out this season (Ipswich). That means the extra capacity has been used up entirely only once.

As I posted earlier, there have only been four games this season when the attendance was above last season''s effective capacity of 25,500. So far from the extra seats been totally used five times, they have been fully used once and partly used three other times.

 

[/quote]

We have had 2 complete sell outs Leeds and Ipswich and 3 home sell outs QPR Sheff Utd Middlesborough. All of these games had buy back and we could have sold the away allocation as well.  I suspect other than parts of the family area we will have another one tomorrow. You must also remember that other games would have sold some of these seats. And yes McNally said 3 years to repay so not sure exactly which bit is not correct. You are suggesting McNally does not know what he is doing ? he has increased casual prices by upwards of 50% and increased gates substanstially. If he was an idiot he would have followed the fans advice and put the capacity upto 35000. The pressure for extra seating came from fans did it not 

[Yellowfuture 71]

Increasing the capacity so easily was a great idea. As the season goes on and moves towards it`s conclusion, hopefully the games will get bigger and bigger. More Norwich fans will now be able to attend and hopefully the club will make more money. You cant really argue against that IMO.

We are in a commmercial soccer world, and as things stand, like it or lump it, if we want to generate income fans will have to pay more. It`s pretty feeble in this context to be worrying too much about the pockets of  away fans.  Blimey, I`m sure lots of  you have been to Palace away for example, that`s really taking the piss out of away fans!

[PurpleCanary 5,554]

[quote user="Lambert is King"][quote user="PurpleCanary"][quote user="Lambert is King"]

McNally said it would take 3 years to recoup the cost based on 2 sell outs per year. We are now way ahead of that figure as you must also remember some gates have lots more Norwich supporters in and not a lot of away supporters. The extra seats have all been used now on 5 occassions.

[/quote]

 

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I''m sorry but this simply isn''t true. The extra seats have not been all used five times. We have had one sell-out this season (Ipswich). That means the extra capacity has been used up entirely only once.

As I posted earlier, there have only been four games this season when the attendance was above last season''s effective capacity of 25,500. So far from the extra seats been totally used five times, they have been fully used once and partly used three other times.

 

[/quote]

We have had 2 complete sell outs Leeds and Ipswich and 3 home sell outs QPR Sheff Utd Middlesborough. All of these games had buy back and we could have sold the away allocation as well.  I suspect other than parts of the family area we will have another one tomorrow. You must also remember that other games would have sold some of these seats. And yes McNally said 3 years to repay so not sure exactly which bit is not correct. You are suggesting McNally does not know what he is doing ? he has increased casual prices by upwards of 50% and increased gates substanstially. If he was an idiot he would have followed the fans advice and put the capacity upto 35000. The pressure for extra seating came from fans did it not 

[/quote]

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Now I get it. If the Ipswich game is a sell-out (which it roughly is) at 26,532 then the Leeds game is also a sell-out even though the attendance is 217 less than that. And if it''s a home sell-out (assuming you''re right about that) then that counts as a total sell-out, even though the away support is nothing like sold out and the ground is nothing like full.

Faced with logic like that, I know when I''m beaten.

 

[Rupethebear 0]

I think you have missed the point entirely, what comes round goes round, if we charge the away fans a high premiun, guess what, next time we are at their place us away followers will pay a higher price.

Cardiff fans tickets are £33 and £16 for U10s, QPR charged them £25.......

Not saying we want loads of away fans as a smaller allocation gives us more tickets but I think we are taking the piss, this is the Championship and I think anything above £30 is too much. Put it this way I won''t pay £33 to watch us play away, in fact when we were in the Prem I didn''t do Chelsea away as it was too expensive....