Play offs and Wembley (Keep the faith)

[SamL]

What an utter shambles by the club. First they put out a notice saying that it is unlikely that away tickets will reach P3 and then when they do, you have to appear in person to buy them. What about all the season ticket holders that don't live in Leicester and are unable to get to the ticket office at 9am tomorrow?

Totally agree. It's not like thousands of people ringing up for 250 tickets would be shambolic at all is it? With such a limited allocation of tickets, there has to be certain restrictions. In fairness, I don't think anybody expected these tickets to reach Priority 3, I don't think you can criticize the Ticket Office for not advertising selling details.

Fair play to those that showed great dedication in camping out over night, let's hope the players reward your loyalty with a great performance both tomorrow and on Wednesday. I can't wait.

[davieG]

Totally agree. It's not like thousands of people ringing up for 250 tickets would be shambolic at all is it? With such a limited allocation of tickets, there has to be certain restrictions. In fairness, I don't think anybody expected these tickets to reach Priority 3, I don't think you can criticize the Ticket Office for not advertising selling details.

Fair play to those that showed great dedication in camping out over night, let's hope the players reward your loyalty with a great performance both tomorrow and on Wednesday. I can't wait.

They allow phone purchases for P1, 2 & 3 for all 'normal' away games why did this need to be any different?

[Anish]

What an utter shambles by the club. First they put out a notice saying that it is unlikely that away tickets will reach P3 and then when they do, you have to appear in person to buy them. What about all the season ticket holders that don't live in Leicester and are unable to get to the ticket office at 9am tomorrow?

I agree to an extent, but to be fair to the club I think we all expected the 2000 tickets to be sold to P1/P2 and it's quite surprising that they still haven't sold out after a day of selling to P3. Pretty shocking from our fans given the significance of Wednesday's match - obviously it's a long trip on a Wednesday night but it's a season defining game.

In any case if you want the convenience of buying online, just buy your ticket from the Cardiff City website like me.

[SamL]

They allow phone purchases for P1, 2 & 3 for all 'normal' away games why did this need to be any different?

I should think it's just down to the limited number of tickets available and the sheer number of people expected to be applying for tickets.

I completely understand the predicament of those that live outside of Leicestershire, but I have to sympathize with the Ticket Office as there have to be restrictions in place. People were queing for these tickets all night, would people ring up and stay on hold all night?

[davieG]

quote name='Anish' date='08 May 2010 - 07:51 PM' timestamp='1273344703' post='1613189']

I agree to an extent, but to be fair to the club I think we all expected the 2000 tickets to be sold to P1/P2 and it's quite surprising that they still haven't sold out after a day of selling to P3. Pretty shocking from our fans given the significance of Wednesday's match - obviously it's a long trip on a Wednesday night but it's a season defining game.

In any case if you want the convenience of buying online, just buy your ticket from the Cardiff City website like me.

With no phone purchases available for P1&2 we were unlikely to sell out add to the this the wide publicity they gave saying none would be available for P3 I'd imagine many wouldn't even be looking to see if there were any. Then when they indicate there's only a few hundred for P3s and you had to go to the TO many would think they'd be gone by the time they got there and wouldn't bother.

The whole thing has been far too restrictive and played down.

Even general sale for the home game is restricted to 2 tickets per person - why? That in itself would put many groups/families off from bothering.

[IOWFOX]

Hopefully i will be able to pick up a ticket for wednesday tomorrow morning, depends on how many people go down early.

On the half 5 ferry so no chance of making it to the ticket office untill about 9 and i guess by that time it'll probably be too late

[Frenzied]

Totally agree. It's not like thousands of people ringing up for 250 tickets would be shambolic at all is it? With such a limited allocation of tickets, there has to be certain restrictions. In fairness, I don't think anybody expected these tickets to reach Priority 3, I don't think you can criticize the Ticket Office for not advertising selling details.

Fair play to those that showed great dedication in camping out over night, let's hope the players reward your loyalty with a great performance both tomorrow and on Wednesday. I can't wait.

What an odd response. Why would people phoning up for tickets be shambolic. Once they are sold out (presumably to the first 250 people) the phone lines close - no?

Secondly, the club shouldn't have tried to second guess how the tickets would sell because they clearly are unable to get that right. If they hadn't done that people such as me would have been given the opportunity to make arrangements to buy tickets. As it happens, the club's stupidity has made that impossible.

[diggler]

With no phone purchases available for P1&2 we were unlikely to sell out add to the this the wide publicity they gave saying none would be available for P3 I'd imagine many wouldn't even be looking to see if there were any. Then when they indicate there's only a few hundred for P3s and you had to go to the TO many would think they'd be gone by the time they got there and wouldn't bother.

The whole thing has been far too restrictive and played down.

Even general sale for the home game is restricted to 2 tickets per person - why? That in itself would put many groups/families off from bothering.

Agree on both points.

I know people (me included) who would have made arrangements to go to Wednesday's game had the club announced P3 details from the start.

Also, a lot of my non-season ticket friends would have come to the home game tomorrow if they could have bought lots all together (maybe even alongside my season ticket).

I think Wembley will be the same.

[SamL]

What an odd response. Why would people phoning up for tickets be shambolic. Once they are sold out (presumably to the first 250 people) the phone lines close - no?

Secondly, the club shouldn't have tried to second guess how the tickets would sell because they clearly are unable to get that right. If they hadn't done that people such as me would have been given the opportunity to make arrangements to buy tickets. As it happens, the club's stupidity has made that impossible.

In fairness, I think everybody expected the tickets to be sold out after the first two days. The Ticket Office only tried to warn those that weren't Priority 1 or 2 against making arrangements to travel to Cardiff.

If they opened the phone lines for Cardiff tickets, who do you propose would have priority, personal callers or callers over the phone? With such a limited amount of tickets, there have to be restrictions.

[davieG]

In fairness, I think everybody expected the tickets to be sold out after the first two days. The Ticket Office only tried to warn those that weren't Priority 1 or 2 against making arrangements to travel to Cardiff.

If they opened the phone lines for Cardiff tickets, who do you propose would have priority, personal callers or callers over the phone? With such a limited amount of tickets, there have to be restrictions.

So why do they allow phone purchases for every away game bar this one , there's no reason because it's not any different. Same number of P1&2s limited number of tickets totally illogical and meant many that could not get to the ticket office having to miss out.

[CosbehFox]

So why do they allow phone purchases for every away game bar this one , there's no reason because it's not any different. Same number of P1&2s limited number of tickets totally illogical and meant many that could not get to the ticket office having to miss out.

It's difficult to organise.

During the playoffs the club has had to offload telephone orders because of all it's staff working with in-callers. The same logic applies for the away game, all staff working on booths at the ticket office. No-one at the club to man the phones or deal with e-mails. Given that there is no record made of handing out priority cards, offloading the duty of online booking to an external company is not workable. You could say that a person's away history should be registered on the database, well it does but it doesn't count tickets bought on general sale (they only ask the buyers name), tickets bought in someone's name (there are honest examples) and tickets bought on the day.

That does leave the question of when P1's/P2's order via e-mail or phone in a normal situation but I bet they look at booking history and if the customer debates it, they have to visit in order to secure a ticket.

[davieG]

It's difficult to organise.

During the playoffs the club has had to offload telephone orders because of all it's staff working with in-callers. The same logic applies for the away game, all staff working on booths at the ticket office. No-one at the club to man the phones or deal with e-mails. Given that there is no record made of handing out priority cards, offloading the duty of online booking to an external company is not workable. You could say that a person's away history should be registered on the database, well it does but it doesn't count tickets bought on general sale (they only ask the buyers name), tickets bought in someone's name (there are honest examples) and tickets bought on the day.

So how come as a P2 I've managed to buy 11 away tickets via email/phone without any problems even when they were at the peak of renewing STs.

You'll not convince me that it couldn't have been done in exactly the same way for this game.

[CosbehFox]

I said the ticket office has been busy with personal callers all week. Telephone orders would have been externally dealt with (like the first leg).

When I went during on ST deadline day, they still had people on the phones which they haven't had this week.

[Frenzied]

In fairness, I think everybody expected the tickets to be sold out after the first two days. The Ticket Office only tried to warn those that weren't Priority 1 or 2 against making arrangements to travel to Cardiff.

If they opened the phone lines for Cardiff tickets, who do you propose would have priority, personal callers or callers over the phone? With such a limited amount of tickets, there have to be restrictions.

The club should have hedged it bets and advertised dates for priority 3 rather than saying it is "HIGHLY UNLIKELY" that tickets would get that far. Instead, why didn't they say, as they have done the past, something along the lines of: "if there are any remaining tickets, the selling arrangments will be as follows..." Regarding travel arrangements, why would anyone make them before buying a ticket?

In terms of who gets priority if they opened phone lines, it would be the people who either got to the counter first, or had their calls answered first. As DavieG says, why should this game be any different to other away games in terms of buying tickets over the phone?

The club have messed this one up.

[RAFRUDY]

The club should have hedged it bets and advertised dates for priority 3 rather than saying it is "HIGHLY UNLIKELY" that tickets would get that far. Instead, why didn't they say, as they have done the past, something along the lines of: "if there are any remaining tickets, the selling arrangments will be as follows..." Regarding travel arrangements, why would anyone make them before buying a ticket?

In terms of who gets priority if they opened phone lines, it would be the people who either got to the counter first, or had their calls answered first. As DavieG says, why should this game be any different to other away games in terms of buying tickets over the phone?

The club have messed this one up.

[leftsideoverhere]

What an utter shambles by the club. First they put out a notice saying that it is unlikely that away tickets will reach P3 and then when they do, you have to appear in person to buy them. What about all the season ticket holders that don't live in Leicester and are unable to get to the ticket office at 9am tomorrow?

"Utter shambles"? Numpty.

Of the people queueing overnight yesterday, I think I'm right than none lived "in Leicester". I'd come in from Wigston, there were people from Warwickshire, and Thurnby, I think.

Inviting 12000 STHs to phone up for 250 tickets would have been seen by many as a money-spinning lottery. (Err, so that's a lottery, then). And there'd have been no filtering of who got the tickets.

The club seem to have been genuinely surprised that any tickets were left for P3, but it's certainly true that there were nowhere near enough for one each. Had the club heralded the tickets in the Mercury, then you'd have seen a shambles.

I think the dedication of fans who check out the club website, and are prepared to put themselves out a bit, is being rewarded with these unexpected handful of tickets. I do sympathise with fans who live a long way from Leicestershire, for whom a speculative journey may not be possible, but I'm giving the ticket office on this one.

[leftsideoverhere]

Agree on both points.

I know people (me included) who would have made arrangements to go to Wednesday's game had the club announced P3 details from the start.

Also, a lot of my non-season ticket friends would have come to the home game tomorrow if they could have bought lots all together (maybe even alongside my season ticket).

I think Wembley will be the same.

But you had as much chance to work out what was happening as I did. The scheduling of p1 and p2 clearly left open the possibility of a few leftover tickets going to keen p3ers either saturday or monday. The club told personal callers, or people who phoned and asked, how the tickets were selling throughout the two sale days, and made it possible for folks to know yesterday that a few would be available this morning. And a statement went up on the club website dead on 5 last night.

It used to be the normal way of buying tickets for special games, queueing up overnight if necessary, and I think too many people seem to expect the club to "make it easy" for them to meet their specific circumstances rather than look at what's in the best interest of fans generally. If your group of mates couldn't be bothered to designate half their number to visit the ticket office together, then why should they get the privilege of sitting together if such a system would also allow ticket touts to snap up 20 tickets to sell on at a profit?

Its common with pop concerts now to limit transactions to maybe four seats, and they don't give a shit about distributing their tickets "fairly". Cardiff's away tickets sold to several different groups of fans at the same time and sold out in one day, suggesting there'd be loyal Cardiff fans, their equivalent of p1, who could have missed out.

I learned last season (getting 'returns' at the very last minute for Posh, Southend and Crewe despite not being a STH) that a motto of 'never give up' is the best approach to away tickets. As a result I was prepared to put myself out, and so I made sure my lad and I could get to Cardiff.

[cosb6]

I got HOME tickets when the went to general sale.

Couldn't get to the ticket office until 5pm, and had tried online and by phone in the day with no success, so expected not to get any.

No queues, walked straight in, but couldn't buy 3 (only 2). So only 2 of us are going. I'd have had 3 if i'd been allowed, but a strict 2 tickets policy is why they've not sold them, I bet like me many people went down and would have brought for Kids etc, but couldn't because of the rules. I'd had taken an extra 2 / 3 people along if they'd allowed me to buy them.....

As for the away tickets, I'm amazed they still have some.

[leftsideoverhere]

So why do they allow phone purchases for every away game bar this one , there's no reason because it's not any different. Same number of P1&2s limited number of tickets totally illogical and meant many that could not get to the ticket office having to miss out.

No, the number of P1 and P2s may be the same but the likely demand for tickets isn't. Since P2s by definition attend less than half the away games, and P1s between half and all of them, it's reasonable to think that for any 'typical' away game, something like half to three-quarters of the P1s and P2s will buy tickets. It wasn't unreasonable for the ticket office to expect that number to be above 90% for this game.

As for the point about phone calls, I think it was too easy to predict a situation where the number queueing outside the ticket office on Saturday morning more or less matched the number of tickets available. But it would take an hour or so to process all those people (longer if half the TO staff were switched to the phones. So, if you allow telephone purchasing someone who rings up at 9.30 would get a ticket, possibly meaning someone who has been queueing half the night misses out. Whereas if you process the queue first, you have to tell phone callers to ring back later once the queue is dealt with, by when there would have been no tickets left for them. Either way you really have got chaos there.

Every system has downsides. The face-to-face only policy actually has the least damaging downsides.

[Maybes]

I got HOME tickets when the went to general sale.

Couldn't get to the ticket office until 5pm, and had tried online and by phone in the day with no success, so expected not to get any.

No queues, walked straight in, but couldn't buy 3 (only 2). So only 2 of us are going. I'd have had 3 if i'd been allowed, but a strict 2 tickets policy is why they've not sold them, I bet like me many people went down and would have brought for Kids etc, but couldn't because of the rules. I'd had taken an extra 2 / 3 people along if they'd allowed me to buy them.....

As for the away tickets, I'm amazed they still have some.

If this is actually a policy I would like to know what clown came up with the idea. How can the financial director of a football club who is easily earning £65k+ authorise this ludacris idea. It makes no sense whatsoever.

For example a single mum going to the football with her 3 kids would have to get some else to go to the ticket office with her to get the other 2 tickets or would have to make multiple visit. Absolute joke.

[gazzer]

If this is actually a policy I would like to know what clown came up with the idea. How can the financial director of a football club who is easily earning £65k+ authorise this ludacris idea. It makes no sense whatsoever.

For example a single mum going to the football with her 3 kids would have to get some else to go to the ticket office with her to get the other 2 tickets or would have to make multiple visit. Absolute joke.

maybes you know I love you (I've told you many times) but you've got to stop confusing the spelling of rap artists's names with actual English words

[SamL]

"Utter shambles"? Numpty.

Of the people queueing overnight yesterday, I think I'm right than none lived "in Leicester". I'd come in from Wigston, there were people from Warwickshire, and Thurnby, I think.

Inviting 12000 STHs to phone up for 250 tickets would have been seen by many as a money-spinning lottery. (Err, so that's a lottery, then). And there'd have been no filtering of who got the tickets.

The club seem to have been genuinely surprised that any tickets were left for P3, but it's certainly true that there were nowhere near enough for one each. Had the club heralded the tickets in the Mercury, then you'd have seen a shambles.

I think the dedication of fans who check out the club website, and are prepared to put themselves out a bit, is being rewarded with these unexpected handful of tickets. I do sympathise with fans who live a long way from Leicestershire, for whom a speculative journey may not be possible, but I'm giving the ticket office on this one.

My thoughts exactly.

[Karljohn]

Only confusion for me was the website saying tickets were "one per season ticket" and the poster on the TO doors saying "one per person".

I rang and spoke to Jim at 4.30 and was told 300 left and that they would be on sale Saturday 9am, the website update went on at 5pm and it was 250 so finished work, came home, had dinner and set out from Atherstone.

If you want it enough, you will find a way!

However if it were not for the 2 lads from Syston in the tent, leftsideoverhere and the bloke next to me from Ratcliffe on Soar I would have been on my own until 2.30/3.00am and would have probably quit!

[Foxes1]

Re The home tickets, why doesn't the club come out and say they cocked it up.

I went down on the day of the sale for those with tickets stubs, 10 mins before the ticket office closed. I had a members card and the 3 stubs, but was told I had to come back the following day when they went on general sale because, the original tickets were purchased using a members card and I had already bought a ticket using that members card. OK it didn't bother me as I dont live in Leicester, but if I had a longer distance to travel I just wouldn't have bothered going down again and would have watched it on telly.

[hebangsthedrums]

250ish still left according to guy who just sold me mine