Shrimpsvoices

The following info is featured on the Stanley Web Site about a Loyalty Card scheme.

And if you can’t commit to come to every game, there’s now a chance to secure reduced admission prices and a host of Season 2016/17 special offers by buying an Accrington Stanley Loyalty Membership Card at a one-off price of £20. The loyalty card automatically reduces walk on match-day prices to £15 for adults and £10 for over 65s, students and Under 16s and U12 Members receive free entry with a paying adult.

Surely this is something that we should be doing as well.

from a club point of view(not fan) think this idea is harmful on season tickets sales.


from a fan point of view(not club) think this idea is wonderful for fans who've lost faith and in two minds about getting a season ticket.

Reduced from what to £15 though - without knowing what it costs in the first place, it's difficult to say how good an offer it will be.

The £10 admission Morecambe have tried on a few occasions shows that even hefty discounts don't always entice people into the club - there doesn't seem to be the appetite in the town for the club, especially with the way they have been playing for a lot of the last few seasons. £1 or £2 off the price of a ticket isn't going to cut it.

Christies Child wrote:The following info is featured on the Stanley Web Site about a Loyalty Card scheme.

And if you can’t commit to come to every game, there’s now a chance to secure reduced admission prices and a host of Season 2016/17 special offers by buying an Accrington Stanley Loyalty Membership Card at a one-off price of £20. The loyalty card automatically reduces walk on match-day prices to £15 for adults and £10 for over 65s, students and Under 16s and U12 Members receive free entry with a paying adult.

Surely this is something that we should be doing as well.

Reduces prices? Daft.

Also, would be ridiculously open to fraud. Other than that, great idea.

Has the fact that the club are already losing money hand over fist escaped you Neil?

If we sold 200 loyalty cards we would net the princely sum of 4 grand, and have to let fans who would be coming anyway in cheaper, plus we would lose some season ticket buyers.

Done properly, loyalty cards could work. After all, they must work for other businesses and clubs because their use is widespread. Of course, if they're badly thought out or badly implemented, it won't work.

What we currently have are two extremes as the only options for coming to matches. Either you buy a season ticket in anticipation of coming to most, if not all matches. OR, you pay on a match by match basis.

Neither option is helpful for the irregulars who come, maybe, to half the matches, maybe people who work on a Saturday rota, or those who can only come on Saturdays if they work evenings or have young children. So, to increase revenues and gates, the club should find a way to reach out to those, to incentivise them to commit to come for a certain number of matches.

Buying a loyalty card in Summer (to aid club cash flow) in return for discounted entry tickets throughout the season (to encourage the irregulars to come more often) makes sense. You just have to get the pricing right so it's still beneficial for regular attenders to buy season tickets. It's just getting the balance right between the upfront cost and the ongoing discount - playing around with a spreadsheet model could quickly find the right balance.

mrpotatohead wrote:Has the fact that the club are already losing money hand over fist escaped you Neil?

If we sold 200 loyalty cards we would net the princely sum of 4 grand, and have to let fans who would be coming anyway in cheaper, plus we would lose some season ticket buyers.

As others have suggested if done properly there are ways to make it a good deal for the occasional fan.
Possibly use books of 10 vouchers that have to be exchanged on entry with a cover charge of say £25 with a gate reduction of say £3 to make it worthwhile. All the club would be out of pocket of a £5 per book of 10 vouchers but it could be a way to encourage the occasional fan.

Your previous suggestion of having no Early Bird discounts is

Maybe you should come up with a practical idea rather than being critical of those who do....

I do , all the time,dont be so touchy about my constructive critisism

and your voucher book would save a fan a fiver over ten games, ffs woopy doo! they will be queueing round the flyer for that one!

In an ideal world I'd set up the club as a not-for-profit society owned by its members.

There would be no season tickets, instead you would pay an annual membership fee that would give you a significant discount on tickets, a members only bar run on social club lines, discounts on club merchandise and the ability to get significant discounts in shops etc. in the same the student Purple Card works. You could also tie in discounted away travel, get agreements with away clubs to get discounts, also on hotels and B&Bs near away grounds.

There would also be corporate membership that got you a mix of promotional activities including ground boards, sponsorship etc. depending on your needs at a significant discount to the standalone rate. Companies, and even private individuals, could also pay well in excess of the quoted rate for a position on the board as they do in Spain. This would give us the option to get lots of money on a short-term basis with little long-term impact on the club and its ownership by society members.

And back to reality.

Christies Child wrote:All the club would be out of pocket of a £5 per book of 10 vouchers but it could be a way to encourage the occasional fan.

At the risk of being jumped on by all and sundry simply for having a different opinion, a saving of £5 over the course of 10 matches (that's 50p per match) is not going to put a strain on the turnstiles.

I'd say the occasional fan is the occasional fan because far more than occasionally, we're absolutely shite.

morecambegeek wrote:

Christies Child wrote:All the club would be out of pocket of a £5 per book of 10 vouchers but it could be a way to encourage the occasional fan.

At the risk of being jumped on by all and sundry simply for having a different opinion, a saving of £5 over the course of 10 matches (that's 50p per match) is not going to put a strain on the turnstiles.

I'd say the occasional fan is the occasional fan because far more than occasionally, we're absolutely shite.

ALL opinions and thoughts are welcome. What would you suggest would be a fair reduction in match day prices for VOUCHER HOLDERS. Only by getting the thoughts of others will anything be done.

I think a loyalty card for the bar/club shop would be good. Where you can add funds to your card online then pay with it in the bar contactlessly to save time at the bar when busy also. Would be a good Xmas present for people, just ask the rellies to put some cash on your 'Shrimps Card'

Sure club sponsors LCR could arrange it

Lloydie wrote:I think a loyalty card for the bar/club shop would be good. Where you can add funds to your card online then pay with it in the bar contactlessly to save time at the bar when busy also. Would be a good Xmas present for people, just ask the rellies to put some cash on your 'Shrimps Card'

Sure club sponsors LCR could arrange it

Or like a Greggs / Wetherspoons coffee loyalty card.

Get 10 stamps (for 10 pints) and get your 11th free.

The problem with these scemes is the fact that they affect season ticket prices, I think an incentive to improve season ticket sales would be to throw in home cup ties as part of the deal.

Lloydie wrote:I think a loyalty card for the bar/club shop would be good. Where you can add funds to your card online then pay with it in the bar contactlessly to save time at the bar when busy also. Would be a good Xmas present for people, just ask the rellies to put some cash on your 'Shrimps Card'

Sure club sponsors LCR could arrange it

Yep, but first job would be to get a card machine in the downstairs bar

Christies Child wrote:
ALL opinions and thoughts are welcome. What would you suggest would be a fair reduction in match day prices for VOUCHER HOLDERS. Only by getting the thoughts of others will anything be done.

Some season ticket holders are not turning up for matches this season, and it's effectively costing them nothing at this point to get in.

A couple of £10 entry promotions have not yielded any boost in attendances - IIRC, there were only just 1000 people there for the Dagenham FA cup match this season which had a £10 entry or similar.

No hoops to jump through.

The £3 entry this season, although poorly promoted, was also no better attended than any other match.

So significant one-off discounts have not seen any increase in attendance. Asking people who perhaps don't have the same allegiance to the club as some on here to make a contribution up front in return for a small discount over the course of the season doesn't seem to me like it would work.

The standard of football at the Globe over the last three seasons has been, for the most part, very poor. We have all moaned about how dull and frustrating it has been. However low the price is, it's too much if you don't actually enjoy doing it.

marky No.1 wrote:

Lloydie wrote:I think a loyalty card for the bar/club shop would be good. Where you can add funds to your card online then pay with it in the bar contactlessly to save time at the bar when busy also. Would be a good Xmas present for people, just ask the rellies to put some cash on your 'Shrimps Card'

Sure club sponsors LCR could arrange it

Yep, but first job would be to get a card machine in the downstairs bar

Well that would help drag us into the new century..

mrpotatohead wrote:The problem with these scemes is the fact that they affect season ticket prices, I think an incentive to improve season ticket sales would be to throw in home cup ties as part of the deal.

Excellent idea but somehow I suspect that it will be rejected. As a compromise all cup games except The FA Cup....

Stanley are pulling out all the stops to get the fans back and it appears to be working.

Wasn't so long ago we were getting 500+ more fans than them and now they are getting 2000+ and we are struggling to get much more than 1200-1400.

The football will ultimately be the biggest factor in a raise and or fall in attendances, but keeping goodwill and building a feelgood factor where everyone feels part of something is the way to grow a fanbase.

MFC need to stop looking at loyal fans as cash cows and start making it easier for everyone to come and watch as many games as possible and pay when they can afford to pay.

Wild Bill wrote:Stanley are pulling out all the stops to get the fans back and it appears to be working.

Wasn't so long ago we were getting 500+ more fans than them and now they are getting 2000+ and we are struggling to get much more than 1200-1400.

The football will ultimately be the biggest factor in a raise and or fall in attendances, but keeping goodwill and building a feelgood factor where everyone feels part of something is the way to grow a fanbase.

MFC need to stop looking at loyal fans as cash cows and start making it easier for everyone to come and watch as many games as possible and pay when they can afford to pay.

Suppose its nowt to do with us playing crap then at home

You are bound to get a bandwagon when your team is 2nd. When we were up there it is early in the season, whereas Accy are there with 2 games to play. The secret for them will be keeping hold of those extra fans. 7 coaches to Wycombe is amazing, we don't take 1

A successful top 6 morecambe team is going to attract a maximum of 1900 home fans , a struggling bottom 6 team a maximum of 1200, in the shorter term these figures could be marginally improved by offers and deals, not massively though, the club needs a forward thinking chairman to employ a very good commercial manager, who understands exactly what his customers want, the ones who have stopped coming may then drift back, Improvement in the fan base is always going to be gradual, unfortunately decline in fans always happens pretty sharpish and is usually governed by events on the pitch, not off it.

shrimpnsave wrote:

Wild Bill wrote:Stanley are pulling out all the stops to get the fans back and it appears to be working.

Wasn't so long ago we were getting 500+ more fans than them and now they are getting 2000+ and we are struggling to get much more than 1200-1400.

The football will ultimately be the biggest factor in a raise and or fall in attendances, but keeping goodwill and building a feelgood factor where everyone feels part of something is the way to grow a fanbase.

MFC need to stop looking at loyal fans as cash cows and start making it easier for everyone to come and watch as many games as possible and pay when they can afford to pay.

Suppose its nowt to do with us playing crap then at home

Yes I pointed that out.

At the moment I doubt anyone is encouraging new or floating fans down to the Globe, but a loyalty scheme might just say 'thanks for your support' for those that are currently putting up with the dross on the pitch. Its about creating some good will amongst your core support.

marky No.1 wrote:7 coaches to Wycombe is amazing, we don't take 1

We don't take any official club run coaches anywhere, whereas Accy do to every game.