Fill The Valley
Slightly bemused by today’s match day price tickets announcement. Between £29 to £34 per home game for a seat in the majority of the stadium on the back of a horribly rising cost of living. Not to mention petrol prices and increasing interest rates. Do I need to go on. £34 for League One football? Where is Thomas getting his advice from?
All this on the back of the disastrous efforts to fill the 18,000 or so empty seats last season. No bad idea filling The Valley but a) make it a worthwhile product and 2) have a knowledge based marketing strategy and 3) price it accordingly.
I get that the club are pushing people down the season-ticket route, but they are hardly giveaways and families just don’t have that disposable income, but they will wake up on a Saturday morning or decide over dinner on Friday to go to a game. For that blind support and spontaneity the club will charge each adult another £3 for the privilege of making a late decision. That is absolutely bonkers.
How they price away tickets and if they plan to charge pay-on-the-gate away fans the extra £3 who knows. Also, with the talk of reciprocal pricing of tickets getting louder, many of those that like to, or perhaps will instead travel for an away day, could also get clobbered.
For me there is absolutely no point in getting a season ticket, and pre-purchasing and having the tickets sent somewhere is a problem I don’t want to worry about when I fly across the Atlantic for a game.
So an upper Covered End seat for my son and I runs to £64. A day out at the football has suddenly become both expensive and depressing!
Chicago Addick 
With the premier league away ticket cap at £30 it’s cheaper and more fun to go to Chelsea or Arsenal for the neutral.
Unfortunately, the committed (or those that should be) are stuck with paying premier league prices for what at times last season was a Sunday league level of entertainment.
Surely, from a financial standpoint, the good press of freezing or lowering prices, and the wider-ranging, more expensive match day experience, would make up any upfront discount on admission.
Bradford City have run an excellent campaign of competitively priced season ticket and match day tickets for years in the face of having teams locally in much higher divisions (Leeds as an example) and they themselves being sh*t. They get great attendances and have built a new fan base. Watch them easily pull in more fans than us next season.
$20 for adults and $5 kids and O 65’s.
Hi CA,
I have to totally agree with your views….I wonder who has decided the increase.
We have a totally new manager, untried squad and we can’t predict the future.
We do need to fill the Valley, so reduce season tickers or free the cost. More fans on the day will increase spending in the club shop, the bars, programmes sales, and improved game atmosphere……we are supposed to be in an entertainment industry !!!!!!
Seems a case of make as much money as possible and ignore the cost of living.
Still I’ve seen our new pitch and we’ll done to the groundstaff…
Oppsss….well not we’ll.
I agree, at least they should reduce the cost for kids. Most people can stump up for themselves but bringing one or two kids makes it prohibitively expensive. I would think twice and I’m not exactly on a low income.
Besides this doesn’t it make sense to encourage people to bring their kids to the games, they are the future. We want them coming to Charlton when they are older so get them in their formative years!
Even in South London Palace and Milwall seem better options. West Ham are just over the Blackwall Tunnel and further afield you have the Chelsea, Tottenham and Arsenal. I’m afraid to say at the moment all these seem more appealing to a kids than Charlton .
Nail on head.
Persuading kids to be committed Charlton fans is one of the hardest negotiations there’s been in the past decade. Making parents choose between food on the table or a home game v Morecambe makes it nigh on impossible.
Some fans have said during the last season that they didn’t feel any connection with the players (mainly due to disappointing results). With a clear out of JJ,JE, and most players involved in the most recent Wembley promotion, I am now in the same place. These ticket prices won’t help.
I’ve had 2 major breaks in my Valley attendance when I thought the entertainment on offer didn’t warrant the expense, and this is tipping me towards not going, at least until I hear about the exciting brand of football on offer thru the media!
TS- take a tip from recent politicians, do a u – turn
Have to agree…..maybe support your local amateur football team and from my own personal experiences doing that I’ve paid £5 + cuppa tea and watched some great matches.
Obviously skills are not brilliant but more than made up for that with enthusiasm, drive and passion to win.
Why I fully understand the ‘go and watch non-league football instead’ argument and I used to watch a fair bit before I left the UK, I want to watch Charlton, that is my club and I will generally (and fortunately) can afford to pay for the privilege, but I want to see common-sense pricing, and want to be part of a large atmospheric audience.
Of course football when you are committed to one team is then in the lap of the gods for entertainment value!
Simple solution….
Kids free..freeze ticket prices..increase fans attending and revenue…building up a young fan base for the future.
Club needs to chat to Mick Everett who was successful in his role fronting Target 10000 when we came back to the Valley….he managed it with great ideas.
The new broom swept by TS with Ben G at the helm brings both expectation and dread. The first few games will be vital when realistically we could lose the first 7-8 and still go up.
I think we are in for a roller coaster ride this season until the team gel and hopefully live up to expectations of staying in league 1 this season……hope I’m wrong BTW.
These prices are steep for L1 football, but a lot will depend on how we play.
If we get off to a decent start, build on it and show some of the attacking intent that Ben Garner has promised then I think the punters will come. They did after all when Roland was in charge and Bow was leading us to promotion. On the other hand another season like last year with the players losing interest every time we concede a goal and we’ll be lucky to be a third full. The pricing strategy pretty much is shit or bust. At these prices I can’t see people waking up on a Saturday morning and deciding to go to the Valley if we are playing poorly, they might if tickets were a bit cheaper.
We are customers remember
Or clients ???
Really worrying this, on lots of levels.
Obviously this will seriously put a dent in attendance. If we start well, then maybe people will pay those prices and rock up to the bigger games, but I’m expecting nothing better than mid table tbh.
I’m fearful that with a sub 10k crowd game after game TS might start to consider alternative options. I’m not a conspiracy theorist generally, but this prohibitive pricing policy has me worried.
I noticed CAST have said very little about the the prices!
I actually thought they were set up to represent the supporters on these sort of issues, which this is a very main issue? Or do their board now have enough subscriptions to cover their own costs, trips, lunches etc plus don’t want to upset Mr S as they may lose their preferential treatment provided!
Just a thought.
https://www.castrust.org/2022/07/matchday-prices-published/
Piece on the CAST site, but no opinion to whether they feel is it justified or not.