Rangers tickets

[blueheaven]

Now on sale ... and £30 for a standard adult ticket, with no difference between Main Stand and East Stand prices.

Why do these games have to be so expensive? The home crowd for this game is going to be low enough as it is, without bumping the prices up.

I know a couple of people who were up for going to the Dundee game on Saturday but changed their minds when they saw how much the tickets were going to be. And that was for a lower-priced game than the Rangers one. They'll probably never consider going again now. I wonder how often throughout the season people consider going to a game and then don't bother because of how much it costs?

I'll go because I have a season ticket but there's absolutely no chance I'd be prepared to pay £30 if I didn't.

[Aitchy]

58 minutes ago, blueheaven said:

Now on sale ... and £30 for a standard adult ticket, with no difference between Main Stand and East Stand prices.

Why do these games have to be so expensive? The home crowd for this game is going to be low enough as it is, without bumping the prices up.

I know a couple of people who were up for going to the Dundee game on Saturday but changed their minds when they saw how much the tickets were going to be. And that was for a lower-priced game than the Rangers one. They'll probably never consider going again now. I wonder how often throughout the season people consider going to a game and then don't bother because of how much it costs?

I'll go because I have a season ticket but there's absolutely no chance I'd be prepared to £30 if I didn't.

It sadly a common theme throughout Scottish football these days. I used to go to as many away games as I could, but now due to pricing I only go to a few a season. For tickets alone for our two away games at Ross County and Celtic this season I would have been £79 for my daughter and I. Take into account travel and food etc and its almost impossible to justify for a couple of hours "entertainment".

Saints know that both the Glasgow teams will sell out their tickets at £30 a head, so that is why they increase the price. We obviously tried to put tickets on sale to home fans for a lower price against Celtic but quickly stopped that when it was pointed out it was against the rules.

Clubs obviously have increased overheads these days with things like gas and electricity increasing significantly, but there is no doubts that many are being turned away due to the cost of tickets. What is the answer? A mass boycott of all games? Very unlikely to happen. 

[blueheaven]

51 minutes ago, Aitchy said:

It sadly a common theme throughout Scottish football these days. I used to go to as many away games as I could, but now due to pricing I only go to a few a season. For tickets alone for our two away games at Ross County and Celtic this season I would have been £79 for my daughter and I. Take into account travel and food etc and its almost impossible to justify for a couple of hours "entertainment".

Saints know that both the Glasgow teams will sell out their tickets at £30 a head, so that is why they increase the price. We obviously tried to put tickets on sale to home fans for a lower price against Celtic but quickly stopped that when it was pointed out it was against the rules.

Clubs obviously have increased overheads these days with things like gas and electricity increasing significantly, but there is no doubts that many are being turned away due to the cost of tickets. What is the answer? A mass boycott of all games? Very unlikely to happen. 

Totally agree. I can count on one hand the number of away games I've been to over the last three seasons (Caley play-off two years ago; Arbroath away in the League Cup last season; Alloa in the League Cup this season). I used to go to pretty much every away game but I barely go at all now and it's all because of cost.

Some sort of mass boycott probably is the only thing that would make clubs listen. A targeted weekend - not just at one club but across the country - where people boycott any tickets priced over £20. Sadly though it would take a big effort to organise that and there doesn't seem to be enough of a movement of voices to make it happen.

I just wonder how high people will actually allow ticket prices to go before enough people fall away that it becomes unviable for clubs ... it doesn't seem all that long ago that McDiarmid tickets first hit £20 and even that felt like a big milestone at the time. Prices seem to have rocketed remarkably quickly since then.

 

 

[pezza70]

Can this be mentioned at the next supporters meeting so the club can explain why it’s so expensive?

[sixties saintee]

2 hours ago, pezza70 said:

Can this be mentioned at the next supporters meeting so the club can explain why it’s so expensive?

More interested in the green and orange pound, as they no the ugly sisters will pay it.

[RandomGuy]

Its purely to milk a support thats going to sell out regardless of price.

The pricing will never change anyway as Celtic/Rangers fans will forever sell out. You could genuinely charge them £50 a head and sell out as the fans are desperate for "loyalty points" that give them access to tickets for OF games and cup games.

Away fans are going to eventually vanish from top flight fixtures IMO. Aberdeen, Celtic, Hearts and Rangers would all happily refuse to sell any away tickets and Hibs would do too if they werent so bad home fans dont turn up in huge numbers.

[Stumpy1949]

Not taking sides but how many non season ticket holders would we expect to come to this game. If you want to go do you think an extra £4 will stop you. We have many season ticket holders who won’t come to this game because of the bile. So personally I have no objections to getting as much money out of the old firm as possible. 

[RandomGuy]

1 hour ago, Stumpy1949 said:

Not taking sides but how many non season ticket holders would we expect to come to this game. If you want to go do you think an extra £4 will stop you. We have many season ticket holders who won’t come to this game because of the bile. So personally I have no objections to getting as much money out of the old firm as possible. 

Maybe you should combat the reason the home fans dont attend, rather than punish them even further by charging so much?

Have the club ever actually just asked why home crowds are so low for these games?

Kilmarnock and St Mirren have both cut Celtic/Rangers allocations and both reported an increase in home attendances for the games. The answers there.

[blueheaven]

41 minutes ago, RandomGuy said:

Maybe you should combat the reason the home fans dont attend, rather than punish them even further by charging so much?

Have the club ever actually just asked why home crowds are so low for these games?

Kilmarnock and St Mirren have both cut Celtic/Rangers allocations and both reported an increase in home attendances for the games. The answers there.

I think this is the heart of it. Instead of actually investigating why it is that home fans don't want to come to these games and attempting to do something to remedy that, the club threw in the towel a long time ago and decided to just look upon these fixtures as a chance to get as many Old Firm fans through the gate as possible, paying as much money as possible.

Totally get that the club want to get money out of the OF fans but when that price increase then has to be imposed on our own supporters too, it's no wonder Saints fans stay away. Asking people to pay more money for a less desirable fixture just seems a bit backwards to me.

[dave mc]

We were £37 at Parkhead,so it’s not as bad as that at least,although still too much.Whilst Killie cut of numbers,they still give them over 4,500, so similar to us.

[Stumpy1949]

2 hours ago, RandomGuy said:

Maybe you should combat the reason the home fans dont attend, rather than punish them even further by charging so much?

Have the club ever actually just asked why home crowds are so low for these games?

Kilmarnock and St Mirren have both cut Celtic/Rangers allocations and both reported an increase in home attendances for the games. The answers there.

Out of interest what would you think is a reasonable start figure to cut the old firm’s allocation to. To be honest unless you made it nil our figures wouldn’t go up by much. You are more of a statistician type of person than me so I don’t know how much the figures of the two teams you mentioned increased by. I don’t expect it to be by much so I would still rather take the old firms money. I know the amount is £30 but it is only a £4 increase and before you go on about £4 being a lot in this day and age I know, but if you were thinking about going at £26 I don’t think £4 would put you off. 

[saintgscot]

5 hours ago, Stumpy1949 said:

Not taking sides but how many non season ticket holders would we expect to come to this game. If you want to go do you think an extra £4 will stop you. We have many season ticket holders who won’t come to this game because of the bile. So personally I have no objections to getting as much money out of the old firm as possible. 

Listen I’ll say this and it will be controversial. But we don’t have many fans go to these games so why not fill east stand and profit from greens and blue pound and get better players from it.

[Cagey]

11 hours ago, saintgscot said:

Listen I’ll say this and it will be controversial. But we don’t have many fans go to these games so why not fill east stand and profit from greens and blue pound and get better players from it.

Has been done and not popular.  Think Saints have learned their lesson. New owners might do it though. 

[blueheaven]

16 hours ago, Stumpy1949 said:

I know the amount is £30 but it is only a £4 increase and before you go on about £4 being a lot in this day and age I know, but if you were thinking about going at £26 I don’t think £4 would put you off. 

But people are already being put off by £26 so they're not going to pay even more.

£26 to £30 might not be a gigantic jump but I think the point is that £26 is already too much. Even if it's not, at what point do you stop? If people are willing to pay £30 and we're saying £4 isn't much, then why not make it £34? And then make it £38 a year or two later? Everyone has a limit and I just wonder at what point that limit is hit for so many people that the whole thing stops being viable?

I also think that when the price of anything goes up from say £9 to £10, £19 to £20, £29 to £30 etc there's a psychological impact that makes it feel like a threshold has been crossed into a new price bracket. That's why a lot of products are still priced at £9.99 rather than £10.

What I find disappointing is that when you see this debate online it often turns into a partisan one, with fans saying "your team overcharges us so it's OK for our team to overcharge you" etc. It leads to fans defending their clubs on this, when really we're all being over-priced and probably need to stand together on this.

[Stumpy1949]

3 hours ago, blueheaven said:

But people are already being put off by £26 so they're not going to pay even more.

£26 to £30 might not be a gigantic jump but I think the point is that £26 is already too much. Even if it's not, what point do you stop? If people are willing to pay £30 and we're saying £4 isn't much, then why not make it £34? And then make it £38 a year or two later? Everyone has a limit and I just wonder at what point that limit is hit for so many people that the whole thing stops being viable?

I also think that when the price of anything goes up from say £9 to £10, £19 to £20, £29 to £30 etc there's a psychological impact that makes it feel like a threshold has been crossed into a new price bracket. That's why a lot of products are still priced at £9.99 rather than £10.

What I find disappointing is that when you see this debate online it often turns into a partisan one, with fans saying "your team overcharges us so it's OK for our team to overcharge you" etc. It leads to fans defending their clubs on this, when really we're all being over-priced and probably need to stand together on this.

I think we might have two separate discussions here. If people are put of by £26 then putting it up to £30 isn’t going to affect them. So let’s get as much out of the old firm as possible. I’m not sure us penalising ourself is going to help anybody at this stage. 
Then let’s discuss the overpricing at the end of the season involving all concerned. 

[blueheaven]

22 minutes ago, Stumpy1949 said:

I think we might have two separate discussions here. If people are put of by £26 then putting it up to £30 isn’t going to affect them. So let’s get as much out of the old firm as possible. I’m not sure us penalising ourself is going to help anybody at this stage. 
Then let’s discuss the overpricing at the end of the season involving all concerned. 

The overpricing has been happening for a long time so I wouldn't think we'll learn anything new by waiting until the end of the season.

The problem with setting out to milk the Old Firm fans dry is that it also does the same to your own supporters. None of us want the club to penalise itself, but I'd rather not see it penalise its own fans either.

[Stumpy1949]

1 hour ago, blueheaven said:

The overpricing has been happening for a long time so I wouldn't think we'll learn anything new by waiting until the end of the season.

The problem with setting out to milk the Old Firm fans dry is that it also does the same to your own supporters. None of us want the club to penalise itself, but I'd rather not see it penalise its own fans either.

I would suspect that 99%+ of Saints fans who attend the old firm games are ST holders. I don’t think us depriving ourselves of revenue is going to solve the overpricing crisis. 

[Papa Jack]

Saints fans…why don’t we cut the OF ticket capacity.

Same fans…why can’t we offer better money for players.

 

[Greylag]

I can't see why this game would be attractive to the casual Saints fan.  Grown men urinating in the street, wee groups with cheese and wine parties in the bushes at Tesco, not to mention the nature of the songs.  You'd be put off even before you reached the gates into the car park.  Perhaps it's time to take a leaf out of the old firm book.  No allocation of tickets to Saints fans!  (Outraged responders should note that was tongue in cheek!)

Having said that I've been leading the Hospital / Audio Descriptive Commentary since 1990 commentating on maybe 85% of the Saints home games.  I could count of the fingers of one hand how many Rangers games I've been to.  There is absolutely no pleasure in it.  (Apart from the couple I was at where we humped them!)

Even £10 to be in a stadium where two or more stands are filled with fruit-loops who if they all held hands would struggle to reach half-wit status is a big ask.  Supporters or not, we are there to be entertained not intimidated and regaled with 17th century pish.

[blueheaven]

On 9/8/2023 at 5:16 PM, Stumpy1949 said:

I would suspect that 99%+ of Saints fans who attend the old firm games are ST holders. I don’t think us depriving ourselves of revenue is going to solve the overpricing crisis. 

Slightly going round in circles here but, as said further up the thread, perhaps the club needs to do more to find out *why* non-ST holders avoid these games, and whether there's anything that they could do to try to remedy that, rather than throw in the towel and make the fixture even more unattractive by bumping the prices up.

[garydavidson]

1 hour ago, blueheaven said:

Slightly going round in circles here but, as said further up the thread, perhaps the club needs to do more to find out *why* non-ST holders avoid these games, and whether there's anything that they could do to try to remedy that, rather than throw in the towel and make the fixture even more unattractive by bumping the prices up.

They have tried a couple of initiatives in the past that got a flat response from season ticket holders for these games, obviously more can be done but they have at least tried a couple of times.

[RandomGuy]

1 hour ago, garydavidson said:

They have tried a couple of initiatives in the past that got a flat response from season ticket holders for these games, obviously more can be done but they have at least tried a couple of times.

They've offered discounted tickets for season ticket holders to buy for others, but its still ignoring the actual reason people dont want to go.

The equivalent of telling people they can get a cruise on a sinking boat for £10 instead of £50 and just giving up after you still get no customers instead of fixing the boat.

[Widge]

Aye the only way we get more saints fans at these games is by banning an away support entirely. That’s simply not possible nor is it financially viable, so there’s really nothing saints can actually do to improve the home crowds. As others have mentioned they’ve tried in the past, they can’t lower the price for home fans only and they can’t stop the away fans from being idiots. It really is a lose/lose situation every time as no matter what saints come off looking the bad guys. 

[Dooj]

Appreciate that there are all sorts of contextual factors (eg size and location of stadiums) but has *any* Scottish club managed to deal with the visit of the Old Firm in such a way as their fans are happy? Genuine question - I really dont know - but if it works elsewhere, perhaps we could learn from them.

Personally, I no longer go to any OF games at McDiarmid as it is just so toxic and I dont want to be part of it. Shame because one of my fondest footballing memories was seeing Jim Weir score against Rangers - think that was probably my last OF game.

[crieffsaintandy]

I get the thing and various reasons that people don't attend these fixtures, but personally I go along to support my team at these games, I kind of switch off to all the party songs, are hertz any different be outside the ground chants etc, I find it all a bit sad, but does it impact on my day not really, has it got any worse than 30 years ago probably not, seeing saints beat them occasionally when I'm present love it! Took my kids to these games don't think it scarred them probably gave them a better insight into these problems that come with the erse cheeks and tbf don't even think they listened to it much more interested in watching the game, just my opinion and each to their own.