By Jason McKeown
Bradford City Football Club has asked Width of a Post to relay the message that supporters who have bought a season ticket for 2014/15, and who would like to change their seat, will have a week to do so, free of charge, between 1-7 July.
If you wish to change seats, you will need to take your season ticket receipt to the Valley Parade ticket office during this week. Recognising that doing so between 9-5pm is not convenient for everyone, the ticket office will stay open until 7pm one evening. To state your preference on which evening you would prefer the ticket office stays open, please leave a reader comment below and the club will take this feedback into consideration.
After the 7 July deadline you will still be able to change your seat ticket seat; however there will be a charge for doing so, as the club will need to produce a replacement season ticket card. The details of this charge will be confirmed by the club prior to 7 July.
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What if you have bought a season ticket but live away from Bradford and cant physically get there?! Does that mean I have to pay to change my seat when I am back home in Yorkshire? Not all Bradford fans live in Bradford or don’t the ticket office and the club understand this?
Mahesh they don’t have to do this at all! It’s an improvement that we are given a charge free period so I’m not sure having a go about it is appropriate. If you’ve got the wrong seat surely that’s your responsibility not theirs! Give them a ring, send an email.
Cathy you are missing the point. People want to move seats as they couldn’t buy seats where they wanted due to the stupid system City ran. Unsold ST seats should have been released before the cheap deadline rather than after thus allowing more choice.
As for fraud what is someone going to do, ring and move you from seat 20 to seat 143, they do not get your ticket so what have they gained?
Hi
I believe that the potential for fraud relates to your ticket receipt. That is, if you don’t exchange it for a new one (and just get a new one but keep your old receipt) you could in theory present your old receipt at a later date and collect two season tickets.
Jason
Cathy yes they do! Read Storck2013 comment because he sums my predicament up well! I’ve renewed my old seat but want to move but couldn’t due to the system implemented. I guess that’s my fault aswell?!
Hi Mahesh
Unfortunately the club require you to physically hand over your season ticket receipt in order to move your seat, otherwise it opens up the risk of fraud. There is simply no way of doing this online or over the phone.
Jason
Why would they need to issue a new receipt, your membership number etc would be the same and who would they issue it too if it was over the phone?
Money making scheme is what it sounds like and all because of the way tickets were sold originally.
I don’t know the ins and outs I’m afraid, but I don’t really see how it can be accused of being a money-making scheme. How are they making money exactly?
My guess would be that the computer systems have certain limitations, and that is why you have to physically go to the ticket office.
Tuesday!
Money making as in they have caused the issue but are then only allowing 1 week to change free of charge, which you have to do in person. After that there is a charge to change.
I can not see how there can be any difference for the system if the person is the other side of the window or the other end of the phone. It makes no sense.
I think the phrase “don’t shoot the messenger” applies here.
It’s difficult for me to comment too much as it is not my system, I don’t know the ins and outs of it, or the decision-making process behind this one-week window. I was just asked to post a message.
As I understand it, there was a deadline for season ticket holders wishing to renew their season ticket in the same seat which ends on June 30. At this point, all unsold seats will be available to everyone. They are introducing this one-week window so that supporters who want to move seats into any of the unsold ones can do so, and they will do it free of charge (I imagine this will cost the club money in terms of employing staff to do this work).
The moving of seats has to be done in person, because you need to hand over your season ticket receipt for a new one, so you are not left with two receipts and therefore with the potential to fraudulently claim a second season ticket. I am guessing that they don’t have the software or systems to track these changes any other way (ie there wouldn’t be a way to record these changes online).
I do know that the reason for a charge after the one-week window is because season tickets are then being printed for everyone. So after this point, it would cost the club money to get season tickets updated for people wishing to move seats. They have clearly decided to pass this cost on to supporters, although they have not announced the exact fee.
I have a lot of experience working in marketing, through my day job. From my experience, it would take around 2-3 weeks for the printers to produce 10,000+ season tickets personalised to each season ticket holder (that is your name and membership number etc). These season tickets would then need to be available to collect, which we would assume would be towards the end of July in order to give everyone time to visit the ticket office. Therefore, closing the ‘free of charge’ window after only a week (ie ending 7 July) would make perfect sense to me, so they get on with printing everyone’s season ticket.
Like I say I am just the messenger. I would suggest speaking to the club directly yourself if you are not happy with what they are proposing. If you do, please share details of what happened via these comments, so other WOAP readers can find out the outcome.
Cheers
Jason
As someone who bought a season ticket at the reduced price and will be changing the seat this week, I think the club have been pretty helpful about it. They could easily have told people that they would have to pay full price after the renewal deadline to get a seat in the area they wanted, but instead they have done their best to balance the interests of renewers with those of new buyers, and with the club’s need to sell season tickets early to sort out the playing budget.
Having to go in person is frustrating but like a lot of clubs at our level Bradford have tough decisions to take about whether investing in ticket-selling infrastructure will make a significant difference to revenue. That said, I know that the tourist information centre in Leeds station sells a lot of tickets for various things; has the club looked into contracting them as an agent to sell tickets to those of us who live in Leeds?
Also, is there any news on which day the ticket office will be opening late?