Season ticket analysis

[silent majority]

There's been a lot of talk about season tickets and attendances after the one home game we've had so far this season. So I thought I'd have a chat with the club and find out a bit more detail, and this is what I have;


Currently our total season ticket sales for 2021/22 compared to 2019/20 are down 1,471.   Are we worried by this…no…. and this is why 
 
You can categorise our season ticket sales into 6 categories
 
General Paid (bought over the counter at full price)
 

 -  General paid season tickets are up by 241

 - 18-24’s (the one’s where we focussed on the price drop) have increased by 130%.

 - When people talk about 2008 and how many season tickets we had in the Championship, 2000 of them were U11.  If you were 10 in 2008 you’re now 23.  This is that age group and why we have had a strategy of discounting at this level for five years.

 - 17 & Under are down 21% (2 reasons for this)
     1) Junior season tickets are often renewed on the first game a child attends, this figure will go up as we’re currently comparing a full season with a part   season.
    2) We did hardly any school awareness campaigns last year for obvious reasons so haven’t had the usual influx of first time season ticket holders based on our marketing efforts the previous season

 -  Adults and Seniors are up.
 
Corporate (seasonal hospitality/box holders)

 -  Up 3%
 
Special Campaigns (targeted campaigns to attract new fans or offer reduced prices in a very limited number)
 - Eg Black Friday offers
 - Eg Trax FM school campaign, where Trax FM were given heavily discounted season tickets to target children and parents s part of a first time fan initiative.  The discount offered on tickets was countered by free advertising for the games.
 
-   Down 1,203
-   These schemes simply haven’t been switched on.  We haven’t run a Black Friday campaign this year based on timings
-   Trax FM doesn’t exist any more and schools haven’t been allowed third party visitors so we haven’t been able to replace that scheme with a feasible alternative yet.
-   As society returns to everyday life and we (and partners) have confidence that we won’t go back under restrictions, some of these schemes will be switched back on. 
 
School / academy / Development
-   Specific tickets offered to our partner schools, or parent and academy players and their parents.
-   Down 182
-   This will grow, but when we went on sale with season tickets (June), schools had 3 weeks left of term and the majority didn’t have the capacity to sort the admin out in time.
 
General complimentary (carer/prize winners)
-   Down 35
 
Partner complimentary (LA -as part of lease deal)
-   As part of the Local Authority lease deal we have to issue several hundred complimentary tickets to the LA for community activation and ensuring the stadium remains a community enterprise, this hasn’t been requested this year just based on the pandemic
-   Down 301

Analysis of the above

As you can see the fall the in season ticket sales isn’t down to a lack of general paying supporters (that has grown) but due to some of the targeted campaigns or complimentary schemes we are obliged to offer not taking place.  For the most part we don’t receive significant monies on these schemes, they are part of wider commercial arrangements or have a specific purpose on attracting first time fans.    These schemes are also the reason why historically you will see an attendance figure of ticket sales that looks bigger than the crowd in the ground.  By the nature of the schemes, some of the tickets don’t get taken up every game.
 
During the course of the season some of these schemes will return when we have confidence that we won’t be under restrictions as we want to fully focus our efforts on issuing tickets to supporters we know will be in the ground.
 
Other things to point out are that our 5/10 packages, we’ve already sold 95% of the same figure we sold in our last full season.  Given these are on sale and a valid product until the last game of the season, I expect these to grow significantly.


The comparison with Rotherham isn't a valid comparison for the following reasons;

Rotherham had an attendance of 9417  of which 1102 were away fans
Doncaster had an attendance of 6419 of which 612 were away fans
 
That is a difference of 2998 in terms of total crowd
 
490 are away fans
1471 is our lost season ticket cohort from the schemes above
 
If you add both of those figures onto the crowd of 6419 our crowd would have been 8,380.
 
They also offered free tickets for vaccines

[DonnyBazR0ver]

Great analysis S_M.

Deffo need vaccinating to get into NYS!

[pib]

I didn’t think the crowd looked that bad visually on Saturday, and was surprised to hear the official gate was as low as 6400.

The West looked fuller than I remember it being pre-pandemic and the South looked pretty full on the TV highlights (sitting in the stand itself it’s always hard to tell). East looked a bit emptier but then again it always does.

[Spud]

That is an interesting analysis, thanks for sharing.

On the attendance topic, I can't remember the last time I made the first game of the season, I've been away this weekend, every year o seem to have stuff on, I'm sure I'm not the only one.

[Dagenham Rover]

Great analysis S_M.

Deffo need vaccinating to get into NYS!

Tetanus would be a better choice of vaccine for Nys

[mpc123]

Thanks for this SM it is great to have e reality rather than a guess reaction.

[scawsby steve]

That is an interesting analysis, thanks for sharing.

On the attendance topic, I can't remember the last time I made the first game of the season, I've been away this weekend, every year o seem to have stuff on, I'm sure I'm not the only one.

You did yourself a massive favour, Spud, not having to witness that.

I've been on f*cking diazepam ever since.

[NickDRFC]

Thanks SM, it’s good to get a reasoned response rather than “it’s covid”, “people are on holiday” or “it’s pointless comparing to the average attendance from 2 years ago”.

[Spud]

That is an interesting analysis, thanks for sharing.

On the attendance topic, I can't remember the last time I made the first game of the season, I've been away this weekend, every year o seem to have stuff on, I'm sure I'm not the only one.

You did yourself a massive favour, Spud, not having to witness that.

I've been on f*cking diazepam ever since.

All part of being a Rovers fan Steve, can't wait to get back :-)

[Padge_DRFC]

Much more positive based on the above.

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

It's brilliant analysis.

Lots of good stuff the key thing that sticks out is how do rovers get that conversion rate of partner/free season tickets in to long time retentions?

[mpc123]

That is an interesting analysis, thanks for sharing.

On the attendance topic, I can't remember the last time I made the first game of the season, I've been away this weekend, every year o seem to have stuff on, I'm sure I'm not the only one.

You did yourself a massive favour, Spud, not having to witness that.

I've been on f*cking diazepam ever since.

All part of being a Rovers fan Steve, can't wait to get back :-)

Is that spud from the late 80's 90's home and away?

[Spud]

Yes mate, I was a babbi then lol

That is an interesting analysis, thanks for sharing.

On the attendance topic, I can't remember the last time I made the first game of the season, I've been away this weekend, every year o seem to have stuff on, I'm sure I'm not the only one.

You did yourself a massive favour, Spud, not having to witness that.

I've been on f*cking diazepam ever since.

All part of being a Rovers fan Steve, can't wait to get back :-)

Is that spud from the late 80's 90's home and away?

[Donny Exile in York]

Excellent analysis SM and interesting to hear. One question re the comparison with Rotherham though.. the comparison doesn't include any offers or free tickets given out by Rotherham included in their total or excluded as not given this season. Understood this is probably not known but to compare like with like this would need to be known and factored in.. they may have like us forgone a 1000 free tickets which would add to their total for example.

[silent majority]

I think there are two good points that we need to take away from the above post.

1) Where people are paying for tickets, i.e. Adults, seniors, 18-24 age group, corporate, match packages, are all up on two years ago.

2) One of our strengths is currently one of our weakness's, i.e. our work in the community with schools and community groups is letting us down on numbers. But, we can pull that back.

All in all its looking quite good.

[chrisfisher]

A great analysis and does answer some of the questions.

Hopefully we can get some of the community schemes up and running again,

[Axholme Lion]

Last time i went to Rovrum most of the home fans looked like they had missed their vaccination for bubonic plague. A bigger bunch of toothless, badly dressed tramps i have never seen before.

[i_ateallthepies]

Last time i went to Rovrum most of the home fans looked like they had missed their vaccination for bubonic plague. A bigger bunch of toothless, badly dressed tramps i have never seen before.

You never went to The Den then...