We hate Walsall! But ......

[For Us All]

You're right Smithie, and this reply proves it. I think where I'm concerned, For Us All and RB are simply incapable of agreeing with anything, even the blatantly obvious. Their automatic stance is to disagree, regardless of the point made. Both WUMs, both incredibly sad.

 

It's a football forum not an echo chamber,get used to it.

[Howjy04]

Offer didn't work = bad offer. Predictable too.

 

One you didn’t think up yourself do you mean?Nothing bad about it.Something for nothing,the small club fan mentality.

[Howjy04]

You're right Smithie, and this reply proves it. I think where I'm concerned, For Us All and RB are simply incapable of agreeing with anything, even the blatantly obvious. Their automatic stance is to disagree, regardless of the point made. Both WUMs, both incredibly sad.

What’s your stance?Will you be going next season? If so,it looks like it worked.

[Howjy04]

The Lincoln game was only free if you paid to watch Vale lose to Crawley. Hardly going to encourage new support.

 

There were more Vale fans at the Lincoln game.Something clicked.

[Family Stand Terrier]

One you didn’t think up yourself do you mean?Nothing bad about it.Something for nothing,the small club fan mentality.

One I didn't think up myself? It didn't work howjy, I said it wouldn't beforehand. Tieing multiple games to each other as an offer, to attract fans that don't already regularly attend, doesn't work. It hasn't worked before, and it didn't work this time.

 

It was poorly thought through, poorly advertised, lost the club money and didn't increase the attendance. As I said beforehand, the higher likelihood was for more Vale fans to be attracted to attend the Carlisle match, and so it transpired. Approx 3900 home v Crawley. 4200 v Lincoln. 4500 v Carlisle.

 

Instead of tieing the 2 matches together, with full price for the unnattractive Crawley match, they should have split them into £10 per match. Once the Crawley match was over, their promotional opportunities were down to zero. The offer had gone, only 700 (considering we have 3.2k ST holders) people at best took advantage of it. I've not analysed to that level, but I'd hazard a guess our usual number of walk ups is in that range. Very few, if any people that don't usually attend (the very people the offer was surely targetting) took up the offer.

 

I said as much beforehand, and unfortunately that's exactly how it panned out. Poor offer, didn't work.

[Santa]

As far as I can see the Walsall offer was simple, no fine print, no hoops to jump through. It probably wasn't a huge money spinner but they were on the edge of the relegation zone and they needed a big crowd to cheer them on to a win which they got.

 

The Vale offer was online only, you had to print your Crawley ticket out at home then go to the ticket office in person to pick up a proper ticket for the Lincoln, but only when they weren't busy.

 

The Vale ticket website, even when it's working, is an experience. However, on the Thursday or Friday before the Crawley game it decided to go down and a good number of people were unable to take advantage of the offer.

[Family Stand Terrier]

What’s your stance?Will you be going next season? If so,it looks like it worked.

 

My stance on the OP, is that a single isolated ticket offer for a crunch match during a relegation battle, is a worthwhile investment when your aim is to secure your current league status.

 

Vale fans were pleading for the club to do something similar last season, and the best the club could come up with was a 3 match bundle, paid up front, that would have cost people £52 as a one off payment. Guess what, it didn't work. The attendance didn't increase.

 

Fast forward to this season and we're in another relegation battle (thanks Smurf) and the club try another game bundle. As has been reported last week, Vale's average for the season in terms of home fans is 4087. The first game of this offer, which you had to attend to take advantage of it, attracted 3,924 Vale fans. Do we really need to continue this debate about whether the offer worked or not?

 

I've just seen your other post using the increase in numbers at the Lincoln game as proof of the offers success. It's that kind of logic that makes me question your understanding of how it worked. You do realise that an increase over the two games, doesn't in any way mean the offer worked, do you???

 

What I will agree with RB about is the need for a longer term approach to attracting fans. However that shouldn't stop us reacting to a situation within the season, to carry out a one off promotional offer to try and pack as many people into our large/ empty stadium as possible.

 

And to answer your question about next season, (which you've then assumed the answer to and ran with), no, I won't be getting a ST next season.

[smithie]

As far as I can see the Walsall offer was simple, no fine print, no hoops to jump through. It probably wasn't a huge money spinner but they were on the edge of the relegation zone and they needed a big crowd to cheer them on to a win which they got.

 

The Vale offer was online only, you had to print your Crawley ticket out at home then go to the ticket office in person to pick up a proper ticket for the Lincoln, but only when they weren't busy.

 

The Vale ticket website, even when it's working, is an experience. However, on the Thursday or Friday before the Crawley game it decided to go down and a good number of people were unable to take advantage of the offer.

 

It wasn't poorly thought-through, it wasn't thought through at all.

 

I listed our repeated failures like this (among many others) in an email to Colin Garlick a year ago. Colin's response was polite enough, but he didn't agree with my observations.

 

When your CEO can't see what a layman can see then we've got big problems from the top down.

[Howjy04]

One I didn't think up myself? It didn't work howjy, I said it wouldn't beforehand. Tieing multiple games to each other as an offer, to attract fans that don't already regularly attend, doesn't work. It hasn't worked before, and it didn't work this time.

 

It wase poorly thought through, poorly advertised, lost the club money and didn't increase the attendance. As I said beforehand, the higher likelihood was for more Vale fans to be attracted to attend the Carlisle match, and so it transpired. Approx 3900 home v Crawley. 4200 v Lincoln. 4500 v Carlisle.

 

Instead of tieing the 2 matches together, with full price for the unnattractive Crawley match, they should have split them into £10 per match. Once the Crawley match was over, their promotional opportunities were down to zero. The offer had gone, only 700 (considering we have 3.2k ST holders) people at best took advantage of it. I've not analysed to that level, but I'd hazard a guess our usual number of walk ups is in that range. Very few, if any people that don't usually attend (the very people the offer was surely targetting) took up the offer.

 

I said as much beforehand, and unfortunately that's exactly how it panned out. Poor offer, didn't work.

Vale don’t include STs in gate numbers.There could have been more than 700 who took the offer up.

[Howjy04]

When all said and done there is little point in these offers unless your team wins.A few may have had a free Lincoln ticket and not used it after Crawley.More Vale fans paying full price on Saturday,with nothing to play for.Gift horses appear to out of fashion in Burslem.

[smithie]

When all said and done there is little point in these offers unless your team wins.A few may have had a free Lincoln ticket and not used it after Crawley.More Vale fans paying full price on Saturday,with nothing to play for.Gift horses appear to out of fashion in Burslem.

 

Walsall won, so logic dictates they will have that offer every week. They'll be in the Champions League within 3 years.

[Howjy04]

Walsall won, so logic dictates they will have that offer every week. They'll be in the Champions League within 3 years.

 

?????And losing money every home match.It was a gimmick.Lets see how many turn up(Walsall fans) for the next home game,Smithie.I suspect that the £5 crowd had gone home before the winner had been scored.

[Family Stand Terrier]

?????And losing money every home match.It was a gimmick.Lets see how many turn up(Walsall fans) for the next home game,Smithie.

I'm not suggesting every game, but it wasn't a gimmick. It was a one off offer in an attempt to help retain their L1 status and save money by avoiding relegation. There are risks ofcourse, but at least they could say they'd tried something. As it happens they doubled their home support and they won. They could argue their offer played its part.

 

Fair play to them I say. Unfortunately our owner (and a few posters on here it seems) lack the common sense to see the benefits.

[Howjy04]

I'm not suggesting every game, but it wasn't a gimmick. It was a one off offer in an attempt to help retain their L1 status and save money by avoiding relegation. There are risks ofcourse, but at least they could say they'd tried something. As it happens they doubled their home support and they won. They could argue their offer played its part.

 

Fair play to them I say. Unfortunately our owner (and a few posters on here it seems) lack the common sense to see the benefits.

You can only judge if it has worked when you see what the next Home attendance is.

[Family Stand Terrier]

You can only judge if it has worked when you see what the next Home attendance is.

No. You can only judge if it has worked when you know what they were hoping to achieve. You're assuming it was to encourage future attendance. As if 1 game would achieve that. My take on it was that they wanted to help their team achieve 3 vital points to help avoid relegation....if so, it worked.