Spread the love

Queuing in the snow, cups of tea, loyalty bonus points. BillytheBee looks at Brentford’s current ticketing system and highlights the various possible alternatives which could make life easier for both club and fans when buying tickets for future big matches. Full article appears in Beesotted 101 which can be bought here.

With the euphoria of the Chelsea game over, it’s back to reality with a hard bump. As much as we enjoyed our flirtation with the Champions of Europe, games against Walsall, Crawley and Scunthorpe are a reality pill as to where we really stand amongst the football elite. Our last cup run saw us sell arguably our best player at the time, DJ Campbell, leaving us woefully short on fire-power. This year the club has done everything within their capability to tie down the majority of our very talented squad for the foreseeable future and have even added to it.

With this new forward-thinking attitude encompassing the club, we would be gazing not to think that a few more ‘Chelsea days’ are on the horizon. However, as much as the war spirit that engulfed Bees fans prior to both Chelsea matches – with crowds queuing for up to six hours in the snow in hope of getting their hands on that golden ticket … being served tea by friendly Brentford staff – was heartwarming, there is no doubt that if are to go onto bigger things, Brentford are going to have to seriously update their systems on the ticket-distribution front.

Fans’ supporting habits are cyclic. Fans who may have fanatically supported the club home and away for years may find due to a number of reasons they are not able to get to so many matches now. Maybe that may be for family reasons, financial reasons, work reasons, illness etc. When I was setting up my company a number of years ago, I was out the country most weekends so it was impossible for me to attend matches week in and week out. Any time I was actually at home, it was important for me to be hanging out with my wife and new born kid. 8 years later, I’m doing more home and away matches than ever before but I understand how hard it can be. If a strict loyalty system were in place then and we drew Chelsea, I may have had problems getting tickets which would have been gutting.

People who regularly attend matches may say “Hold on. I have spent £300 in match tickets more than these non-attending people this season so I have a right to be in the first 5,000” which is a fair point. The club has to work out how it can diplomatically address all these issues whilst moving forward. The difficult part of balancing all this up is ensuring that everyone is incentivised and feels they have some sort of opportunity, no matter how small it may be, to purchase a ticket for a big game.

Chatting to fans in and around ground and via the various forms of social media, there are a number of issues that have come up regarding how tickets are currently distributed. We look at these issues and suggest possible solutions in the wake of the Chelsea game.

For the full article which goes through the varied number of alternative options for ticket distribution, check out beesotted issue 101 on sale before, during or after Brentford matches from 2nd March (Scunthorpe home) right through to 23rd March (Sheffield Utd Away) or on eBay here