Re: What can the club do to improve attendances? : Tue Feb 25, 2014 11:35 am  

What wahs is saying Paul is true.
If you were to look at other clubs' concession prices you would see we are two to three pounds over the norm.
Can this be looked at Paul?
We have lost supporters like wahs and would like them back.

[Wanderer]

Re: What can the club do to improve attendances? : Tue Feb 25, 2014 12:08 pm  

Stand-Offish wrote:

What wahs is saying Paul is true.
If you were to look at other clubs' concession prices you would see we are two to three pounds over the norm.
Can this be looked at Paul?
We have lost supporters like wahs and would like them back.

SO - Is it Shaun who you are addressing?

Re: What can the club do to improve attendances? : Tue Feb 25, 2014 1:11 pm  

Hi all
Thanks for the first bit of feedback.

Prior to Christmas we announced that adult and concession prices would be reduced and a family ticket introduced. Our pricing policy this season is

Adults £13
Concessions £11
Children £3

Our family provision means that a free child ticket can be claimed with any adult or concession ticket purchase too. . The idea behind this is that we're attracting younger fans and growing the fanbase from an early age. We'd like to think that all adults or concessions would/could be able to bring a son/daughter/grandchild/niece/nephew to a game and help grow the clubs support.

Having looked at the prices across the Championship (excluding Swinton and Leigh as I couldnt find ticket prices) the range was as follows

Adults £13 to £18
Concessions £8 to £13
Children £3 to £9

As you can see our adult and child prices are amongst the cheapest in the league.

The average price in this division for a concession is £10. We charge £11 but offer a free child ticket alongside it. We also offer concessions at 60 (some clubs are 65) and the price is for a seat (not standing) as it is in some grounds too so there are other factors to also consider.

As we sold season tickets at £120 for concessions (£9.23 per game) the lowest I could offer a match ticket price would be at £10, so as to ensure the financial value of purchasing a season ticket remains. However, one home league game into the season, I would suggest that a further £1 reduction on a concession price isn't going to generate a massive increase in ticket sales or generate the club additional revenue, and would actually cost the club money based who would have attended and paid £11 anyway.

However I appreciate what Wah's has said and therefore am happy to offer a match package for concessions at 6 games for a one off fee of £60, reducing the price per game to £10, (in line with the league average).

I could replicate something similar with adults too (at a different price point) and therefore this would benefit those supporters who attend on a regular basis by bringing their cost per game down but still protecting the value of a full season ticket.

Re: What can the club do to improve attendances? : Tue Feb 25, 2014 2:29 pm  

Wanderer wrote:

SO - Is it Shaun who you are addressing?

Yes ... senior moment.
lol
And thanks for the reply Shaun.

Re: What can the club do to improve attendances? : Tue Feb 25, 2014 5:06 pm  

Reduction from full price at most clubs is £5 £7 at Featherstone and Keighley

Re: What can the club do to improve attendances? : Wed Feb 26, 2014 2:45 pm  

Hi Wahs

The reason why the jump between adult and concessions is larger in other clubs is because they charge more for their adult tickets. As you can see from the information I've provided we are amongst the cheapest in the league for adult pricing.

Featherstone charge £10 for a concession, which is the same price point I've offered you with the multi-game ticket.

However they also charge £17 for an adult, which is £4 more expensive than ourselves. Keighley are one of the cheapest in the division at £8 I agree, however they are an exception and again charge £2 more than ourselves for an adult.

In addition as I've stated we also offer a free child ticket with any adult or concession ticket purchase, which is excellent value.

Again as I have pointed out the average price in the division is £10 and we charge £11. However I have offered to create a product that provides a £10 price point to bring this in line with the league average.

Re: What can the club do to improve attendances? : Thu Feb 27, 2014 10:35 am  

This was raised to show lack of parity between concession and adult

Re: What can the club do to improve attendances? : Thu Feb 27, 2014 6:05 pm  

Thanks for the feedback Shaun - much appreciated.

I don't find it easy to attend meetings due to work commitments, which probably affects others too, so I think the forum is a good platform to get quite a lot of considered views. Plenty of people on here make some good points.

Designing a pricing package that makes everyone happy is tough, and I appreciate it is a difficult challenge. If you put the adult prices up to accommodate the concessions, you'll get your ear bent for that.

Even though our admission prices may compare favourably with other clubs, I do have a major issue with the £4 car parking charge which will surely be amongst the highest, if not the highest, in the league. A concession ticket plus £4 car parking is a fairer comparison.

We need to include parking charges in the match day cost, especially as transport links to the Keepmoat are poor. Why do the club think £4 is fair? A couple of quid seems reasonable, £4 seems like a rip off. This type of pricing doesn't endear people to the club. It does the opposite.

I understand that getting crowds of 2,000, with everyone paying £2 to get in wouldn't raise as much revenue as 500 people paying current rates. Initiatives need to raise more cash, not drop income, but we need to do something positive to get old fans back and bring new fans in.

If we have serious ambitions to get into Super League, we need to have crowds of at least 2,000. This is almost four times what we're getting now.

Does the club know why the old fans aren't attending? Unless we know why, we can't really start to solve the problem.

Could Doncaster College students do a project to try to find out the answers?

Where do knew fans come from?

Why not have a special promotion where all Rovers season ticket holders can attend one game for free?

We're probably not going to make anyone a die-hard rugby fan overnight but they won't know what they're missing if they don't give it a try.

Do the club have any attendance targets? If so, what objectives are in place to try to achieve them?

Looking forward to reading your thoughts, Shaun.

Re: What can the club do to improve attendances? : Fri Feb 28, 2014 10:29 am  

As a former fan no longer attending here are a few thoughts.

I have been a rugby league fan since the mid eighties but I have stopped following the sport over the past year.
I used to follow the Dons home and away, go to finals and internationals etc.
As with many Dons fans I first became interested during the Sheridan era and really looked forward to a Sunday afternoon down at Tattersfield. The whole buzz and atmosphere under the old tin roof was great.
As time has gone by things have changed, the sport sold its soul to Sky and the whole SL closed shop, franchising, money troubles at virtually every club, inept administration by the RFL and cost of attending games has really put me off. The worst thing for me though over the past few years, and this probably relates to most of society and not just RL, is the general aggressive, angry attitude which now seems so common amongst opposing sets of supporters. By all means shout for your team, but do we need all the anger?
I have now started watching Doncaster Knights.
The main reasons for this are:
I can pay on the gate the full adult price of £10
Although the car park costs £3 there are often offers such as this weekend where if you arrive more than an hour before kick off it is free, obviously hoping early birds will spend in the bar and food concourse.
The quality of food and drink is excellent. The cow pie is grand.
It is a pleasant experience watching a sporting event without people falling out with each other over every refereeing decision.
Generally speaking RU seems to be more professionally run than RL.

These are my reasons for not attending any longer.

Re: What can the club do to improve attendances? : Fri Feb 28, 2014 11:14 am  

Interesting points, Rupert, providing food for thought both metaphorically and literally.

Paying at the gate does seem to be a common point raised. Sometimes it might not always be the obvious things to the club that are creating barriers.

The actions of the RFL are beyond what the club can control but this does seem a point regularly raised.

Quality of food and drink, paying on the gate, costs compared to rugby union, and the atmosphere inside the ground are probably things the club needs to review.