Where did I say they were responsible? I didn't.
What I was getting at is encouraging new support and that's one impossible area to tap, sorry if it was a vague statement.

You don't double your attendances by halfing the ticket price though.

Mr Carter must have done the sums to work out the optimum prices.

I'm not sure how many people aged 60 to 64 have stopped coming because of the concession age change. I am equally unsure how many students have stopped coming because we don't have a student ST.

I am fairly confident in saying that some people across the demographic range, have stopped coming cos we are crap.

Just some random figures pucked from nowhere as I don't know the number or split of season tickets sold but if we assume we sold 2000 season tickets at their full prices let's see how the numbers pan out:

1200 Adults @ £250 = £300,000
300 Concessions @£170 = £51,000
300 13-16yr olds @£70 = £21,000
200 Under 12's @£50 = £10,000

Total = £382,000

If you reduced the Adult and concessions prices (I personally think the others are more than reasonable) to get the same income you would need to sell

1500 Adults @£200 = £300,000
425 concessions @£120 = £51,000
300 13-16yr olds @£70 = £21,000
200 Under 12's @£50 = £10,000

Total = £382,000

So we would need to sell 300 additional Adult tickets and 125 additional Concessions to generate the same Season ticket income but you have an extra 425 season ticket holders and therefore in the ground (hopefully) spnding money.
Seems simple and achievable. However, as ever nothing is quite that simple. Question is how many of those 425 extra season ticket holders would have walked up and paid on the day? My guess (based on people picking and choosing games etc) is maybe 60% so now you are giving up:
300 x £20 x 14 (games) x 60% (attendance) = £50,400
125 x £14 x 14 (games) x 60% (attendance) = £14,700
So now you need to sell a further additional 200 adult tickets and 120 concessions to make up the numbers.

So in total we now need to sell an additional 500 Adult tickets and 245 Concessions on top of what we would sell at this seasons prices. Is that as achievable??


As I said, this is all speculative, but you can see how it is not just as simple as reducing the prices, and how increasing the prices, even with the loss of number of sales that brings can dramatically affect the overall situation.


Michael Carter has a real tough job balancing these decisions with financing a squad capable of competing without spending money we don't have.

Just a bit of food for thought for all those who seem to think it is simple.

We used to have a couple of thousand fans occupying the Western Terrace along with visiting fans. Excellent atmosphere and the best standing views in the ground.

We are now told to stand behind the posts and are expected to tolerate the poor, obstructed view and put up with the proximity of our most childish fans whilst looking across to an area that at times has been kept virtually empty. Where have these fans gone - not onto the Northstand.

Never mind new further sales. The problem next year will be convincing the current ST holders to purchase again!

After the dross served up and the comments of our previous coach the general consensus with the group i go with is that they arent going to bother. When the time comes to renew i dare say a few will have a change of mind, but certainly not all.

Our group has already dwindled to five. Three of those will not be renewing next year, the other two are undecided.

I think the crowds have obviously suffered due to a number of factors this season:
Pricing
Performances!!!!!
Webster's statement/mentality
Apathy

There are reasons for fans to come back and we just have to hope the middle 8's provide that reason. At the moment (until middle 8s start) we effectively have nothing left to play for but pride as we can't change our position.

I've no doubt those who don't renew still post the same old dross on here.I get made redundant next week and yes ,a season to forget,but I can assure you that the wife,father inlaw and myself will be getting our tickets next year,so gather up all your teddies and dummies that's lying about,put em back in the cot and get to watch the Trin.

As a season ticket holder for many years and previously never missing a home game, this season I have been guilty of choosing to stay away. Webster's comments about the games not mattering massively influenced an apathy towards the club that i have never had before.
Then along came the shining light that is Brian Smith. After listening to his opening interview at the club that feeling of pride in my club was back. The last two home games have been like a breath of fresh air and I would urge any other stay away fans to get your backsides down to Belle Vue and support our new and inspirational coach.
I for one am so glad to be back supporting my team, coach & chairman that really do want to win every match and stay in Superleague. Bring on Cas!!!

This coming weekend's attendance will be interesting; what should be our largest of the season by a country mile. Will we break the 4500 barrier?

The problem we face is that before the club can offer season tickets they need to know what standard of rugby we are playing but most importantly where we are playing. The club cannot offer early bird season tickets because for example I sit in the centre stand how can I be offered a discount when I may not have the same seat to sit in. We will also not know how far from Wakefield we could be playing.
This will of course hit cash flow in the early part of the close season which makes me think that we will off load as many of the current squad as possible to reduce the wage bill, with a view to finding last minute replacements once again.
This is a negative view but one forged by many years of seeing similar events usually once every two to three years but this time the lack of a ground adds a new twist even for us.

Like I said earlier I will be getting one whatever

Your tone has become progressively more negative even for you over the last few weeks.
Always looking to turn a positive into a negative to justify not supporting/buying season tickets.
All in the hope that you can turn round and say 'I told you so'.
People like you should just dry up and blow away.
We have bottomed out this year and call it misplaced trust again but I would rather be on an even keel going into next year than having a massive deficit to clear just to get us onside.
Are you that bloke who sits in The Grapes in Early Doors and moans about everything?

Thanks for answering my questions Two Points, I learnt a few things. Ta.

Would hope so, Cas will be bringing a couple of thousand and its the only Sunday super league game. Only problem could be schools breaking up and families going away on holiday.

No I am just a realist and base my views on what I see or read. You are correct we have bottomed out because we for the first time will finish last, basically our season was over by May or when Webster decided to give up until the middle 8's.
We have a long list of players out of contract please let me know any who have signed new contracts because I must of missed that. We have let two go and sold one (who is under contract), replaced them with one genuine talent unfortunately only until the end of the season and three reserves and another on loan. The crowing success is that we have decided to call the bluff of the BOI by terminating our lease in the hope that they will crack and reduce our rent. If they don't then we are homeless quite unique for any SL club. We could change our name to the nomads because depending where we move I know the majority of those on the forum about 70 will go but I wonder how many that are not so dedicated will do.
I am sorry I do not understand why some of you believe everything is Rosie, I wish I had a pint of whatever you are drinking. I hate to burst some members overinflated egos but you no longer and probably never did represent the views of the majority but the way things are going the 70 of you may do.
I hope we stay up it is in our hands and then I believe we have been informed that we will be in a much stronger position for next season, sadly they said that at the end of last season.

disappointment can come across as negative. I do think the club should except responsibility for the mess we are presently in. The last thing you should ever do is to place that responsibility back to the supporters. Like it or not M C made plenty of fundamental mistakes and did himself or the club no favours by some of the things he said . That's all history and the only 2 objectives are to stay in sl and to increase support. I see efforts on the sl front but nothing on the support side of things.

Out of interest - has the club done any research on who many existing ST holders would continue to be ST holders if the club were to move to - say Barnsley ? If this is the proposed location then the club could pick up a few more supporters but I would imagine this would be very few in the first season.

No

I don't think that they want to show their hand yet as it may affect negotiations with the BOI, although there is a massive risk of losing further fans if we end up playing somewhere which is difficult for fans to travel to.

How many options the club have is unknown and maybe there are different choices depending on whether we are in SL or the Championship.

Maybe we could put a bid in for Wheldon Road, when you lot move house !

That would be a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire.

seriously though i noticed on some other threads that some give the excuse for non attendance at Belle Vue "because its a dump of a ground". I may be a minority but I don't think I've ever taken into consideration the condition of a ground when deciding whether to attend be it Wakey Cas or any other.

Well newgroundb4wakey that makes 2 of us who don't take into account the ground when going to games infact I find some of the new grounds have no soul compared with the old ones its the rugby I go to watch.Yes as a fan of many years I would love for us to stay at Belle Vue but if its not to be then so be it.

It's been a dump of a ground for a long long time now, and it's only the last few years that away fans have stopped coming in large numbers, with the exception of Cas and Leeds and to a slightly less extent both Hull clubs who are experiencing a poor season teams like Wire, Saints, Wigan, and Bradford before their demise, all used to bring large followings, maybe the state of the ground will have some part to play in it somewhere, but for me the biggest problem is that of cost, I stopped going to France 4 years ago far too expensive for what you get, only missed 1 match at Griffin park and the last one at the Stoop, apart from Cas I've stopped going to away matches as there are better and cheaper things to spend your hard earned on, that's assuming people have it to spend, and if you times that 2, 3, or 4 times for family members, is there any wonder fans don't travel like they used to.

So has Cas Chiss mate but honestly how much of an inconvenience is any ground? Once the game has kicked off most proper fans will spend 90% of the time watching the action and not the surroundings. I tend to spend the other 10% of the time looking down at my feet in times when either the team or the fans are embarrassing me. If there are refreshments available (I accept we will always have to pay a bit above the odds) and toilets, no matter how basic I'm happy. Unless we lose of course and then I blame it all on the ground being a dump.

While I agree with the above two posts (I am not interested either in the stadium facilities and just go to watch the game), I don't think the issue is with supporters like ourselves, but its more to do with trying to attract new fans to the game.

Trying to get new families watching the sport in becoming virtually impossible.

You go in the Wheldon Road end or Princess Street of our ground on a match day and you will maybe 20+ young kids who cannot see above the railing so they take a box or a stool to stand on. We've all seen it. In the modern day sporting arena this is not acceptable - we need all seater family area's.

There was a letter in last weeks league weekly from a Saints fans complaining about Cas Tigers having a smoking area and he would'nt be going again.

The issue last year with taking a bottle of pop into the ground at Belle Vue is another case.

I'm convinced it's small but important things like this that stop some people from attending games anymore. Time to move forward.

I'm afraid it is ridiculous to blame fans for not turning up with the performances we have seen. Do you REALLY expect people to part with 20 quid plus and spend half their valuable Sunday to watch a completely uncompetitive team, half of whom do not look like they are giving 100%? We are in an economic downturn if you hadn't noticed. Cash is precious and people's free time is always precious. I'm afraid the rot started to set in in terms of club mismanagement whilst Glover was in charge and the decision to get rid of John Kear has seen us a completely uncompetitive side for all bar the end of Agar's 1st season with the famous 7 match run that took us to the play offs. The rest of the last 3 years or so, we have been a pretty shabby outfit and nothing like Kear's teams who generally gave a showing even in defeat. The Ground fiasco has seriously demoralised many fans, me included. I have not attended much this year; after a few abysmal efforts I couldn't justify it to myself when I work hard all week, to watch the dross dished up. I will attend for the middle 8's. It is the last ditch effort. I was more optimistic but after today, I don't know now. I pay my 1973 to support them but please don't lecture me or anyone else on non-attendance. Enough has been enough for me and for many. The student pass withdrawal didn't help either as I used to bring my daughter, so that helped to have a double whammy effect. Once again mismanagement. Look to those who run the club, not the fans who rightly have had enough