500 season tickets sold already according to T&A. Pretty decent effort IMO only went on sale two weeks ago and that was half way through the month when most people have used a lot of their wage.

They need to sell 800 or so a month to hit their 4k target for start of year. I think that's a hard target to achieve but good start so far.

Was the target 4000 season ticket holders or just 4000 through the turnstile on average each week?

Average attendance 4000 is achievable. 4000 season ticket holders (at £230) I don't think so.

I'll be getting one nonetheless.

As I heard it at the event the other week it was 4,000 through the gates. Might be wrong, but that's how I understood it at the time.

It'd be nice to get the 4k up front and have feet on terraces be the icing on the cake though.

They need to hurry up and release some details on all of these savings/discounts that are available to members.
Unless they already have and I've missed it, in which case ignore me.

Also, is there going to be no mailshot this year with season ticket info/pricing? If you didn't go to the launch event the whole thing could have passed you by.

From reading the article, I read it as 4k members

Even if we fall short, let's say 3k buy season tickets, plenty will still pay on the gate, bringing more money into the club.

Will be buying mine in lead up to Christmas

ah fair enough. That sounds entirely possible particularly for fax, leigh etc.

No early bird pricing means no incentive to buy early, that is why not that many have.

We should get a decent walk-up for games like Fax and Fev, though nothing can even begin to compensate us for the loss of the travelling Huddersfield hordes. Who are both pretty cut up about it too btw.

I also heard it on extremely good authority that we will be drawn at home to Leeds in the Cup asap. Unless either team contrives to knock themselves out earlier, I suppose. Normally that would be no biggie but next year it will.

I tell myself that too. Then I think actually I can't afford it right now. Then I say screw it, I'm paying on the gate cos they get a bit more out of me that way anyway, and that I'll get one the following year. I'm so unused to buying the buggers that it never occurs to me to put some money aside specifically for this.

You mentioned 25,000 thickos who can't work a keyboard, you should charge them an annual support fee of 1p each and there's your £250

I'd think paying at the gate will bring in more than the tickets, to be honest. As long as the overall gate stays around 4k we should be ok.

TBH, there's still a lot of work to do to get fans back to the club following our fall from grace. However, I think the guys now running the club are aware of that fact and are doing everything they can to address it.

We might not hit the 4k, but I hope we do, but if the team we've got starts doing as well as we're all hoping they will then the feel good factor will start to come back. It can be disillusioning to see your team beaten every week, but if the team starts to play well again and, IMO more importantly, starts winning then they can attract back some fans.

You can throw all the money in the world at promoting games but unless you are winning regularly it is pointless.

I'm pretty much down the rest of my salary at that point too though.

If I still worked in research labs I'd have brand new Malaysian postgrads offering me a quarter of their grant right now. But I opted to be the exploitee rather than the exploiter. I'm stupid.

I don't think we'll have any trouble at all getting 4000

If, on average, about 6500 of us are willing to turn up every week to see us get absolutely smashed, then surely almost all of those people will show up when - as is likely - we are winning most games.

Let's be honest, most of the 'glory hunter' supporters have long gone, and so have those attracted by ultra cheap tickets from the Hood era. We're down to the 'die-hards' in the main now.

Honestly, I think we'll easily get 4000 and probably a fair few more for the bigger games, local derbies etc

Utter nonsense. This may be true for so-called fair-weather fans, but the trick to getting bodies in is to make the day out an event that is judged worth being at. So we used to get thousands of little kiddies in (with parents) who came for the stuff which attracted them, and may not have been much bothered at all who won or lost.

If you build an attractive enough event, at a reasonable enough price, they will come. Watching a particular competitor win is really not the main criterion.

Your remark is only true for the very narrow category of
* fair weather rugby league followers; and
* who have no other aim but to follow a winning team; and
*who would not attend on matchday, absent a 'winning team', [iwhatever[/i else might be on offer.
In fact, that is such a narrow category that it probably amounts to nobody. Unless you found someone who would never come on matchday, under any circumstances, but for a winning team. Not if Bruce Springsteen was the half time show? Not if each attendee got a £50 ASDA voucher? Not if everyone got 4 free pints?

It's not "whether" you could attract these people - of course you could. It's whether the marketing spend is cost effective for the extra it brings in, and that of course is a completely different question. It can and has been done, and you should know, as we had the master, Peter Deakin. Just that very few have those skills to the extent he did.

I've been in that camp for a while but it's going to be tough next year. I would bring my 2 lads (aged 7 & 5) and it would cost £25 to sit down. Next year the same thing will cost £41.

Literally.

Think 500 sold after two weeks is fairly respectable. Wakefield were upto 599 a few days ago and theirs have been on sales for a few weeks longer. Think there will a surge at months end but also think sales will continue pretty steadily uptil start of season. With no early bird deadline to worry about people will purchase when it best fits within their budget between now and February. Think 3k is easily attainable and 4k is a very realistic target. Much more so than 10k khan and co targeted.

But that is on the basis if you only pick and choose games. If you intend to go to all games then surely you'd get season tickets, which would - based on 14 games - work out at £21 a game?

It will be £8 for a junior per game in the stand, so if they plan to go to any more than 3 games, paying on the day makes no sense.

It clearly said 4K memberships this morning. I am certain they were talking 4K gates average up to this morning. There is a big difference. This year we averaged over 6K gates with I believe about 2.5K season tickets in that. That means in the worst season for decades we had about 3-4K walk-ups paying full price. If they need 4K average gates then that will be easy in my opinion. We will win most games and I firmly believe we will get 7-8K gates at quite a few games. Yes there is a team in Cumbria but we had London and Catalan who brought their supporters in a taxi but still managed a respectable average.
People will wait later with no early bird offers. I am going up next week and paying with Visa so it won't need paying till this time in October - one month interest free. If we get 3K STs + 3K walk-ups I assume that will be fine for the club. My mate and his lad are also buying a ticket with me next week and they haven't had one for 3 years so some people are feeling more confident. I bet we beat last years average gate.

To be honest the Cumbrian teams usually travel in numbers, Workington certainly used to when they were in the top flight so I don't think that will be an issue tbh. Doncaster and Sheffield are likely to bring less. Gonna be getting mine after xmas as there's no rush without early bird offer. Hopefully staggered sales right through, rather than one lump sum in November will be better financially for the club.

I think the 'staggered' income will be, to some extent, sorted with the 'pay over six months' deals.

It's a difficult call for the club to be fair. We've recruited a very solid squad, particularly for championship rugby and hopefully for the middle eights, and they deserve support, but Bradford isn't the most financially vibrant spot in the UK and many fans are going to find it hard to come by the extra money. I guess whether they've got the sums right or not depends on a large number of individual's financial position and their determination to stay involved.

There's no doubt for me though, that we need to perform strongly, as this is the one thing which gives the sort of 'good vibes' around the place and keeps folks happier. Stronger performances on the field might well have kept the income coming in, in a few relatively recent seasons. If you're sending people home happy it's a fair bet they'll come back.

Obviously if I intended to go to all games, I'd buy a season ticket. Living 75 miles away means I can't do that so I have to see on the day if we can make it. I have no way of knowing in advance whether we'll get to 1 game or 8 next season so I can't risk buying season tickets for the boys. I just don't understand why when we have a massive stadium that we won't fill, they've decided now is the time to fleece families.

The trouble with cheap tickets is just that; they're cheap. We've seen the mistakes the club has made by trying to get the fans back with discount tickets. It didn't work and nearly killed us. 4k is what I'd consider our core support as that seems to be the numbers of season tickets we usually shift. So why shouldn't the club use that as their jumping off point for working out the budgets for next year?

It's achievable, but I'd expect there to be a slow tick on the numbers sold as fans don't have to rush to buy their tickets before the early bird deadline.

But as with anything like this, it's a two way street. The club needs the money from the fans buying tickets and the fans need to see that their money is being wisely used. So far, I think the club have more than held up their end of the contract by giving us a coach with strong ties to the club and fans as well as an impressive team for next year, at least on paper.