Booking West Ham tickets this morning...

[Tom.10]

Was always going to be people who missed out. Not much the club can do with such high demand, but if they were selling more than 1 ticket per person at the ticket office then that's not on.

It will be even more of a kick in the teeth when half the seats on the south end of the main stand are all empty again

[Sheffield Harrier]

Sadly, there a number of questions and I don’t expect answers to be forthcoming.

Firstly, I don’t remember seeing any *guarantee* that you’d get a ticket if you went to the Halifax game. However, I can understand those who expected to be able to login after work today and get a ticket because they assumed there would be one ticket per person who attended the Halifax game. The messaging could have made it much clearer that you would probably need to be online at 12 to guarantee a ticket. For example, outlining before today what the actual capacity is. They continue to be very cagey about actually admitting this. Many of us are under the impression the ground holds over 6000. It clearly doesn’t anymore! Or it doesn’t once certain mitigations are made. Without clear messaging we are left guessing. They could also have put out some messaging before midday Saying that the ticketing system might not cope and to ask for patience. We are a small outfit, with few full time staff and little experience of such a scenario. It just seems like they’ve not asked theirselves enough questions about scenarios that might arise. For example, what are we going to do if 200 people queue up outside the ticket office? For me the answer needed to be “we will sell tickets on the same basis as online.” One per person who attended Halifax. This doesn’t appear to have happened and I understand the anger from those who were not afforded this opportunity online. Season ticket holders could not even purchase more than one ticket yet those who might have only turned up once this season have, if accounts are true, rocked up and got multiple tickets. That seems unfair to me.
Another issue seems to be fans who had multiple tickets for Halifax under one HAR number. From the messaging they expected to get one per ticket for each halifax ticket yet the system didn’t allow this. That’s my understanding anyway.

Clearly, the online ticketing system needed a lot more explaining. Again, this could have been pre-empted and clearer guidance given.

The 1700 for West Ham is certainly going to dampen any advantage we might have had (ha!) from being at home. Perhaps they had no choice. But again we don’t know. Messaging.

3450 home fans v Halifax. 1700 West Ham and you’re over 5000 there. Perhaps the capacity is just over 5000 and with what I expect are a LOT of freebies / complimentary tickets / press / family and mates of players and officials (I expect loads here) / West Ham officials / ex players / FA people / Norwegians / local big wigs / sponsors then you can start to understand why there are many disappointed people. Again, perhaps making it clear how few tickets there were might have made those who thought they could have waited until later today be on their toes a little more.

Finally, what is this 300 fans thing to do with ex players? I thought it was just the first 300 members to turn up to the social club but is it some sort of private event? The social club is of course free to put on any private event it wishes but has there been some sort of deal where 300 selected folks were guaranteed tickets before any were sold this week?

[aberred]

Pretty sure general release of the tickets was PHASE 3! So why has the club decided to sell via the ticket office to anyone? And up to 5 tickets each!? Absolute joke, true fans that work didn’t have a chance.

Because the club have a duty to accommodate those fans who can't / won't purchase online. Not sure about it being general sale - I'd have assumed you'd have to demonstrate you'd been to Halifax game.

I understand for supporters without access to the internet, but to sell 5 tickets per person is very disappointing!

Ultimately:
*There is too few tickets and too high a demand.
*West Ham's allocation is far too high - approx 30% of a 5200 gate - BUT I can't see a way in which a section of the South stand would've been given to home fans and for it to remain safe.

As for someone buying five tickets - i read a reply from the club on Facebook that if said person had bought (for example) five tickets for the Halifax game, then they could buy five for West Ham (availability permitting).

[BobGreenwoodsDad]

Clearly there are too many people chasing too few tickets,and that will always leave many unhappy. If tickets had all been sold out to those who went to Darlington away, I would absolutely hold my hands up and say that is fair enough. It is the prioritisation of the Halifax tickets (which were, by the maths, bought to a large extent by non-regulars) that is sticking in my craw

[tonythescout]

Always going to be ones who have missed out. Those who had from Tuesday to get a ticket and only did something about it this Pm and came short I have no sympathy with. I was in the site dead on 12 as it was obvious it’s the golden ticket and would sell out within hours.
There is a clearly a hole in the system where those who went to the ground were able to get additional tickets where those who used the site couldn’t.
I have been informed tonight harriers of Norway have 8 tickets, they were not even at the Halifax game and do how many games in total a season? Just shows how pathetic the scenario is where others have missed out who should have been prioritised further.

[North Stand Ultra]

Pretty sure general release of the tickets was PHASE 3! So why has the club decided to sell via the ticket office to anyone? And up to 5 tickets each!? Absolute joke, true fans that work didn’t have a chance.

Because the club have a duty to accommodate those fans who can't / won't purchase online. Not sure about it being general sale - I'd have assumed you'd have to demonstrate you'd been to Halifax game.

I understand for supporters without access to the internet, but to sell 5 tickets per person is very disappointing!

Ultimately:
*There is too few tickets and too high a demand.
*West Ham's allocation is far too high - approx 30% of a 5200 gate - BUT I can't see a way in which a section of the South stand would've been given to home fans and for it to remain safe.

As for someone buying five tickets - i read a reply from the club on Facebook that if said person had bought (for example) five tickets for the Halifax game, then they could buy five for West Ham (availability permitting).

And do we genuinely believe there were many supporters whom purchased 5 tickets for the Halifax game?


One point I cannot get my head round is that we have allocated West Ham circa 1700 tickets, this is far more than they were entitled to.

[tonythescout]

It is mad. There is a massive barrier in the south stand which would be sufficient for segregation including police inbetween. Plenty of clubs in championships etc share ends with sufficient segregation and policing, couldn’t see why this couldn’t be done here tbf. We did it v rushden back in 2000

[Harry Aire]

Sounds like a classic ****-up! Brilliant.

[BobGreenwoodsDad]

I have absolutely no problem with Harriers of Norway having 8 tickets (to be honest I am surprised that it is not a few more). They are a bit of a special (if odd) case

[Jasper]

The South Stand was designed for segregation but it depends what the police stipulated (if any).

[Harry Aire]

The thing to do is only watch the Harriers when they win. Turn up to a couple of games every decade. Then go to the ground when they're fed up with selling tickets and they'll give you as many as you want.

I have no problem with Harriers of Norway either. I do have a problem with regulars being pushed aside by glory hunters, hangers on, sponsors' distant relatives etc etc And please don't tell me again that this was difficult and this was the fairest way. And don't tell me again I'm being political like it's political to criticise but it's not political to tell us how wonderful the leadership of this club is.

[Bewdleyharrier]

I highly doubt the club could do anything about the south stand. Do people really think that after the Reading game the club and police would suggest that it was a good idea having Kiddy and West Ham fans in the same block? 1600 tickets for them is too much but I suspect the club's hands are tied in some aspects due to the layout of the stadium and the behaviour in previous rounds

[harry211]

I'll get the usual brickbats here. For the record I got a ticket, so it's not a complaint of sour grapes.

Heads should roll for this. By all accounts, from what I've seen, read and heard, this is avoidable rank incompetence.

The club has had weeks, weeks, to get this right. It's not as if they rushed into it with their eyes closed, not knowing the demand. As others have pointed out, there was no obligation to offer West Ham the numbers of tickets we have. In fact, far from it. On top of that we've cashed in big time with hospitality. Now if you've done one, fine, but don't do both. By doing so the club has stuck a thumb in the eye of normal fans in favour of day tripping away supporters/those with money bags. What is this about fans coming over from Norway? Or West Ham fans on Twitter talking about having tickets in the home end. Or fans being able to buy multiple tickets. After all the debacle about the club going online only for tickets this season, all the uproar, why were we seeing queues outside in the street?

The website and club gave the distinct impression that everyone who went vs Halifax would be able to get tickets, while being intentionally vague about what the capacity is thesedays. Is it less than Reading? By all accounts it appears so. Why? There's less government regulations so the club can't crow about Covid. TV? Those gantries don't take up a huge amount of seats. Catering? Well that's an issue the club has created for itself. There needs to be proper communication.

The club needs to say now, not next week, not after the game, not at the next fan's forum, nor in the next edition of Harriers Voice (expected Autumn 2024) what has happened. There will be people pissed off with this, and it would be a shame for those who have supported the side faithfully this year and in recent years to miss out and create more ill feeling out of what should be a happy and memorable event for the club.

This was avoidable. We've apparently got the most professional business owners we've had in a decade, yet we're still pulling in amateur tricks like this. If we weren't sure how to handle this, did we ask Kaizen's team for help? Did we ask West Ham or other big Midlands sides for a bit of advice? Has the club recruited extra backroom admin staff to help get this ready? It appears not. We're certainly not having more volunteers than we should be.

Our biggest game in a decade, and we've made a ham fists of it. No matter who is at the helm, we make stupid uninforced mistakes. Serrell, Rod Brown, Flash, Lane. Is it just us? When will it ever end?

[Marcus Garvey]

I'm also struggling to understand with such high demand how tickets could be sold at the ground and online at the same time. Presumably it would appear they took online sales down to prioritise those at the ground?
I accept not an easy situation but as was said before, to buy a ticket you should have either needed to purchase say 6 future league games or bought previous league tickets.
Let's hope revenue gained isn't wasted....

[spitalfields]

I highly doubt the club could do anything about the south stand. Do people really think that after the Reading game the club and police would suggest that it was a good idea having Kiddy and West Ham fans in the same block? 1600 tickets for them is too much but I suspect the club's hands are tied in some aspects due to the layout of the stadium and the behaviour in previous rounds

Completely agree. Blocks L and M of the East Stand, and the whole of the South Stand, is designated as Visiting Supporters accommodation. I strongly suspect that's hardwired into the safety certificate and such like. Changing that for one game isn't straightforward, and the likelihood of gaining consent from the authorities, especially given the incidents in previous rounds, is extremely low.

I can only recall one occasion in recent years when home fans were in the south stand. Memory fades as to the details, but I seem to recall it didn't go well, and the club came in for criticism. Who knows, maybe some of the delay in announcing ticketing arrangements was the club trying to get agreement for a change, and predictably failing. I also strongly suspect that no home fans have lost out because of the increased tickets for WH compared to Reading. It wouldn't surprise me, given how long it's been since the south stand was full, if a lower capacity was imposed by the authorities for the Reading game.

I have less sympathy for some of the other decisions. But I also know that in situations like this, it doesn't matter what you do, there will always be someone who complains, and there will always be someone who misses out unfairly. There are no perfect solutions. The FA Cup final is typically surrounded by stories of 'true fans' missing out on tickets, often with fewer tickets available than at the semis. Reading was our semi, this is our final, and alongside the positives of that then, sadly, the negatives are inevitable.

Personally I find the approach to ticketing non-optimal. But any other arrangement would have had it's flaws. It may have been fairer on the face of it to have prioritised those who had attended at least four home games this season. But the socials would then be filled with tales of people who had only managed three games because of illness, work, moving away this season having attended every game for the previous 10 years, having to isolate after attending their cat's wedding abroad, etc, etc. And despite the online system, there are still those who pay in cash at the ticket office, who probably don't keep every ticket. Those people would, rightly, be either furious or deeply disappointed. But any alternative would result in the same.

The official website identified the match as 'National League North' on the fixture list. This probably wasn't a deliberate attempt to put the glory hunters off the scent and keep attendance and income at standard league game levels. But if it had been, and had it succeeded, then the club would have been criticised for other reasons.

Ultimately, the only guarantee of a ticket is to be a season ticket holder and to pay close attention to the hoops that need to be jumped through. And however legitimate people's reasons might be for not doing so, that's the long and the short of it.