Match tickets

[Ben]

44 minutes ago, Minhosa said:

I called 08443721892.

 

I'd tried it the day before and it was literally 'off', didn't even dial.

 

I tried it again yesterday AM and the same.

 

Tried it on the off chance yesterday PM and was placed in position 97 in the queue. Waited 3 hours almost and got through to an operator who said they'd been absolutely rammed and that there was a huge queue in the physical box office too.

 

I paid £5275.00 for the 5 ST's. 4 seats together in the Platinum Club and 1 on its own.

 

As you do.

[Hovagod]

5 minutes ago, Ben said:

 

As you do.

The one on its own is presumably the driver’s 

[bobbydazzla]

A grand per ticket for Platinum Club seats when a bog standard ticket in the Gallowgate is now £800ish.

 

Hows that work ? 

 

 

Edited April 30, 2022 by bobbydazzla

[S Norman]

4 hours ago, Minhosa said:

Sorry - I should have been clearer.

 

I specifically wanted seats in the Milburn and didn't think I'd have a chance to get them on general sale so I bought 5 x Platinum Club Bonds which entitles the holder to first option on season tickets in the seats.

 

I then took that option out yesterday and 'renewed' all 5 ST's. The conditions of the bond are that the club are not allowed to sell ST's in those seats to anyone but the bond holder however, if the bond holder doesn't renew, then the club can sell the seats on a game by game basis.

 

So yes, a renewal of sorts, and not a 'new' ST even though we've never had them there before if that makes sense.

 

And the girl on the phone 100% said they do not think they'll get to general sale....

 

How does one buy Platinum Club bonds?

[Consettmag]

9 hours ago, bobbydazzla said:

A grand per ticket for Platinum Club seats when a bog standard ticket in the Gallowgate is now £800ish.

 

Hows that work ? 

 

 

 

I pay 659 for middle of the gallowgate 

[TheGuv]

10 hours ago, Minhosa said:

I called 08443721892.

 

I'd tried it the day before and it was literally 'off', didn't even dial.

 

I tried it again yesterday AM and the same.

 

Tried it on the off chance yesterday PM and was placed in position 97 in the queue. Waited 3 hours almost and got through to an operator who said they'd been absolutely rammed and that there was a huge queue in the physical box office too.

 

I paid £5275.00 for the 5 ST's. 4 seats together in the Platinum Club and 1 on its own.

How can it not go to general sale based purely off renewals..?

[Dr Venkman]

13 minutes ago, TheGuv said:

How can it not go to general sale based purely off renewals..?

Everyone’s buying bonds man 

[TheGuv]

34 minutes ago, Dr Venkman said:

Everyone’s buying bonds man 

But only in the Platinum Club? Which is what, a couple of thousand seats at most?!

[bowlingcrofty]

There will have to be some level of “general” sale. 
 

My assumption is that the box office staff member meant it would go to members and STHs for extra tickets, and then it would sell out there before making it to regular general sale.

[HaydnNUFC]

I swear bonds haven't been sold since like around 1994  the whole Save Our Seats campaign and that? https://www.nufc.com/html/sos-irishtimes-1.html https://www.nufc.com/html/sos-irishtimes-2.html 

 

Not seen them advertised anywhere on the club site or on .com.

[Minhosa]

7 hours ago, S Norman said:

 

How does one buy Platinum Club bonds?

You'd have to buy them off an existing bond holder. If you can find a bond holder willing to sell you their bonds, then there is a 'transfer of ownership' form to complete, send back to the club with a £25 admin fee.

 

The club then reissues the bond in your name and you're then entitled to the accompanying season ticket as well as free domestic cup tickets for the balance of bond (about 60-70 years).

[Minhosa]

7 minutes ago, bowlingcrofty said:

There will have to be some level of “general” sale. 
 

My assumption is that the box office staff member meant it would go to members and STHs for extra tickets, and then it would sell out there before making it to regular general sale.

Don't know context, I'm just quoting verbatim based on the conversation I had.

[Minhosa]

6 minutes ago, HaydnNUFC said:

I swear bonds haven't been sold since like around 1994  the whole Save Our Seats campaign and that? https://www.nufc.com/html/sos-irishtimes-1.html https://www.nufc.com/html/sos-irishtimes-2.html 

 

Not seen them advertised anywhere on the club site or on .com.

No - but they can be resold by the private individuals who hold them.

[Minhosa]

For further context, I'd promised my kids we'd get tickets whenever a takeover happened. I knew we'd struggle to get them in the area we wanted so I took out adverts in 4 x local newspapers suggesting I was looking to buy bonds as I knew they would be a guaranteed route to a ST. I did this back in January as the process is not quick to agree the deal and then process the paperwork with the club and existing bond holders.

 

FYI, The Bonds were for 100 years and issued between 1993 and 1994. Most of them were bought back then for circa £3k.

 

I got fairly limited interest but a few Bond Holders were open to discussing deals. I managed to agree a figure with a couple of them and bought the bonds.

 

The adverts were taken out in the Journal, Chronicle, Sunday Sun and Gazette. I also put an ad on Gumtree where I nearly got cyber-scammed from a very convincing con artist (sending photos' from the 'bond seats' etc so be very careful if you do that!).

 

I do find the scoffing from some folks quite amusing tbh.

 

Plenty of folks on here speak to me regularly off the forum and have seen proof of the purchase.

 

 

Edited April 30, 2022 by Minhosa

[Minhosa]

11 hours ago, Ben said:

 

As you do.

A grand each, give or take. I don't think they're badly priced tbh.

[Minhosa]

11 hours ago, Hovagod said:

The one on its own is presumably the driver’s 

Nah, we get him to keep the car running every match day.

[Hovagod]

6 hours ago, bowlingcrofty said:

There will have to be some level of “general” sale. 
 

My assumption is that the box office staff member meant it would go to members and STHs for extra tickets, and then it would sell out there before making it to regular general sale.

Hugely unfair if season ticket holders get to buy extra

[Whitley mag]

3 hours ago, Hovagod said:

Hugely unfair if season ticket holders get to buy extra

I think the whole season ticket holders also being classed as members for ticket sales is wrong. Fair enough if you have just bought a membership, but think  the club needs to rethink the membership scheme. It’s fine for folk who know season ticket holders, but going forward i think they’ll be better off revamping and promoting the membership scheme, with ballots for match sales etc, if they’re not going to sell the ground out to season ticket holders. It’ll also ensure you get new folk going to the match to safeguard our future support. The last thing we want is a closed shop and future generations can’t get into the habit of going. I have no problem with a season ticket cap and leaving at least 5000 tickets for general sale.

On a side note I also think that rail seating in the strawberry corner and gallowgate area towards the corner would benefit atmosphere greatly. Anyone who doesn’t want to stand and sing can move now whilst there are alternative seats available in lower bowl. I think the area would become an extended singing section and provide constant and louder noise. For all the atmospheres improved with the flags etc, it’s still flat at times and needs a singing section desperately. This summer could be last chance to create one, this is something the Trust should push for in my opinion.

 

 

Edited May 1, 2022 by Whitley mag

[Dr Venkman]

3 hours ago, Hovagod said:

Hugely unfair if season ticket holders get to buy extra

Agreed. Would be absolutely crazy and totally unfair.

[NEEJ]

12 hours ago, Minhosa said:

For further context, I'd promised my kids we'd get tickets whenever a takeover happened. I knew we'd struggle to get them in the area we wanted so I took out adverts in 4 x local newspapers suggesting I was looking to buy bonds as I knew they would be a guaranteed route to a ST. I did this back in January as the process is not quick to agree the deal and then process the paperwork with the club and existing bond holders.

 

FYI, The Bonds were for 100 years and issued between 1993 and 1994. Most of them were bought back then for circa £3k.

 

I got fairly limited interest but a few Bond Holders were open to discussing deals. I managed to agree a figure with a couple of them and bought the bonds.

 

The adverts were taken out in the Journal, Chronicle, Sunday Sun and Gazette. I also put an ad on Gumtree where I nearly got cyber-scammed from a very convincing con artist (sending photos' from the 'bond seats' etc so be very careful if you do that!).

 

I do find the scoffing from some folks quite amusing tbh.

 

Plenty of folks on here speak to me regularly off the forum and have seen proof of the purchase.

 

 

 

I think the "scoffing" is partly caused by you announcing that you'd secured 5 season tickets in here without any background, before returning to explain it's by going through the most convoluted (and potentially expensive) process possible.

 

Fair play, like. You won, Minhosa. Enjoy the ST, I hope it makes you happy. 

 

 

Edited May 1, 2022 by NEEJ

[SteV]

Article from Waugh about the renewed demand for tickets. Nowt new really, just pretty much confirms what we already know

 

Spoiler

If ever a weekend confirmed that Tyneside’s appetite for football was back, then the early-May Bank Holiday was it.

After a crowd of 52,281 watched Newcastle United men’s team lose 1-0 to quadruple-chasing Liverpool on Saturday in the Premier League, another 22,134 supporters advanced through the turnstiles on Sunday for the women’s side’s St James’ Park debut. The kick-off was delayed by 15 minutes to accommodate everyone.

A combined audience of 74,415 would be impressive enough for two top-level men’s matches, never mind when one of those fixtures was a fourth-tier women’s league game.

Second-placed Newcastle defeated winless and bottom-of-the-table Alnwick Town 4-0 in front of around 100 times more spectators than they normally get for fixtures at Druid Park, their home ground, near Newcastle International Airport. Their record attendance was just over 2,700, set in January at Kingston Park, the home of rugby union side Newcastle Falcons.

Not only was Sunday the largest crowd for a women’s league match in England this season — exceeding the 20,241 who watched Manchester United against Everton at Old Trafford — but it also surpassed the spectator levels at Vicarage Road for Watford’s Premier League loss to Burnley(20,738) and was higher than the attendances at two-thirds of the 12 games in the Championship.

This was a historic, well-publicised event, but until Newcastle women start advancing up the leagues — a key aspiration for the owners — repeating such attendances will prove more testing. Still, for fans to turn out in such numbers (the average attendance for the three other Division One North fixtures on Sunday was 108) underlines the footballing fervour that has swept back through the region since October’s takeover and that shows no sign of abating.

More than 22,000 watched Newcastle women on Sunday in a fourth-tier match (Photo: Serena Taylor/Newcastle United via Getty Images)

The average attendance for the 15 men’s matches at St James’ since Mike Ashley departed is 52,059 — higher than it has been across an entire top-flight campaign, with 52,032 in 2005-06 the club’s record. The crowd has dipped below 51,000 just once in seven months, when then-winless Newcastle hosted relegation rivals Norwich City on a Tuesday night in November (50,757), and under 52,000 on only two further occasions. There were 51,395 people watching Newcastle succumb to an embarrassing FA Cup third-round defeat to Cambridge United, of League One, in January.

Steve Bruce, the previous head coach, felt compelled to convince Ashley to hand out 10,000 free half-season tickets in December 2019 due to the sheer volume of supporters who had walked away. Attendances were dwindling, officially dipping towards the mid-to-low 40,000s, but those figures included season ticket holders who were not necessarily in attendance. Visually, the crowds often appeared to be even lower. Two and a half years on, the renewed zest for live football in the city is palpable.

The present owners face the opposite, if enviable, issue to Ashley — they have no problem selling out the ground, but how they meet the increased demand and ensure as many supporters as possible can watch the team is a matter of pressing concern.

Success, including the six straight victories on Tyneside that preceded the Liverpool defeat, has contributed to the clamour, but the hunger for tickets is predicated more on the renewal of hope that the new regime have brought than anything else. Ambition is back and fans have something to believe in again.

Already, the yearning for tickets saw the club’s website crash when seats for the Liverpool fixture were released. Soon — defined only as “in due course” by the club website, presumably after the May 19 deadline for renewals — an as-of-yet unspecified number of season tickets, set to be in the thousands, will be made available for general sale, and demand will massively exceed supply.

Who will be given priority remains to be seen, and the fairness of the process will be disputed regardless. One proposal considered is to hand precedence to those supporters who had held season tickets previously, particularly on a long-term basis, but who cancelled their seat in protest against Ashley or as part of the #IfRafaGoesWeGo movement.

Other ideas have been floated, too, and the final method is yet to be confirmed, but thousands of fans, as a conservative estimate, will miss out.

Mehrdad Ghodoussi, co-interim CEO alongside his wife, Amanda Staveley, has insisted that Newcastle will not be relocating stadium but if the 52,300 capacity cannot meet demand the prospect of moving ground will endure. Particularly if the development on Strawberry Place goes ahead and restricts any plans to increase the size of the Gallowgate End, which is the side of the stadium most conducive for expansion.

Beyond sheer volume, some supporters may find themselves priced out. Fans on 10-year price-freeze deals continue to pay the same for their tickets and those on the annual renewal price have had their rates preserved. Yet, anecdotally at least, other fans have seen £200 to £300 increases for 2022-23, and those wanting season tickets must wait to find out the cost and where they will become available.

Perhaps the one positive of the Ashley era was that, for the most part, he kept prices affordable, and, despite the increased profile of the club, that should be an objective for the present owners, too.

Allowing children to attend the women’s match free of charge, and adults for just £3, was a great initiative — but the issuing of dozens of tickets via the West End Foodbank to some of the poorest families in the city was an even more commendable one, and hopefully, similar schemes can be repeated going forward.

Given the mess on the pitch that Newcastle’s owners inherited, avoiding relegation had to be the focus of their first seven months. But, with that objective achieved, other important issues should now come to the fore, with the scarcity and price of tickets chief among them.

A football-mad city has fallen in love with its club again and supporters want to be at St James’ Park, to feel the comfort of home and to support the men’s and women’s teams. But accommodating as many as possible, in a fair and economical manner, is far from straightforward.

 

[AyeDubbleYoo]

It’s causing me genuine anxiety worrying about getting a season ticket.
 

Would be life-changing to be able to go to games reliably without scrabbling around for individual tickets. 

[JonBez comesock]

19 hours ago, SteV said:

Article from Waugh about the renewed demand for tickets. Nowt new really, just pretty much confirms what we already know

 

  Hide contents

If ever a weekend confirmed that Tyneside’s appetite for football was back, then the early-May Bank Holiday was it.

After a crowd of 52,281 watched Newcastle United men’s team lose 1-0 to quadruple-chasing Liverpool on Saturday in the Premier League, another 22,134 supporters advanced through the turnstiles on Sunday for the women’s side’s St James’ Park debut. The kick-off was delayed by 15 minutes to accommodate everyone.

A combined audience of 74,415 would be impressive enough for two top-level men’s matches, never mind when one of those fixtures was a fourth-tier women’s league game.

Second-placed Newcastle defeated winless and bottom-of-the-table Alnwick Town 4-0 in front of around 100 times more spectators than they normally get for fixtures at Druid Park, their home ground, near Newcastle International Airport. Their record attendance was just over 2,700, set in January at Kingston Park, the home of rugby union side Newcastle Falcons.

Not only was Sunday the largest crowd for a women’s league match in England this season — exceeding the 20,241 who watched Manchester United against Everton at Old Trafford — but it also surpassed the spectator levels at Vicarage Road for Watford’s Premier League loss to Burnley(20,738) and was higher than the attendances at two-thirds of the 12 games in the Championship.

This was a historic, well-publicised event, but until Newcastle women start advancing up the leagues — a key aspiration for the owners — repeating such attendances will prove more testing. Still, for fans to turn out in such numbers (the average attendance for the three other Division One North fixtures on Sunday was 108) underlines the footballing fervour that has swept back through the region since October’s takeover and that shows no sign of abating.

More than 22,000 watched Newcastle women on Sunday in a fourth-tier match (Photo: Serena Taylor/Newcastle United via Getty Images)

The average attendance for the 15 men’s matches at St James’ since Mike Ashley departed is 52,059 — higher than it has been across an entire top-flight campaign, with 52,032 in 2005-06 the club’s record. The crowd has dipped below 51,000 just once in seven months, when then-winless Newcastle hosted relegation rivals Norwich City on a Tuesday night in November (50,757), and under 52,000 on only two further occasions. There were 51,395 people watching Newcastle succumb to an embarrassing FA Cup third-round defeat to Cambridge United, of League One, in January.

Steve Bruce, the previous head coach, felt compelled to convince Ashley to hand out 10,000 free half-season tickets in December 2019 due to the sheer volume of supporters who had walked away. Attendances were dwindling, officially dipping towards the mid-to-low 40,000s, but those figures included season ticket holders who were not necessarily in attendance. Visually, the crowds often appeared to be even lower. Two and a half years on, the renewed zest for live football in the city is palpable.

The present owners face the opposite, if enviable, issue to Ashley — they have no problem selling out the ground, but how they meet the increased demand and ensure as many supporters as possible can watch the team is a matter of pressing concern.

Success, including the six straight victories on Tyneside that preceded the Liverpool defeat, has contributed to the clamour, but the hunger for tickets is predicated more on the renewal of hope that the new regime have brought than anything else. Ambition is back and fans have something to believe in again.

Already, the yearning for tickets saw the club’s website crash when seats for the Liverpool fixture were released. Soon — defined only as “in due course” by the club website, presumably after the May 19 deadline for renewals — an as-of-yet unspecified number of season tickets, set to be in the thousands, will be made available for general sale, and demand will massively exceed supply.

Who will be given priority remains to be seen, and the fairness of the process will be disputed regardless. One proposal considered is to hand precedence to those supporters who had held season tickets previously, particularly on a long-term basis, but who cancelled their seat in protest against Ashley or as part of the #IfRafaGoesWeGo movement.

Other ideas have been floated, too, and the final method is yet to be confirmed, but thousands of fans, as a conservative estimate, will miss out.

Mehrdad Ghodoussi, co-interim CEO alongside his wife, Amanda Staveley, has insisted that Newcastle will not be relocating stadium but if the 52,300 capacity cannot meet demand the prospect of moving ground will endure. Particularly if the development on Strawberry Place goes ahead and restricts any plans to increase the size of the Gallowgate End, which is the side of the stadium most conducive for expansion.

Beyond sheer volume, some supporters may find themselves priced out. Fans on 10-year price-freeze deals continue to pay the same for their tickets and those on the annual renewal price have had their rates preserved. Yet, anecdotally at least, other fans have seen £200 to £300 increases for 2022-23, and those wanting season tickets must wait to find out the cost and where they will become available.

Perhaps the one positive of the Ashley era was that, for the most part, he kept prices affordable, and, despite the increased profile of the club, that should be an objective for the present owners, too.

Allowing children to attend the women’s match free of charge, and adults for just £3, was a great initiative — but the issuing of dozens of tickets via the West End Foodbank to some of the poorest families in the city was an even more commendable one, and hopefully, similar schemes can be repeated going forward.

Given the mess on the pitch that Newcastle’s owners inherited, avoiding relegation had to be the focus of their first seven months. But, with that objective achieved, other important issues should now come to the fore, with the scarcity and price of tickets chief among them.

A football-mad city has fallen in love with its club again and supporters want to be at St James’ Park, to feel the comfort of home and to support the men’s and women’s teams. But accommodating as many as possible, in a fair and economical manner, is far from straightforward.

 

One positive in the Ashley era - ?

 

Basically keeping ticket prices low to watch the team and club go backwards ?

 

basically we turned the club into a tat shop advertising tool / vehicle 

[SteV]

5 minutes ago, JonBez comesock said:

One positive in the Ashley era - ?

 

Basically keeping ticket prices low to watch the team and club go backwards ?

 

basically we turned the club into a tat shop advertising tool / vehicle 

Yeah, I guess it’s always fair to say that in general lower ticket prices are a good thing.
 

It was just the reasons behind it were as much a negative as the obvious positives from it.

[SteV]

Final day for ST renewals in case anyone has somehow forgotten to do so.