Memberships (2025/26)

[bobbydazzla]

Been thinking about this ticketing workshop the neet and likely themes…

• Transparency on available ticket numbers (ballot vs general sale)
• Ballot success rates
• Ticket pricing and recent price increases
• Future of season tickets. Will they return, and how?
• What’s being done about bots & touts (and how we compare to other clubs)
• Pros/cons of the current system
• Ticket site reliability at 10am on sale days
• NUFC changing ticket buying process without any communication about it (Barca, Benfica)
• How can they ensure genuine NUFC fans are getting tickets. Can they use account history to prevent away fans / neutral tourists / touts, especially for the biggest games (Makems, Barca, Liverpool etc.)
• Getting more affordable tickets into the hands of the next generation (under 25's)
• Ability to transfer tickets like ST holders can

I haven’t thought about what might come up in relation to existing ST's or away tickets, as they don't apply to me.

 

I rarely mass debate in a room with members of the public and I’m a bit nervy, so I’ve got the afternoon off graft and am aiming for a minimum of 7-8 pints of dutch courage.

 

 

Edited November 6, 2025 by bobbydazzla

[Dan]

I think reverting back to a membership card where the ticket is loaded on to it would significantly reduce the touting (livefootballtickets, StubHub etc).

 

This would prevent touts/bots being able to simply send an email of the tickets to buyer. 

[SteV]

 

Seen @bobbydazzla on his way into the ticket workshop earlier.

[bobbydazzla]

1 hour ago, SteV said:

 

Seen @bobbydazzla on his way into the ticket workshop earlier.

[bobbydazzla]

There wasn’t anything discussed tonight that we haven’t done to death on here.

 

Ideas mentioned were:

 

Some form of member point accumulation (number of ballot applications probably) to give people who attempt to go to the most games priority over people who have little history (e.g neutral tourists). It could be used when setting ticket buying criteria for very high demand matches. 

Members who’ve got a ticket but can’t go to a game have to officially transfer tickets to each other like ST’s do. Would mean the box office could flag and investigate accounts that buy tickets but always forward them on.

 

Membership purchase windows. June to Aug and then Dec / Jan. Don’t buy one then, you can’t buy tickets.  

 

Digital, emailable tickets have opened the floodgates for touts. There appears to be no appetite for going back to a physical card. 

 

Dual factor ID at point of purchase was suggested for ticket purchases. 

 

Transparency about member numbers and member tickets available via each route per game was a key request.

 

On average there’s 1900 people per game who have a ticket (ST or Member) but don’t turn up to the match. Which seems very high to me. 

 

And I can’t believe the club can bang on in a presentation about how they’re doing all they can to identify and block tout accounts, whilst at the same time offering unlimited, unvetted membership. So a tout can just sign back up immediately if blocked. It’s so naive from NUFC that I can’t comprehend how they could be that daft. 

 

Like most of these events, it scratched the surface but you’ve got 100 people sitting randomly at tables so there’s not much structure and too many competing views for anything productive to be achieved.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 6, 2025 by bobbydazzla

[bobbydazzla]

One other thing to add…

 

This is just my observation based on where I was sat, but for me it further demonstrated there’s a clear “us and them” split across the fanbase with ST’s seemingly quite happy with their lot and showing very little interest or sympathy for members who are all lumped into one massive group have no way close the gap between having no recognition for member “loyalty” and having an ST.

 

Comments such as “you should have bought an ST when we were shit” and “you’ll stop going to games if we’re shit again” without any appreciation that many members have been going to games for decades and there’s a wide variety of reasons why we might not have been the owner of an ST in Oct 2021. 
 

 

 

 

Edited November 7, 2025 by bobbydazzla

[Thorpinho]

Thanks for sharing. The most ridiculous thing for me is the way the closed shop prevents kids growing up and getting tickets. It’s arguable either way that adults  should have got season tickets etc, but as things stand on the current system say for example a new 7 or 8 year old fan (not related to or friends with a ST holder) living in Newcastle has no means to ever in their lifetime access an away ticket or be eligible for finals or whatever. That seems wrong to me, don’t know if I just don’t understand the mad ticket systems though

[bobbydazzla]

Aye, a 14 year old in 2021 is now late teens and able to go to games on their own, but game by game tickets are expensive and mainly balloted, if they get a ticket they’ll have to sit alone or at best in a pair, they can’t get an ST, they can’t go away and they’ve got a very slim chance of a Wembley trip if we get there 

[AyeDubbleYoo]

It's not arguable that people should have bought STs under Mike Ashley, unless you're a complete idiot. 

[Kilcline]

10 hours ago, bobbydazzla said:

There wasn’t anything discussed tonight that we haven’t done to death on here.

 

Ideas mentioned were:

 

Some form of member point accumulation (number of ballot applications probably) to give people who attempt to go to the most games priority over people who have little history (e.g neutral tourists). It could be used when setting ticket buying criteria for very high demand matches. 

Members who’ve got a ticket but can’t go to a game have to officially transfer tickets to each other like ST’s do. Would mean the box office could flag and investigate accounts that buy tickets but always forward them on.

 

Membership purchase windows. June to Aug and then Dec / Jan. Don’t buy one then, you can’t buy tickets.  

 

Digital, emailable tickets have opened the floodgates for touts. There appears to be no appetite for going back to a physical card. 

 

Dual factor ID at point of purchase was suggested for ticket purchases. 

 

Transparency about member numbers and member tickets available via each route per game was a key request.

 

On average there’s 1900 people per game who have a ticket (ST or Member) but don’t turn up to the match. Which seems very high to me. 

 

And I can’t believe the club can bang on in a presentation about how they’re doing all they can to identify and block tout accounts, whilst at the same time offering unlimited, unvetted membership. So a tout can just sign back up immediately if blocked. It’s so naive from NUFC that I can’t comprehend how they could be that daft. 

 

Like most of these events, it scratched the surface but you’ve got 100 people sitting randomly at tables so there’s not much structure and too many competing views for anything productive to be achieved.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If 1900 people aren't turning up we must be using mackematics for the attendance figures, that's probably somewhere like 15 - 20 seats per block which would be pretty obvious and noticeable even if they were dotted about. Maybe it's true that certain turnstiles just open and let anyone in when it starts getting busy, just don't tell the safety officer!

 

I also reckon they haven't considered when the digital reader on the turnstile fails in that. A few times it's happened to me since we went digital where they've just checked the ticket and been keeping a tally of numbers going in, but if they've just looked at "ticket scan rate" or something here on a computer screen then that might make sense.

 

Hope it wasn't too painful an evening! 

[NSG]

I assume that 1,900 figure includes people who have forwarded their ticket or resold it, so the seat isn’t empty but the original purchaser isn’t there.

[Kilcline]

6 minutes ago, NSG said:

I assume that 1,900 figure includes people who have forwarded their ticket or resold it, so the seat isn’t empty but the original purchaser isn’t there.

Aye it must do, or something's going very wrong somewhere 😅

[Nucasol]

There’s loads of times they don’t scan tickets in when using the accessible entrances for example. 

[AyeDubbleYoo]

30 minutes ago, NSG said:

I assume that 1,900 figure includes people who have forwarded their ticket or resold it, so the seat isn’t empty but the original purchaser isn’t there.

They would only know that through official forwarding though, so only for STs. 

[bobbydazzla]

30 minutes ago, NSG said:

I assume that 1,900 figure includes people who have forwarded their ticket or resold it, so the seat isn’t empty but the original purchaser isn’t there.

 

Nah, the 1,900 number was queried on my table because it seemed wrong and we were told that it only includes a person with a ticket who doesn't actually go into the ground

[TBG]

Stop the Ballots.

[SteV]

12 hours ago, bobbydazzla said:

Like most of these events, it scratched the surface but you’ve got 100 people sitting randomly at tables so there’s not much structure and too many competing views for anything productive to be achieved.

That was pretty much my experience when I attended one too.

 

Tbh, we can probably all flag up what the issues are, it’s just a lot more difficult to offer viable solutions.

 

Did anyone have any ideas that seemed like they might be feasible?

[Wallsendmag]

No chance in the world there's typically almost 2,000 empty seats at every home game. That would equate to 4 blocks of the away end being completely empty as an example. 200 maybe, 2,000? Nah I'm not having that like.

[bobbydazzla]

52 minutes ago, SteV said:

That was pretty much my experience when I attended one too.

 

Tbh, we can probably all flag up what the issues are, it’s just a lot more difficult to offer viable solutions.

 

Did anyone have any ideas that seemed like they might be feasible?

 

There was a lot of nodding from the NUFC hosts about members accumulating "loyalty" points for their level of account activity (applying for ballots probably) and also the prospect of windows for buying memberships. So I'd say those were two suggestions they were hoping to hear.

 

And it was agreed in my small group that stopping emailable tickets would pretty much end touting instantly.

 

The cynic in me says these meetings are purely a tick-box exercise in an attempt to justify changes that have already been decided upon.

 

What frustrated me the most was that NUFC staff don't seem to want to look at best in class solutions and try to emulate or exceed, they want to look at worst in class and try and be better than that. And rather than embracing changes that might benefit tens of thousands, they prefer to focus on how those changes might annoy or disadvantage a tiny minority.

 

Too much focus on the symptoms and not enough thinking about the cause.

 

It felt similar to them spaffing on about all the anti touting systems they have in place, whilst they continue to leave the front door wide open for touts by offering unlimited memberships all season long.

 

It was still a better event than I thought it would be so credit to NUFC for that, but I did have low expectations on my way up there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 7, 2025 by bobbydazzla

[Bellis80]

It will always be the case that season ticket holders and members don’t agree on things but a lot of season ticket holders would have been in the same situation years ago. For the Premier league era in the 90s you couldn’t get in at all if you didn’t have a season ticket. Maybe a few hundred would

go on sale if the away team returned some. There wasn’t any chance of getting in unless it was a cup game or someone gave you their ticket. It’s better for people without a season ticket now than it was then and that will have been an issue for probably a majority of the people that currently have them.

[bobbydazzla]

11 minutes ago, Wallsendmag said:

No chance in the world there's typically almost 2,000 empty seats at every home game. That would equate to 4 blocks of the away end being completely empty as an example. 200 maybe, 2,000? Nah I'm not having that like.

 

That's exactly what we said. 

 

We mentioned that there was empty seats clearly visible on telly on Weds night, which was frustrating to see, but there definitely wasn't hundreds of them.

 

And also that you can't have an average of 1,900 not turning up each game but still have DJ Onedek announcing 52,000 were in attendance. 

 

Just for clarity, the 1900 was put up on screen but it was after the presentation at table level that the discussion about it took place.

[bobbydazzla]

13 minutes ago, Bellis80 said:

It will always be the case that season ticket holders and members don’t agree on things but a lot of season ticket holders would have been in the same situation years ago. For the Premier league era in the 90s you couldn’t get in at all if you didn’t have a season ticket. Maybe a few hundred would

go on sale if the away team returned some. There wasn’t any chance of getting in unless it was a cup game or someone gave you their ticket. It’s better for people without a season ticket now than it was then and that will have been an issue for probably a majority of the people that currently have them.

 

Exactly, I was a teen in the 90's and locked out unless my mates sister didn't use her ticket, which wasn't very often. It's better now than it was then, but back then it was totally gutting to never have a chance of buying a match ticket under my own steam.

 

I think what's really frustrating for members is that we're not asking for anything to be taken away from people who have ST's.

We're just asking for a route to get us closer to what an ST gives access to and a level of earned priority over the punters who have minimal interest in going to matches other than applying for the odd game here and there.

 

So the "where were you when we were shit" sneering attitude from some (not all) ST's just seems spiteful and is fuelling an "us and them" divide.

 

 

 

 

Edited November 7, 2025 by bobbydazzla

[Sima]

Didn't that tat the club are charging £10 for used to be free with your membership?  

[gdm]

 

was just going to say and Sima beat me to it. Stuff like this used to be included in the price of the membership 

[Kilcline]

Literally just made the same comment in the other thread 😂