Where have the crowds gone

[finchleyman]

This is intended to be a constructive comment. The number of people watching the Bees seems to have fallen dramatically and there are reasons for this which I will outline as below. There are also ways to mitigate this problem. So here goes:-

1. The team has been playing very poor football, almost excruciating to watch at times. But the football has improved dramatically over the past few games so here's hoping that this will attract a few more fans back.
2. It is too expensive. The price needs to be around £15 for an adult seat and "£8 standing. Many away team supporters whinge about the price as well.
3. There is no atmosphere in the ground. Mainly because there is no-one in the ground. This is a cyclical situation. If we get more people (and especially more away supporters) then the atmosphere will improve.
4. The Legend's stand is at least four degrees colder than the external air temperature and in the winter time it is enough to freeze your nuts off (or any other extremity). Youngsters may be all right but us older folk feel the cold. Didn't happen at Underhill because the sun always shone there.
5. The Club serves crap beer (£4 a pint for crayspiss) and crap food, most of which you would not feed to your dog.
6. Car parking is too expensive.
7. No proper programmes
8. No entertainment
9. After six weeks the grounds tv screen opposite the Legends stand still does not work.
10. Over zealous ground stewards make you feel like a criminal
11. Whole matchday experience needs to be improved

Other comments welcomed.

[Tuesds]

Agree with some of these, and no-one could deny action is needed to try to get more people through the door, because these attendances are pitiful and deeply worrying.

The prices you are calling for would surely be the cheapest in the whole league, let alone the cheapest in London or the South East, where costs are higher than in Halifax or Fylde, for example.

I'd be surprised if there were a single example in the National League of a club offering walk-up tickets for as little as £8, yet there are many examples of clubs with much more buoyant crowds than us. That suggests to me that there other actions are more important than such a drastic price cut.

Personally I'd like to see the Legends Stand price trimmed to a level more commensurate with most of the rest of the league, perhaps to £20 or even a bit less, but sadly I don't think it'd make much difference to attendances

If demand was really that elastic in response to price, then you would expect those who do turn up to go through the £15/£1 gates for the South Terrace/Family Area. They don't. They go where they get a good view and decent facilities, in Legends Stand.

I would suggest that some of the other issues raised above regarding the matchday experience are more important.

[StephenM]

Quick bit of maths, and it doesn't take into account season ticket holders, but if the price dropped by £5, assuming there are 900 paying customers, there would need to be an immediate increase of 300 people to break even.

Regarding the car park being expensive, if you go to a lot of grounds the cheapest paying car park (I'm thinking local business opening up etc) you are going to find is £5. I don't think that being able to park right outside the gorund in an official car park, the price charged is excessive.

[aclassman]

Car park is £6 but if you stay till after 7pm it's only a £1.
Which is good if there is a good match on sky kicking off at 5:30

[Edd1]

It's been 15 years of mostly crap football and a constant churn of players and managers coupled to expensive tickets and a bitch of a journey to get to games. In short, it's not been fun for quite some time.

It's going to take persistent attacking, winning football to turn it around coupled with a charm offensive from the club. Like stop sending people threatening legal letters.

[Ajtheone04]

Some of the stewards are quite freindly
Wouldn't lower ticket prices as we don't want to do a boreham wood
Maybe to increase the amount of money we get from the gate we could make the unused subs pay?

[beesknees99]

This is intended to be a constructive comment. The number of people watching the Bees seems to have fallen dramatically and there are reasons for this which I will outline as below. There are also ways to mitigate this problem. So here goes:-

1. The team has been playing very poor football, almost excruciating to watch at times. But the football has improved dramatically over the past few games so here's hoping that this will attract a few more fans back.
2. It is too expensive. The price needs to be around £15 for an adult seat and "£8 standing. Many away team supporters whinge about the price as well.
3. There is no atmosphere in the ground. Mainly because there is no-one in the ground. This is a cyclical situation. If we get more people (and especially more away supporters) then the atmosphere will improve.
4. The Legend's stand is at least four degrees colder than the external air temperature and in the winter time it is enough to freeze your nuts off (or any other extremity). Youngsters may be all right but us older folk feel the cold. Didn't happen at Underhill because the sun always shone there.
5. The Club serves crap beer (£4 a pint for crayspiss) and crap food, most of which you would not feed to your dog.
6. Car parking is too expensive.
7. No proper programmes
8. No entertainment
9. After six weeks the grounds tv screen opposite the Legends stand still does not work.
10. Over zealous ground stewards make you feel like a criminal
11. Whole matchday experience needs to be improved

Other comments welcomed.

Ah, this old chestnut...

I personally stopped caring about attendances a while ago.

Yes it’d be nice to whip up some atmosphere and increase crowds, but the onus rests on the team to play exciting football, and win most games.

So far it’s been good, but we need to keep a run going, and I have little doubt we will see a bump in crowds.

[buzzinbee]

It's been 15 years of mostly crap football and a constant churn of players and managers coupled to expensive tickets and a bitch of a journey to get to games. In short, it's not been fun for quite some time.

It's going to take persistent attacking, winning football to turn it around coupled with a charm offensive from the club. Like stop sending people threatening legal letters.

[BeeDeceived]

This is intended to be a constructive comment. The number of people watching the Bees seems to have fallen dramatically and there are reasons for this which I will outline as below. There are also ways to mitigate this problem. So here goes:-

1. The team has been playing very poor football, almost excruciating to watch at times. But the football has improved dramatically over the past few games so here's hoping that this will attract a few more fans back.
2. It is too expensive. The price needs to be around £15 for an adult seat and "£8 standing. Many away team supporters whinge about the price as well.
3. There is no atmosphere in the ground. Mainly because there is no-one in the ground. This is a cyclical situation. If we get more people (and especially more away supporters) then the atmosphere will improve.
4. The Legend's stand is at least four degrees colder than the external air temperature and in the winter time it is enough to freeze your nuts off (or any other extremity). Youngsters may be all right but us older folk feel the cold. Didn't happen at Underhill because the sun always shone there.
5. The Club serves crap beer (£4 a pint for crayspiss) and crap food, most of which you would not feed to your dog.
6. Car parking is too expensive.
7. No proper programmes
8. No entertainment
9. After six weeks the grounds tv screen opposite the Legends stand still does not work.
10. Over zealous ground stewards make you feel like a criminal
11. Whole matchday experience needs to be improved

Other comments welcomed.

1 - the style of football has been pretty good since the the turn of the year, not just the last few weeks
2 - can get in for £15, one of the lowest adult prices in the division
3 - atmosphere as you explained
4 - i mean this might be a little harsh to slag the club off about
5 - each to their own
6 - stay a little longer for £1 parking or use the excellent shuttle bus run by the club at a loss
7 - everything you read in a paper programme is online anyway. Plus, environmentally friendly
8 - stay after the game, meet the players, ask DC why he made *that* decision in the match - unique experience
9 - turn your head around and look at the working one, and it was never a tv screen just a scoreboard
10 - I mean they’re just doing their jobs thoroughly, you get it at most London stadiums
11 - I’ll agree, more can be done but overall it’s good for this level

[Barnetchris]

The problem is regulars will miss a few games, realise they don’t miss the game day experience as much as they thought they would then find something else to do and that becomes a habit like going to the games was.
I actually think it becomes hard to get them back, but like others have said only winning regularly will do this.

[beew]

£22 is very expensive to watch NL football, in an area where it takes most an hour to get to, at an additional cost.There lies the problem imo, I chose not to go last night as I couldn’t justify the cost when there was a commentary on BBC radio and the CL offering on the TV. And yes before you ask, I did listen to Barnet whilst watching the football on mute.i know you can stand on the terrace for less but then you can’t use the excellent facilities in the West stand. Bring down the cost of the West stand by offering, any 5 games for £70 ( £50 concessions) and you might see an upturn in attendances.

[pgbee]

Club cricket finishes this Saturday so I will now think about making the 3-4 hour round trip, which is why I don't go to many midweek games. The RWC is on so the temptation to sit on the sofa with beer , not having to drive , is high regardless of how well the side is doing. It's a choice, I did the regular stuff when I lived closer. And none,of our opponents except maybe one or two are anything to get excited about in NL.

[becbee]

£22 is very expensive to watch NL football, in an area where it takes most an hour to get to, at an additional cost.There lies the problem imo, I chose not to go last night as I couldn’t justify the cost when there was a commentary on BBC radio and the CL offering on the TV. And yes before you ask, I did listen to Barnet whilst watching the football on mute.i know you can stand on the terrace for less but then you can’t use the excellent facilities in the West stand. Bring down the cost of the West stand by offering, any 5 games for £70 ( £50 concessions) and you might see an upturn in attendances.

Why should members pay full price every month in order to subsidise those who'd rather stay at home and watch Champions League? And yes, it takes me best part of an hour from home to The Hive.
Having said that, if I'd not gone last night, I'd not have watched the Champions League anyway.

[beew]

£22 is very expensive to watch NL football, in an area where it takes most an hour to get to, at an additional cost.There lies the problem imo, I chose not to go last night as I couldn’t justify the cost when there was a commentary on BBC radio and the CL offering on the TV. And yes before you ask, I did listen to Barnet whilst watching the football on mute.i know you can stand on the terrace for less but then you can’t use the excellent facilities in the West stand. Bring down the cost of the West stand by offering, any 5 games for £70 ( £50 concessions) and you might see an upturn in attendances.

Why should members pay full price every month in order to subsidise those who'd rather stay at home and watch Champions League? And yes, it takes me best part of an hour from home to The Hive.
Having said that, if I'd not gone last night, I'd not have watched the Champions League anyway.

And there lies the problem. Thanks for highlighting it for me.

[hoofer2]

£22 is very expensive to watch NL football, in an area where it takes most an hour to get to, at an additional cost.There lies the problem imo, I chose not to go last night as I couldn’t justify the cost when there was a commentary on BBC radio and the CL offering on the TV. And yes before you ask, I did listen to Barnet whilst watching the football on mute.i know you can stand on the terrace for less but then you can’t use the excellent facilities in the West stand. Bring down the cost of the West stand by offering, any 5 games for £70 ( £50 concessions) and you might see an upturn in attendances.

Why should members pay full price every month in order to subsidise those who'd rather stay at home and watch Champions League? And yes, it takes me best part of an hour from home to The Hive.
Having said that, if I'd not gone last night, I'd not have watched the Champions League anyway.

And there lies the problem. Thanks for highlighting it for me.

I'm a member of the National Trust too. The money I pay on a monthly basis means that others may get to enjoy national trust for free but it also provides the guaranteed revenue which is vital. It's how it is with any membership. As a member you get best price per game, dedicated seat and hive discount. You are not subsidising.