SUPPORTERS UPDATE – FALKIRK V CLYDE TICKETING

Many thanks to season ticket holders who queued early this morning for tickets for the Clyde match on Boxing Day. Around 250 tickets were distributed so there are still tickets available. 

As we said yesterday the club considered a range of options for distributing these tickets and all other options presented a range of difficulties. 

In the time available a random ballot wouldn’t have worked because we know that most season ticket holders don’t attend matches by themselves. This was the primary reason why, when we distributed 1000 tickets for each of two matches in the Premier Sports League Cup earlier in the season, uptake was only around 70%. 

Had this been repeated at the Clyde game, over 100 allocated tickets would have gone unused; tickets which other fans would love to have. In addition, at this time of year there are other reasons why season ticket holders may not wish to attend the game on Boxing Day (weather, hosting family, COVID etc). There is therefore a strong likelihood uptake may have been less than 70%. 

Of course, some fans allocated a ticket in a random ballot do notify the club if they don’t intend to use it. However, with the League Cup matches many didn’t, so it’s important that we learn from past experiences. Even if we were notified of non-attendance, it wouldn’t be feasible to re-ballot spare tickets when some of the winners also wouldn’t attend for the same reasons as above. 

In the circumstances, first-come first-served was therefore the only viable option, so it was a choice between online or offline/in person. Unfortunately, our online ticketing system can’t currently restrict sales to season ticket holders only or ensure that only one match ticket is allocated for each season ticket previously purchased. For these reasons (and others) the online option wasn’t viable. Our ticketing partner was also unable to provide this service in the time frame we required. This required a bespoke ‘product’ to be created which we were informed was not possible in the time period we were working to.

We appreciate that first-come, first-served offline isn’t ideal for everyone, particularly those who don’t live locally and who work during the day. However, the large majority of season ticket holders do live in the Falkirk area and many are currently working from home or already on their Christmas break. There was also the option of asking a friend or family member to queue on their behalf. 

We do appreciate that there’s no perfect answer in such difficult circumstances but hopefully the above explanation clarifies that the option selected was the best available to us. Thanks again to everyone who queued in the rain this morning. If there had been a better alternative for distributing these tickets we would have taken it. 

We hope everyone has a great Christmas and enjoys the game on Sunday, whether attending in person or watching on Falkirk TV.