Welcome to this week’s Talking the Blues Podcast with George and Andy Costigan. We look back on the first game of the US tour and have wildly differing views on so much of the outcome. George and Andy’s contribution to the debate is outstanding
A quick update on ticket pricing before turning our attention to the changes in ownership of the Everton Women’s team – EFCW. (prior to the formation of EFCW Holding Company)
Genuinely fascinating stuff – hope you enjoy it. (Sound quality a little different as I recorded via a phone due to my location & didn’t have the opportunity to edit fully)
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Fairly astonished and frankly annoyed by your comments about ticket pricing.
I can see little evidence that Everton have genuinely tried to strike a balance regarding ticket prices.
The reality is that there will be a very limited number of match day tickets available.
The Club has not confirmed the number of season tickets it made available, but it would not be unreasonable to assume that about 36,000 may have been sold. The exact number of Premium Seats in the stadium has also not been confirmed, but I would think about 4500 would be a reasonable assumption. There are 3000 away seats. So a reasonable assumption would be a general admission residual ticket availability of about 9300 a game ( maybe slightly more or slightly less).
At least initially those tickets will rarely if ever go to general sale under the new ticketing process.
The gateway to potentially getting one of those tickets will be a Forever Blue + Membership costing £60 and then a ballot.
I have no idea how many Forever Blue + Members there are , but given that there are reported to be 34000 people on the season ticket waiting list I would imagine it will far exceed 9300.
Those that are successful in the ballot will largely be paying the very high adult prices in the South West and East stands.
The lower priced tickets for children and juniors are only available in the Family Stand (which only holds 2700 and is predominantly already largely filled with season ticket holders ) and part of the North stand . The youth offer ( 14-21) in the lower tier of the South Stand will again involve only small numbers of tickets being available and in any case they are ridiculously priced starting at £45 ( presumably for Cat C games , so no doubt over £50 for Cat A games).
The tickets in the Upper Tier of the North Stand starting at £18.78 will only be available to a very small number of those successful in the ballot (if it was a significant number you can be sure that the Club would be telling us the number!).
I am a season ticket holder, so I am not affected by these prices, but I really feel for non season ticket holders who are very much being ruthlessly monetised by our new ownership in a way that does not recognise the socio economic realities of the Liverpool City region.
Finally I would strongly suggest that you take a careful look at Liverpool’s matchday ticket prices for 25/26 season if you believe that Everton’s prices are reasonable and just a reflection of the need to compete.
In EVERY category they are cheaper than at Hill Dickinson and in some cases, particularly in the Kop and particularly for young adults are MUCH cheaper, being half the price for young adults on the Kop compared to our offer to youths in the lower South Stand.
How can we be paying more than fans of a Club who, as painful as it is to admit , are currently offering a much more successful attractive product? How can that be right?
Of course they too have US owners who early on tried to hike ticket prices , but were immediately and effectively challenged by Liverpool supporters groups who organised a mass protest and forced a backdown.
Sadly by contrast we’ll just meekly take what we’re given I suspect ( I have written to the FAB urging that they challenge the Club, but won’t be holding my breath on that).
Our Club needs to be very careful with this pricing strategy though , because the novelty of being at a new stadium will wear off very quickly and unless real progress on the field is evident demand will fall rapidly and people will just stop going..