The club today announced that Priority Memberships for the 2015/16 season have gone on sale. The incentive to buy now is that purchase will allow customers to also buy tickets for the Wembley Playoff Final vs Middlesbrough. It was first thought that tickets on Wednesday would be available to standard members in a general sale, but to the confusion of many, it has become clear that this is not the case. Instead Season Ticket Holders and Priority Members are given the chance to purchase more tickets on top of those they may have already purchased in Saturday’s 6pm release.
This therefore seems like another shameless money making scheme. The idea that people who may have not been to a game all season can get a Priority Membership and be in with a chance of Wembley tickets. It becomes one big booking fee – and as I said in the last article, renders anything less than a Priority Membership completely useless. You can read that article HERE.
The club have also had to back down on their previous disregard for Away Season Ticket Holders. For some reason the Away Season Ticket scheme does not come with a priority membership, despite it promising tickets to every away game, all season long.
Some fans missed this fatal detail and consequently didn’t have the chance to purchase on Saturday while Priority Members, who may have only been to one game all season, did.
Norwich City have declared that Away Season Ticket Holders can purchase tickets for Wembley (though the majority have already been sold) on Wednesday with Season Ticket Holders and Priority Members. This provides some respite for those away fans feeling hard done by, but ultimately they’ll be up against thousands of others trying to purchase extra tickets. Surely these away fans should have been given the privilege to buy on Saturday – now only the third tier remains.
However, it has to be said, the situation is in no way as bad as that on the other half of Wembley. Middlesbrough first offered exclusivity to their Season Ticket holders on the Saturday and Priority Members on Sunday, before allocating the remainder of their tickets to be on general sale, which resulted in chaos. 17,000 sold within the first four hours of sale as customers were able to buy four tickets per person.
Quickly the tickets were bought up and yesterday evening sales were suspended altogether. Season Ticket Holders who had not bought were in danger of not getting a ticket whatsoever, mainly due to problems with the system, and consequently ‘a number [were] held as a contingency for Season Card Holders who are yet to buy.’
In some cases, Middlesbrough tickets have already started appearing on touting sites, showing the obvious benefit of the system David McNally and Norwich City have opted for. To add salt to the wound, those fans who have received tickets have found their own team name ‘Middlesbrough’ to be spelt wrong. Oops.
Middlesbrough have also stated that they will try to get an additional allocation from the FA, though the likelihood of this happening is unknown.
Though it may have its flaws, and an unerring whiff of exploitative moneymaking, it has delivered very well in comparison. Unfortunately some fans, be those away season ticket holders, exiled supporters who can’t commit, or those who were simply caught out by its complications, will be left disappointed.
We expect that the remaining tickets will sell out within minutes of 6pm Wednesday, so good luck to any still hoping to be there on Monday 25th.
