FCG Meeting with Christian Purslow - 24th June

[Mazrim]

We're gonna need a bigger boat.

[Sulberto21]

Ideally we'd have around 20k waiting list maybe around 25k before any expansion is done. Naturally not all of the waiting list will take up season tickets. 

Scumchester United has a waiting list of around 100k ish. Arsenal is around 45k. Liverscum 25k, Spuds around 80k, couldn't find info on Man City and Chelsea.

However it's fantastic that we have a waiting list. I'd love to see it grow. For direct comparison Everton have a waiting list of 17k. And they've had years to build that. We're definitely heading in the right direction.

Edited July 1, 2021 by Sulberto21

[Jbvilla909]

2 hours ago, Sulberto21 said:

Ideally we'd have around 20k waiting list maybe around 25k before any expansion is done. Naturally not all of the waiting list will take up season tickets. 

Scumchester United has a waiting list of around 100k ish. Arsenal is around 45k. Liverscum 25k, Spuds around 80k, couldn't find info on Man City and Chelsea.

However it's fantastic that we have a waiting list. I'd love to see it grow. For direct comparison Everton have a waiting list of 17k. And they've had years to build that. We're definitely heading in the right direction.

Be surprised if Citeh had a waiting list for the Emptihad

[TRO]

On 18/06/2021 at 07:54, alreadyexists said:

I’m a Chartered Planner if anyone ever has any planning questions. 

I'm a pensioner.....if anyone has any questions about " old farts"

[TRO]

On 16/06/2021 at 12:09, Junxs said:

I always thought it was very odd how they try to get you out of the ground as quick as possible.

Once me and my friends stayed behind a bit chatting whilst the queues to get out were ridiculous, and the stewards came to us told us to leave. 

Think its a good idea if they kept certain areas open with people buying drinks and food and having the late kick off on screens for people to hang about, helps reduce the immediate traffic around the area as well. I'd rather be standing in the concourse watching a match with my friends than sat in the car in a traffic jam. 

Very good point

[The Fun Factory]

Did we have a waiting list in the early carefree days of MON? However I think the season tickets were more like 25,000 then.

[rbcuk]

1 hour ago, The Fun Factory said:

Did we have a waiting list in the early carefree days of MON? However I think the season tickets were more like 25,000 then.

There was one season, as my mate went on it

[The Fun Factory]

Just digesting the notes from the meeting.

It is so pleasing that they are taking the holistic look at all of Villa Park to see what can be improved and to formulate a plan in the next 2 to 10 years.

The whole site needs to be looked at and there are a lot of possibilities.One reason why Villa have always been sellable no matter how badly its been run.

Villa have never really done a masterplan- well apart from Rinder in the first half of the 20th Century which was never fully realised.

United carried out 2 logical stadium renewals at Old Trafford from the 1960s to when the Glazier's bought it. One of the reasons why it became the largest club in the country.

Doug did modernise Villa Park but done in a  cheap and haphazard way and controversially getting rid of the old Trinity Stand. Its happened we can't go back in time now.

It looks like more disabled and accessible  seating and is the first priority and then maybe more capacity.

If England did bid for the 2030 World Cup then I hope this will be taken into account as regards to timing.

It also hopefully shows that the ownership are in it for the long haul as well.

 

[OutByEaster?]

There was a meeting at the end of last week to go over a number of items and things that weren't covered in the meeting with Mr Purslow - notes are below.

Quote

 

Club Reps

Adam Lowe Interim Chief Commercial Officer

Tommy Jordan Communications Director

Lynne O’Reardon Head of Ticketing Operations

Lucy Keeling Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Officer

Ben Startin Digital Product Manager

Lee Preece Supporter Liaison Manager

 

Agenda items created by Fan Representatives received in advance or questions raised during the meeting are highlighted and shown in italics.  Some of the agenda items have been carried over from the previous FCG, others are items that the club wished to discuss with FCG fan reps.

 

Item 1 Villa TV

The club presented to the group our new streaming product and price options for Villa TV.  The first package options will be published shortly including an option for fans to purchase coverage of all five pre-season friendlies including 12 months access to Premium Villa TV.  The prices were well received by the fan representatives.  Several questions were raised by fan reps:

Will there be a discount for season ticket holders?

There are no plans to offer a discount for season ticket holders.

Can the club guarantee exclusivity – fans pay and then you get the match free on youtube?

Exclusivity has been built into the agreements with those we are playing.  The only pre-season friendly that is different is Sevilla, as they will be able to show the match in Spain.

Will the package include any home matches in the Papa John’s Trophy?

Probably not as the sponsors may have an influence on this, but we will look into the possibility.

Will the Manager’s press conference be streamed live?

This is not possible as the right’s holders would have to stream live too.

Could there be a trial so fans can see if they like the coverage?

We would suggest fans maybe purchase a single match package if they are not sure before purchasing any seasonal product.  Again, details of the package options will be published shortly.

Can Villa TV access be linked to Pride Rewards?

This is not planned at present.

The club noted future developments such as broadcasting live training sessions & fans press conferences.

 

Item 2 Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI)

Q. Updates on inclusivity/diversity initiatives?

The club reiterated our thanks for the ongoing work of supporter’s groups in supporting the club’s EDI efforts, which have contributed to the club achieving the Preliminary level of the Equality Standard.

We will be submitting our data in relation to the Football Leadership Diversity Code in August.  Our commitment supports equality of opportunity for coaching and leadership roles for women and Black, Asian and Mixed Heritage applicants. It is important that our demographic data is transparent, but it is also recognised as a baseline and starting point which will guide subsequent work.

We are working towards a revised Premier League Equality Standard, now known as the Premier League Equality and Inclusion Standard, which has an added focus on mental health and wider inclusion.

Our reporting text line was trialled at our match versus Chelsea.  We will continue to drive awareness across the 2021-22 season.  We want to create a culture of fans having the confidence to report incidents when they occur.  We will continue to work closely with West Midlands Police Hate Crime Unit and Aston Villa will have membership on a West Midlands Hate Crime steering group, where we will be working with external stakeholders to address wider trends, education etc.

The 2021-22 season gives us opportunity to continue to drive awareness of All In and we welcome ideas and suggestions on how we can do this through supporter engagement.  We will begin by attending Birmingham Pride once again in September and welcome fans to join us, Villa & Proud and AVFC staff in the walking group or at our community stall.

Fan reps reiterated their willingness to help the club share anything that helps the club promote EDI messages.  The offer of continued support from Fan reps was greatly appreciated by the club and we will ensure dialogue around EDI is ongoing.

 

Item 3 40^th Anniversary

Q. Updates on our celebrations for the league cup winners, European Cup winners, anniversaries, the former having been somewhat ruined by COVID.

As updated at a previous FCG there was quite a bit we wanted to do that was hampered by COVID.  Where possible, we want to make up for it this season. Things will kick off at the start of August, then there will be a calendar of events and content throughout the season that we are working on.  For example, like last season, highlights and interviews with former players were shown on Villa TV, video q&a's with the squad that you can access via Pride Rewards, making use of the 'All Time XI' place holder graphics on the side of the Holte to unveil some nice artwork about the team there and an end of season event / dinner.

The club welcomes any ideas on how to tribute the 40^th anniversary and anything to help us celebrate our 150^th anniversary in 2024-25.

 

Item 4 Memberships

Q. Membership Scheme: Is the membership scheme ongoing, we cannot see details of it on the official site?

Memberships are really important for us to grow fans both locally and globally.

Our previous memberships were quite limited (Claret & Cubs where the main benefit was ticketing) but we saw massive growth with our return to the Premier League where we only had a few months to work on the product before covid.

For the past 6 months we have been working with an external provider who run memberships for a lot of clubs to come in and help revamp our offering.  We will now have multiple tiers (claret for ticketing benefits, claret lite for without, global, women’s and three different ages for juniors).  All of these will have access to a portal where there will be members-only content and competitions, plus access to Pride Rewards and ticket priority, gifts and events etc.

We launched with a test on Tuesday to 500 people, as making the integrations work between an external provider and then the ticketing system to enable ticket priority is tricky and so the journey for a fan to buy will continuously improve as that develops, but we are moving in the right direction.  We hope to launch fully next week.

How much will memberships cost?

There will be different categories of pricing.  Any 19/20 members will receive a 20% discount.  Prices will be announced shortly.

When will memberships go on sale?

Once we have finished testing and before ticket sales for home matches are announced.

Will we still use memberships for home match ticket priority?

Yes – but we will also be introducing a lower priced membership offer that will not include ticket priority, for those who may not wish to attend matches but still be a member of the club and receive other benefits.

Will there be a ceiling placed on the number of memberships we sell that have access to tickets?

Not in year one, but we may consider having a ceiling or introduce a ballot system if required for future seasons.

Do the Claret and Junior memberships offer access to any Women’s team benefit’s or would we need the Women’s membership as well?

No – benefits for the Women’s team would require a Women’s membership.

 

Item 5 Fan Zones

Q. Fan Zone: Is there any possibility of a fan zone with street food at all/or more home games after the success of the one at the Chelsea home match?

We are still planning and assessing the impact of covid and what protocols we are given to follow by the Premier League.  Hopefully, we all agree the activity pre-covid was adding to matchday experience (flags/flames/tifo drops/Trinity forecourt fan zone).  We plan to continue that progress.

 

The main addition we are looking in to is a large fan zone in or around the car parks - potentially somewhere in North, where we can grow what we were doing in Trinity.  Food would be similar to what we had there and at the Chelsea game (which was a success).  The big addition we now have is licenses in those car parks to allow us to have live music and alcohol - but obviously that all comes with a lot of planning and permissions from local authorities.  With covid it has been difficult to plan, but we hope we can introduce more elements this season and beyond.

Will the family fun zone in the Academy continue?

Yes - provided COVID protocols allow.

 

Item 6 Accessibility

The club provided detail of the project to develop wheelchair seating for away fans within the away fans area.  Until now, away fan wheelchair users have been seated in the Trinity Road Stand with Villa supporters.  The drawings highlighted the complexities of creating wheelchair spaces at Villa Park.  We are aiming for this project to be completed as close as possible to the start of the season.

The club is also introducing a changing places toilet facility in the Trinity Road Stand and details of this project were also shared with the group.  Again, the aim is to have this facility ready for the start of the new season.

 

Item 7 LED’s

Our contract expired on our existing LED system.  We chose not to renew the current system as it is based on old technology and needed to be updated.

We have partnered with ADI to install a new state of the art set of LED boards that are double in size with a greater pixel per inch count, making the board real estate much more attractive to potential partners.  We are deploying one of the largest systems in Europe.

Installation of such a system is very complex due to the size of the boards. Keeping sightlines clear with minimal disruption is a key element to the project.

Full completion is scheduled for our opening game of the new season.

Item 8 Waiting list

Renewals closed 30^th June at 10pm.

By the end of day 2 of the sale, 10k season tickets were sold.

By the end of the sale approx. 90% of season ticket holders (sth) had renewed.

88% of sth renewed on-line.

26% used the V12 payment scheme.

85% of the vouchers were redeemed against season ticket purchase (approx. 16k fans took the voucher option).

On 30^th June, Ticketing Operations (TO)noted that 108 ten-year sth were still to renew.  The TO staff rang them personally to check they had not missed our comms.  Six of the 108 renewed and would have lost their seats had we not contacted them.

We then went in the relocation window to give those that have renewed the opportunity to move seats.  This three-day window was extended to a fourth day due to how busy the phone lines had been.  Any calls we deal with tend to be longer during this process as various seat options need to be discussed.

Lynne offered her thanks to the FCG reps who helped shape the waiting list Terms & Conditions which will help guide fans through these first steps of our having a waiting list.

The first invites will be sent out to those at the top of the waiting list giving them a 24-hour window to purchase a season ticket.  The invites will be sent in tranches of 500.  You will not get a second chance this season should you miss your opportunity.  You will stay on the waiting list for next season.  Any fan missing three opportunities will be removed from the waiting list and would have to re-apply to join (going to the back of the queue).

If someone is made an offer in the first tranche and has a family member or friend further down the waiting list, we will need to advise you if the second fan is likely to be made an offer this season.  If they are, we would advise you purchase and then transfer to seats together if the second offer is made.  The offer is being made to the individual FAN ID and is non-transferable.  Some clubs charge fans to be on the waiting list, we have no intention of monetising ours.

There will be a new season card for every sth, and we will begin printing these on 19thJuly.

We are moving into new territory as a club with the highest demand for tickets we have ever experienced in our history.  This will bring many new challenges, such as someone purchasing a season ticket and not using it, passing it on to someone else to use or fan circumstances (University for example) resulting in someone losing their seat and then having to wait years to be a season ticket holder again.

Much discussion was had around these topics.  It was noted that these are nice problems to have and are a direct result of our trajectory, and factors we will have to work around over the next few years.  As stated previously, the club will always act with compassion but must maintain the integrity of the waiting list.

 

Item 9 Kit

Can we have an update on the kit provider situation for next season?  We understand it is the last season of the Kappa deal.

Conversations are ongoing and obviously they are commercially sensitive.  As per the last FCG notes the kit and training sales have been great and complaints on product massively down so we are focussed on making this season another success.

AOB

With COVID in mind, can anything be done around possible congestion in the Doug Ellis Upper Concourse – stewards moving fans along?

If we are back to full capacity this would be difficult for the club to achieve and would be reliant on fans adhering to such requests.

Will the Sevilla friendly be at full capacity?

We may have to net off the first three rows in some areas if the installation of the new LED’s is not completed by the 7^thAugust.  Other than this we expect to be at full capacity.

When will away tickets go on sale?

Details will be announced in due course.

 

 

[Czarnikjak]

VillaTV Premium package was announced at the last meeting: £34.99 for access to all the Friendly matches plus 12 months VTV Premium (includes U23,U18 live matches and full reruns of 1st team matches).

Good Deal? Any takers? 

[Hank Scorpio]

On 01/07/2021 at 14:18, TRO said:

I'm a pensioner.....if anyone has any questions about " old farts"

I could do with some advice regarding my garden extension

[HanoiVillan]

21 hours ago, Czarnikjak said:

VillaTV Premium package was announced at the last meeting: £34.99 for access to all the Friendly matches plus 12 months VTV Premium (includes U23,U18 live matches and full reruns of 1st team matches).

Good Deal? Any takers? 

It's a good deal, if you were going to watch the U23 and U18 matches anyway. Otherwise no IMO.

[Junxs]

Does anyone know if the package includes away games for the u23/u18 live games? 

They only have the one camera angle anyway, so it's only a matter of taking just 1 camera along, so I don't see why not.

Guess they'd have to have some kind of agreement with the home side though, but shouldn't be difficult for these games. It's not like there's a million people looking to watch these that the hosting side would lose money. 

[OutByEaster?]

3 minutes ago, Junxs said:

Does anyone know if the package includes away games for the u23/u18 live games? 

It doesn't.

 

[sidcow]

19 minutes ago, Junxs said:

Does anyone know if the package includes away games for the u23/u18 live games? 

They only have the one camera angle anyway, so it's only a matter of taking just 1 camera along, so I don't see why not.

Guess they'd have to have some kind of agreement with the home side though, but shouldn't be difficult for these games. It's not like there's a million people looking to watch these that the hosting side would lose money. 

Wow, I admire your dedication to watching all possible Villa games! 

[tomav84]

for the next meeting please can the question be raised as to why season ticket holders do not get access to villatv+ automatically?

[OutByEaster?]

10 minutes ago, tomav84 said:

for the next meeting please can the question be raised as to why season ticket holders do not get access to villatv+ automatically?

Is that definitely the case?

I'm watching Gerrard's press conference as a season ticket holder, I don't recall signing up for anything else, but I did buy the pre-season and reserve package.

 

[tomav84]

49 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

Is that definitely the case?

I'm watching Gerrard's press conference as a season ticket holder, I don't recall signing up for anything else, but I did buy the pre-season and reserve package.

 

i think you got it as part of that package. i did not and was not able to watch even though i'm a season ticket holder

i was logged in etc but it prompted me to subscribe. seen folks on social media saying similar

[OutByEaster?]

Understood - there's been a move this season which has seen the long standing understanding of the season ticket holder as the premium level fan be undermined - through stuff like exclusive content for members only, membership level offers and competitions and the grading of VilaTV. It's something that's in the mind of the group as we await a date for the next meeting. 

There definitely seems to be a feeling that the club are pushing toward  "what else can I sell season ticket holders" now that they no longer have to work to attract them - with the idea of being both a season ticket holder and paying for a membership seemingly toward the front of the clubs thinking. 

At an early meeting, I'm pretty sure the group were told that season ticket holders were members by definition and would always be at the top of the fan hierarchy, so it's something that will definitely be discussed.

 

 

[tomav84]

52 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

Understood - there's been a move this season which has seen the long standing understanding of the season ticket holder as the premium level fan be undermined - through stuff like exclusive content for members only, membership level offers and competitions and the grading of VilaTV. It's something that's in the mind of the group as we await a date for the next meeting. 

There definitely seems to be a feeling that the club are pushing toward  "what else can I sell season ticket holders" now that they no longer have to work to attract them - with the idea of being both a season ticket holder and paying for a membership seemingly toward the front of the clubs thinking. 

At an early meeting, I'm pretty sure the group were told that season ticket holders were members by definition and would always be at the top of the fan hierarchy, so it's something that will definitely be discussed.

 

 

i think that makes sense but i do agree it's good to have some 'members only' perks, otherwise you're just paying for the ability to buy home tickets really.

in hindsight, i think it was just an error to have the press conference as villatv+ content