A lifelong Hammer and keen ClaretandHugh follower reckons the reason the Hammers are delaying the release of the official OS seating plan is because they may be unsure of it themselves!
Percy Parry- tweeting on the issue raised by CandH over the last couple of days – declared: “@ClaretandH “Surely that’s just a guesstimate Hugh? Club will adjust the bands according to demand.”
We have always made it clear there is a certain amount of guesswork involved despite accurate feedback from the fans.
But the suggestion West Ham themselves are uncertain of how things will pan out would appear to carry a degree of credibility!
When we asked the club when the plan would be officially unveiled we were told: “We have just been trying to ensure that every season ticket holder has the opportunity to have their personal appointment with an adviser and get the information they need about their seat selection first hand and in the proper context.”
We were uncertain how the release of an official plan itself relates to the booking of season tickets themselves assuming the plan had been drawn up. We received no response when we posed the question.
The club may indeed have a seating plan written in tablets of stone but if so we really can see no reason why it hasn’t been published. It’s hardly top secret material.
Percy’s suggestion that the club are perhaps planning it based on the reservation centre demand , may or may not be right but it is certainly an interesting take on the ‘delay.’
I don’t understand this – surely there’s some sort of criteria to decide which Band a seat is assigned to – I don’t know, distance from the Centre Spot, angle of sight line – or whatever!
You can’t decide which band the seat is based on demand – that’s completely dishonest and unfair to the punters!
It is a good old fashioned supply and demand model. The seat and the view is valued at what someone is prepared to pay for it. The complication with the Olympic stadium is the the new plus two policy coupled together with the grouping policy. The ability to introduce two new season tickets holders many of which are £99 under 16 tickets has introduced thousands more new season tickets holders to different bands. The grouping policy has allowed people to group with those in higher bands and therefore move higher up the priority list and get better seats in more expensive bands. This means it is impossible to predict how many season tickets in each band until they finish.
In this scenario they literally draw up the seating plan as they go long, hence why some sections are spilt down the middle between two bands in our seating plan.
I get why they would want to do this but I wish they would be more transparent if this is the case. Band 4 and 5 will be created with want seats are left over.
What will remain for the 20,000 on the priority waiting list remains to be seen. They have each paid a tenner. I wonder whether they will get a refund if they don’t get a season ticket or even remote chance of getting one.
And all along during this process previous non-season ticket holders are now sat comfortably in the knowledge they have a seat after going as a +2 while previous long standing Band 4 ST holders wait to discover their fate.It stinks!