ClaretandHugh understands less than fifty percent of the 52,000 Olympic Stadium season ticket holders took up the option to buy tickets for the Juventus friendly game on Sunday 7th August by Monday’s deadline.
Season ticket holders were asked to pay between £21-£66 per adult ticket for what was billed as the first ever game and the opening ceremony at the Olympic Stadium.
The official website proudly announced last week “Priority List Members, Academy List Members and Claret Members can get their hands on tickets for the first game at the new Stadium against Juventus from 2pm on Monday”
The stadium will still be in athletics mode on 27th August which makes a home leg in July unlikely but the second leg on 4th August could well become the first ever game at the Olympic Stadium, beating the Juventus match by three days.
Yesterday at 2pm, the remaining 35,000 tickets went on sale to Claret members and priority list members. Demand was very high and the new Ticketm website and call centre struggled most of the afternoon.
The Juventus friendly is still expected to sell out all 60,000 seats with a 30,000 strong priority waiting list and a Claret Membership expected to top 20,000 by August. The tickets are unlikely to reach general sale but if they do they do it could be decided by a ballot.
The reason we are not going to sell out to games like this is because a certain percentage of our season ticket holders are not actually West Ham fans. They brought them because they are cheap and can see decent football in a decent stadium and cannot afford a season ticket to watch their own team ie Arsenal, Chelsea, or are too far away to warrent a season ticket to Man U, Man C, Liverpool, Newcastle etc. I do worry that we are not going to be able to create the same atmosphere because we will not have the same quality of fans throughout the whole stadium. Also I was on the waiting list for this year (with my son) and paid £10, we did not get a ticket and now I am expected to pay another £40 for myself and £20 for my son to get on another priority list in case we want to get tickets to a game this year, no guarantee that there will be any tickets available but mor money into WHU pockets. Will just have to hope that some become available on general sale as I would love to take my boy to see the mighty hammers at our new home next season.
Saunders you can buy Juventus tickets if you are on the priority list, you don’t need to buy Claret membership for £35
I’m not buying what you said about the season ticket holders not being real fans .. I wouldn’t fork out for a Spurs Chelsea Arsenal season ticket if they were 10p I would be sitting there thinking “what the xxxx am I doing here ? .. I’m 43 and the last time I had a season ticket I was 19 when it cost £85 for the whole season .. I believe the tickets have sold to people like me ,who ,now the tickets are a reasonable price have got One instead of a membership ..
I think another reason why season ticket holders did not buy tickets for this game is because they will be on holiday. I am a season ticket holder and this match is in the middle of August when most people are on there summer holidays. I agree wit ssaunders I think there will be unfortunately a lot of fake fans at the new stadium. its primarily the fault of the club who feared they would not fill the new stadium so offered cheap tickets and allowed everyone to take two friends with them which was a massive mistake as lots of current members who could not get a ticket.
I agree some will be on holiday but maybe not 50%, another factor is cost, this is priced higher than usual pre season friendly games and the season ticket balance is due at the start of June which might put many off.
To be fair many season ticket holders often swerve the pre season friendlies. Attendance for the 2015 Betway Cup against Werder Bremen was only 9,919 in our last season at the Boleyn ground . The Marathonbet cup the season before that had 13,693 so it is not unusual to have poor take up of these meaningless games.
Well I will be honest I can’t bothered to go.Friendlies bore me even if it is the first match at the OS
SSaunders, what evidence do you have that ‘a certain percentage’ of season ticket holders are not West Ham fans? And what is that percentage? 80%? 5% 0.0000673%? Seems to me that this is an example of Schrodinger’s West Ham fan: at the Olympic Stadium there’s loads of non West Ham fans (ie Spurs, Chelsea, Arsenal) who have all got nothing better to do than watch West Ham because their beloved teams are so much more successful than us, they can’t possibly get or afford a saeason ticket (it must be true because someone, somewhere said so) yet somehow thousands of genuine West Ham fans have not been able to do this themselves? How so? ‘The tickets are cheap and easy to get, so anyone is buying them…i can’t get a ticket… their easy to get… I can’t get a ticket.. their easy to get’ Is it me, or isn’t a more likely explanation that demand is outstripping supply and all those that confidently predicted West Ham’s relagation/that West Ham would never fill the stadium/that West Ham would regret sacking Sam Alardyce* (delete as appropriate) are now peddling the myth that the stadium is full of non West Ham fans. Utter tosh. And don’t tell me you know someone, who was told by someone, they heard from someone… it aint true. Ever been to The Emirates, btw? I was taken there by a mate of mine with Platinum season tickets when the Z’ed man scored and we one for the first time. Do you think I was the only West Ham fan there in with the Arsenal? I can tell you I wasn’t. So what does that mean? Is anyone counting the empty red seats now and saying ‘That’s funny? A sell out (again) yet there’s empty seats?’ No, becasue at the moment we are the easy target… we’re paying for your stadium (West Ham fans, of course, are exempt from paying tax… this is another unfair advantage we’ve been given). No, it ain’t so, so don’t repeat this drivel. West Ham fans bought tickets at the stadium and that’s it. It ain’t sexy but that’s the truth.
Lol,calm down Ironman you will have a corona 😀
I love to drink mine with a slice of lime – lovely drop beer
I don’t buy the concept that thousands of non West Ham fans have bought season tickets but I do worry that some fans have bought season tickets without realising the full commitment involved. Writing off every other Saturday in the season can be a big ask to some families if you are not used to it.
The other group is people who may have bought season tickets for the big games but can’t make every game. Good friend, Hamburg Hammer who lives in Germany is one example, by his own admission he won’t be to make every home game and will hope to sell or ticket trade the ones he can’t. I think the same goes for people who live far away from the East end including Northern, Scottish, Welsh and Irish Hammers. It’s not just the cost of the season ticket but the cost of travel, eating, drinking and hotels for some which can quickly add up.
Finally we have sold 10,000 kids seats for £99, I myself, bought two for my kids aged 9 and 13 but they won’t be going to every game if I am honest. I hope to upgrade these for some games to adult tickets for good friends who missed out on season tickets but my kids won’t want to come to all 19 games.
I think its highly likely that most of our games will be on Sunday next season though if we get through to the group stages of Europa league. That might throw people a bit I suspect.
if your kids don’t want to go, why buy the tickets? – some 9 year olds do want to go to every game – I suspect an awful lot of this has gone on, depriving a lot of people who prefer to pay for the games they can attend rather than selfishly snuffeling up season tickets and then not using them.
Will we still say the crowd at every game is 60k though like Arsenal & Manure do.Will our attendance over the tannoy be based on season ticket sales or the real attendance on that given day.I hope we stay honest to the real attendance & don’t try these Arsenal tricks of announcing a false attendance.
You have to pay the balance of your season ticket to buy the Juve tickets. Not everyone has the cash yet to do that. Deadline is June.
Also out of our group of 8 there are 7 on hols, its only the second week of the school hols.
Don’t see why there is a big debate on here.
Any normal pre season stroll around only gets 18-20k, so they have by far exceeded this already.
You don’t have to pay the balance of your season ticket to buy Juve tickets. I got my two a couple of weeks ago but I haven’t paid my balance yet.