I'd love to tell you all about the game yesterday, but instead you'll have to listen to a rant about the ticket office, who did their best to spoil my day yesterday, far more than our second half performance. I've heard things about the ticket office before, but this was my first time experiencing it first hand.
We bought tickets when a few came up for sale a couple weeks before the match. The process for buying the tickets is much the same as trying to win a radio contest for a led zeppelin cover band. But hey, we got them. And luckily, my sister was in Liverpool with my granddad for four days, so we'd be able to pick them up ahead of time. We were told the tickets would be available the next day.
So she dutifully went to the ticket office the following day. Tickets aren't there. They would be tomorrow though, sorry for the inconvenience.
Next day. No tickets, we were misinformed, it takes 48 hours to process tickets.
Next day, no tickets, sorry, you'll have to pick them up on the day if you can't come tomorrow. During this whole time no one can answer any questions about anything, without asking a supervisor. They aren't aware of their own products, for instance anything about their membership plans.
So we drive up 5 hours from Devon, knowing we have to drive another 5 hours back to Cornwall the same day, as my whole family is staying at a cottage there for my parent's 50th anniversary. Racing up and accumulating speeding tickets to make up for traffic, we get to the ground and into the collection line 50 minutes before kick off.
Then nothing fucking happens. The line barely moves. I work out the average time spent per person to be 10 minutes. People, many season ticket holders, are getting angrier and angrier.
So what is causing this problem I wonder when we finally make it up to the front, some 10 minutes after the game has begun, and watching people furiously leave. Well, despite there being tons of employees, and 18 lines, there were only a handful of computers in the office, that each worker had to leave their seat to go to. There were people milling around looking lost. What these computers did, I'm not sure, because after looking at them, they rifled through files as if it were 1970.
It's not that fucking complicated is it? I've done will-call tickets again and again for events on the scale of a liverpool game or larger. People have figured this out. At the end of each line there should be a person sat with a computer who can print out the tickets, all from their seated position. Most successful collection systems give you a few options, and there's no paperwork involved. If you want to, when you buy a ticket, you can print out a barcode which the people can scan at the collection point to confirm your purchase with your ID. This expedites things. Failing that, they can use the purchasing credit card and the ID to process the sale. Failing that, they can use the reference number they provide you. What the reference number we were given was for, I don't know, because they asked us repeatedly for the last name the purchase was under. Wierd, considering they were holding the ID with the name on it.
Anyway, all this is obvious, other people have figured this out, and it's frankly embarrassing to have something done in such an improvised, completely shit way. It's not even entirely that it's antiquated, as I bet you could have a completely paper system that would function efficiently, if it was well run. If I was a season ticket holder, I'd be even more livid, but as it stood, we missed the first 20 mins of the game, including the penalty miss and the goal, despite being at the stadium almost an hour ahead of time. No partial refund. Nothing.
With all the talk of modernization of the commercial end of things, how about the club completely overhauls something that is so obviously wrong, and simple to fix, it's laughable.
We bought tickets when a few came up for sale a couple weeks before the match. The process for buying the tickets is much the same as trying to win a radio contest for a led zeppelin cover band. But hey, we got them. And luckily, my sister was in Liverpool with my granddad for four days, so we'd be able to pick them up ahead of time. We were told the tickets would be available the next day.
So she dutifully went to the ticket office the following day. Tickets aren't there. They would be tomorrow though, sorry for the inconvenience.
Next day. No tickets, we were misinformed, it takes 48 hours to process tickets.
Next day, no tickets, sorry, you'll have to pick them up on the day if you can't come tomorrow. During this whole time no one can answer any questions about anything, without asking a supervisor. They aren't aware of their own products, for instance anything about their membership plans.
So we drive up 5 hours from Devon, knowing we have to drive another 5 hours back to Cornwall the same day, as my whole family is staying at a cottage there for my parent's 50th anniversary. Racing up and accumulating speeding tickets to make up for traffic, we get to the ground and into the collection line 50 minutes before kick off.
Then nothing fucking happens. The line barely moves. I work out the average time spent per person to be 10 minutes. People, many season ticket holders, are getting angrier and angrier.
So what is causing this problem I wonder when we finally make it up to the front, some 10 minutes after the game has begun, and watching people furiously leave. Well, despite there being tons of employees, and 18 lines, there were only a handful of computers in the office, that each worker had to leave their seat to go to. There were people milling around looking lost. What these computers did, I'm not sure, because after looking at them, they rifled through files as if it were 1970.
It's not that fucking complicated is it? I've done will-call tickets again and again for events on the scale of a liverpool game or larger. People have figured this out. At the end of each line there should be a person sat with a computer who can print out the tickets, all from their seated position. Most successful collection systems give you a few options, and there's no paperwork involved. If you want to, when you buy a ticket, you can print out a barcode which the people can scan at the collection point to confirm your purchase with your ID. This expedites things. Failing that, they can use the purchasing credit card and the ID to process the sale. Failing that, they can use the reference number they provide you. What the reference number we were given was for, I don't know, because they asked us repeatedly for the last name the purchase was under. Wierd, considering they were holding the ID with the name on it.
Anyway, all this is obvious, other people have figured this out, and it's frankly embarrassing to have something done in such an improvised, completely shit way. It's not even entirely that it's antiquated, as I bet you could have a completely paper system that would function efficiently, if it was well run. If I was a season ticket holder, I'd be even more livid, but as it stood, we missed the first 20 mins of the game, including the penalty miss and the goal, despite being at the stadium almost an hour ahead of time. No partial refund. Nothing.
With all the talk of modernization of the commercial end of things, how about the club completely overhauls something that is so obviously wrong, and simple to fix, it's laughable.
