Quinssa AGM Report 3: Next Season & Ticket Sales
By Prof
June 15 2006
In this third report from the Quinssa AGM Mark Evans talks about season ticket sales, next season and the London Double Header (and a bit about Leeds Tykes too).
On Season Tickets
As of this evening (8th June 2006) we have sold 4,736, we have a target of 6,000, we first set it at 5,500 but I changed it, although I do think that 6,000 might be a bit too ambitious. It would be terrific though, it would rank us 4th or 5th in the country.
Q: Some friends of mine called the ticket office and were told they would be called back within 48 hours but they weren’t called back for 3 weeks, is the ticket office having problems?
A: I would be very surprised if that were the case but calls can always slip through the net. There are three lines in the ticket office and if they are all busy the calls go through to a call centre which says that the caller will be called back within 48 hours, they fax these details through to us by fax. I’ve seen the ticket office go through huge lists of calls in a day so your friends must have fallen through the net.
On Next Season
Now I’ll never be one to shout from the roof tops about what I think we’ll do next season especially in the Premiership. It must be very difficult being a rugby reporter in August – you go to the press conferences of all 12 clubs and everyone says exactly the same thing “We’ll do well if we remain injury free, if we get a good start, if the team gels…”
Most teams have the potential to do well and most teams could end up like Leeds and end up going down and getting pillaged. With a rugby hat on it can’t be good for the game (although I am happy that we have signed Danny Care).
Leeds have a great academy, they have spent 5 years building up a good team, they’ve been bringing on lots of English lads, then the first team has a bad run and they’re all off. I just don’t think that is good for the game.
Q: Will we always be playing London Irish in the London Double Header?
A: I would have preferred to have changed it round this year but we have got London Irish again. You get a financial windfall when you play away in the double header. In the first year we were away, the second year we weren’t in it and in this third year we should be away again.
They originally tried to make it a home game for us but from our point of view it’s easier to have the same number of games at The Stoop every season. This season we are away in the double header but only have one home game in the Powergen Anglo-Welsh Cup, next season we’ll be home in the double header and have two home games in the cup, so you’ll always have 16 home games on your season ticket package. This makes it much easier for us to explain the cost of the season ticket packages.
Part four will be Ground Developments for Next Season