Dear Mick, it's not up to you mate it's up to the people above to cut the match day experience cost. I am afraid they would rather empty seats than cheaper seats.

ridiculous that the club don't do a buy 1 ticket get 1 free for a game like tonight for example.

A lot of us mention price; Yes- that's a huge factor but also the ticket office streamlining is a huge reason too. The lack of telephone booking facilities is a move that has already cost more money for the club in lost sales than it saves by cutting labour costs

Ps- I'm almost certain that tonight's crowd will be less than Saturday's posibly even lower than 14700- just wait until we get a sky game

It is all about the price - ask any fan on the street. I work with loads of Town fans who just can't afford to go, it's as simple as that.

Why down ITFC do the cheap(er) ticket offer early on in the season? Or 'kids for a quid' or BOGOF - surely it's better to have bums on seats for a pound a go rather than an empty ground?

That said, the crowd were great on Saturday, just everyone, young and old joining in with a simple clap was great.

Also, agree with wkj about the fact that you can't phone up and buy tickets. It's more of a hassle for many fans to buy tickets online, especially the older fans. Come on ITFC staff, ook at the bigger picture and use some common sense!

COYB!

Apologies for the spelling errors in previous post, I'm stuck in the potting shed and can't see the keys very well

Even if it wasn't bogof, buy one get another half price is something, kids for a quid etc etc etc its not really that difficult. Is it???

I paid £35 for my ticket on Saturday plus other costs. Can I afford to do it again tonight ?....NO ! Town have got to get real with the match day prices. I think that tonights attendence may just hit 12000 .

I recently went to Vancouver and went to a Whitecaps MLS game while I was there. Not only the football a surprisingly good standard, the ticket promotions and general match day atmosphere was so encouraging for fans to get involved, here's a couple of examples of their ticketing:

Prices started from $18 (approx £14) and you could order your exact seat online when ordering. (they use ticketmaster who subcontract their online ticketing services)

They offer a 5 match pack where you can buy 5 matches which you can pick and chose throughout the season at a reduced rate.

Their season tickets for next year are discounted by over a third to what a normal matchday price would be, also any home cup match is included no matter how many they play! It would also give you discounts in the club shop and lots of free promotional stuff etc.

Student season tickets are $199 (£150) (works out about £8 a game)

In the stands there were people giving away free stuff and food & drink was reasonable and no queues.

Oh and the game was a sell out

Agree with above comments: Just an idea to register our opinions with the club on a regular basis... When the attendance is announced midway through the second half why don't we chant our disapproval, maybe something like:- "you're charging too much" "You're charging too much" "We keep saying" "You're charging too much"

Yes Mick, if the team is doing well and performing on the pitch it will go a long way to getting bigger attendances, but the deciding factor is cost. A matchday ticket for leeds was £39.50 and that is disgracefull!!!! Prem league prices for mid table championship football. Sort it out evans!!!!

If you have fans who live close to the ground who can't afford it, then fans like me also can't as I live 100 miles from the ground.

It another £40 in petrol plus (and this is the worst part) £5 to park your car.
How can you have all day parking for £3.50 and then charge a football fan a fiver for 2 hours.

For me to buy a season ticket I have to take in to account another £1000 in traveling costs

To say if we are doing well the crowds will return is stating the bleeding obvious, but we have to be realistic, we are not Man Utd and we won't always be doing well, and that is why price is such an important factor. Add in the fact you can't buy a ticket on the telephone, unlike any other Prem or Champ club, and there is hardly any service now from a shrunken ticket office is it a surprise that the crowds are so low. And do you know what Mick McCarthy you should look at prices at other clubs for this working class game and then let Evans know your thoughts on having to play in front of shrinking crowds. Get a grip Ipswich Town

perhaps if we signed someone who people had.heard of, fans mighrt want to cpme and see him play

getting rid of chopra martin and jet and replacing them with frees doesn't give the fans much to get excited about, let alone shell out £33.

"The working mans game" Mick where the hell have you been for the past 20 years?

Tickets are now a luxury and beyond pensioners like me, families with kids, students and the like. I now live in Portugal and recently went to see Portugal v Holland an international friendly, the tickets were available through a supermarket chain who sponsored the game at 10 Euro's each and we got 50% back on our loyalty card!!!! Needless to say the ground was full, not a spare seat anywhere. Cost is the main issue not just the football.

Funny we're owned by the worlds biggest ticket tout and have the most expensive tickets!!!!!

Reading was £27, upper north stand was £35 Saturday Ipswich should be slated for there pricing. I went to watch Munich's championship team last year, great facilities, excellent atmosphere only 14 euro's. I appreciate the club want to attract kids but I do feel adults are subsidising there very cheap season tickets.

I used the on line ticket purchasing system on Friday to buy an extra ticket. After 30 minutes swearing and going round in circles, I finally managed it. I printed out the emailed ticket and on Saturday and the guy on the turnstile was unable to register it. The lovely staff in the Portman Road office sorted it out for me.

What a pain in the arse it was.

Tickets at Ipswich have been expensive (Relative to clubs around us) for the last 15 years or more. The main difference is (as MM is quoted saying above) that supporters haven't had much to get excited about. We've had years of false dawns, poor management decisions, giving away good players etc etc.

This seems to be changing and the fans will come back if we keep this momentum going. You have to remember that with FIFA financial fair play rules coming in we will only be able to spend what we generate on match days plus a limited investment. So there will be a balance to be found for generating the maximum income for future transfer funds.

It's expensive but it's nothing new at Ipswich.

Oh and the guy who spends £40 on petrol, £30 on a ticket and thinks the "worst part" is the fiver for parking- that's hilarious!

OK here goes. Whilst I agree that pricing is an impactor on low attendances, opposition, brand of football, league position etc are too.
In 1995 after we were relegated from the PL i was one of 3,500 ST holders, when we got promoted in 2000, 27,000 people applied for tickets! 13 years on pricing is pretty much pro rata the same now taking ecenomic factors into the equation.
If we draw Man U, Man C, Liverpool, Chelsea etc etc in the 3rd round of the FA Cup, lets see how many people can suddenly afford the 'huge prices' then.

It is interesting to note that lojd commented that Vancouver offer 1/3 off match day pricing with an ST. Well Town give discounts (using Sir Bobby lower as an example) of 27.9% v the cheapest match day ticket and 50.9% v the highest match day ticket (OK you don't get cup games included,granted)

As for the parking comment by Karlosfandangal, I've been watching Town on and off for 26 years and always driven to the game, I've never paid to park once! Might mean you have to walk for 10 minutes, but hey. (I don't know your circumstances obviously, so If you are unable to walk distances, I take it back)

I do agree that the arrangements for purchasing tickets is a disgrace as a lot of peolpe don't have the luxury of forward planning with work/family commitments.

So my conclusions are:

1. Are we too expensive, considering where, how and who against we play our football? Yes
2.Will fans always find the extra few quid when they really want to? Possibly
3. Can the club do a lot more to help? Yes, absolutely eg. Price cut promotions, Buy 5 tickets from these 10 games get 1 free from this list, kis for a £1. Scrap Pre/matchday price difference. (it took me 30 seconds to come up with those options) imagine what the club could achieve with a full time marketeer focussing on it.

Consider all that and just watch how the attendances grow in the last 1/4 of the season if we're there or therabouts.

COYB

MM is correct in what he says, although that is only half the solution, better performances/results need to go hand in hand with lower match day ticket prices, before the casual & more importantly the disillusioned supporters are enticed back to PR on a regular basis.

I also think MM dodged one there, if he “loves the supporters” then he really should have an idea on how much it costs us to watch our team play.!

It was a great atmosphere at the game on Saturday for a spell in the 2nd half, just imagine how much better it could have been with another 5,000 in.

Fill the ground with a sensible pricing policy first, the fact remains people will only spend what they can afford and in some cases will go short on other items to be able to go. They have dropped a real clanger in denying the occasional supporter the chance of buying a ticket over the phone ( they should have experimented and phased it out over time perhaps?). I am going tonight, i had to go out and buy an ink cartridge for the printer yesterday to print off my ticket, only able to this as i was on holiday, its just extra hassle.

The club needs a rethink on this whole issue......COYB

Some really good comments on this so far. I must agree with most, that Ipswich simply charge too much for the quality of football that you get served up.

As my name suggests, I live in the north-east. I've been to Sunderland games in the Premier League for £10, and I've been to Europe League games at Newcastle for £20. Another club up here, mirror out plight, and that's Middlesborough. Like Ipswich, they have little ready cash to go around, but face exactly the same problem that they can't get bums on seats.

I'm not sure what the reasons are, or what the answer is. A town fan phoned BBC 606 on Sunday to complain about this, and Ian Wright asked a surprisingly perceptive question: just where is the money going? We've recently been paying off contracts like no tomorrow, but are any of our current XI on huge money? I'd guess not.

The trouble is, if we keep getting small crowds, the price might have to go higher, but if we do that then the crowds will fall. Talk about a problem!

perhaps they re open the ticket office in order people can buy tickets on the day

The trouble is that Ipswich is not a particularly affluent area — it's a nice town to live in - but it hasn't the wealth of say Islington, the city etc. Think this fact may well be lost on the CEOs

Why can't the club see that attendances have been such a major problem for the last couple of seasons! Tonight's attendance might give them a bit of a indication that not all of us can afford to go to every match if the prices stay as they are.

Don't understand why they find it so difficult to understand? Several people here have already made lots of good suggestions. The club needs to hear the opinions of the supporters more!