Town MDs Ian Milne and Jonathan Symonds say the club have no plans to drop matchday ticket prices, despite many fans believing they are too high. The duo have revealed that the club plan to offer half-season tickets at Christmas.

There has been criticism of the club’s matchday pricing with the cheapest adult seat bought on the day of a Grade A game, such as the Leeds match, costing £34.50.

Milne told TWTD that the club feel they’ve got the balance right: “We’ve looked at the figures and really our gate hasn’t come down.”

Symonds continued: “We constantly look at all aspects of the club and ticket pricing clearly is a very sensitive issue, and if we felt that we could bring them down, we would.

“But we are in a position now where we’ve set them for the season, and of course we’ll review them, but that is where we came to.

“We don’t take any of those decisions lightly, they are well thought-out decisions. We look at the big picture.

“Of course we look at them and the one thing that fills stadiums is success, and success, we’re hoping, is on its way.”

Milne added: “We agree they’re not cheap but we would also say they’re not that expensive for the entertainment that is being provided.

“I think you have to balance it, again there’s Financial Fair Play in that, there’s so much the owner’s prepared to put in and it’s only fair that there should be a contribution from the club and the income it generates, including the ticket revenue.

“So, it is a balance, nobody likes to increase prices, certainly we don’t, but we’ve got it about right and the gates tell us that up to now it doesn’t appear to be a major problem.

“We offer very good season ticket opportunities and what we will do at Christmas, and we’ve already had quite a bit of interest from the public, is half-season tickets.

“We’ll look at that, we’d also like the opportunity of giving value for kids as well. So to answer the question, we’re unlikely to bring prices down.”

Meanwhile, the MDs say they will assess the alternatives available when the contract with FLi, the providers of the much-criticised official club website, is up in 2017.

“At the end of the contract we’ll evaluate all the options,” confirmed Symonds. “There is a lot of work goes in and we have to work with what we’ve got.

“It was a long contract and at the end of it we’ll look at it and see what the offering is at that stage. We’d like to see a much better website.”

Milne continued: “We have developed our own website which comes off that, ITFC Direct, and you can see that a great job’s been done. A lot of that credit should go to Neil Hawes and Patrick Cannon, from the Marcus Evans Group, and Jonathan for that.”

Elsewhere, Milne says the Blues are closing in on agreeing terms with a kit supplier with the current Mitre deal up at the end of the season: “I can’t say anything, we are under a confidentiality term, but it’s very exciting.”

In August TWTD reported that we understood that the club had held talks with potential new kit suppliers, including Nike, while the Blues have recently been wearing Adidas benchwear while awaiting a delivery from current suppliers Mitre.

Photo: ITFC

Photo: Action Images

TractorBoyOlly added 16:02 - Oct 17 Please! Don't make me laugh! Attendances haven't dropped hey? I think 15,000 against Boro spoke volumes! Quality on the pitch! Well, the players may be improving but we are no Arsenal. Please be realistic! I would love us to follow Newcastle's example with tickets for £20, thats more like it.
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Ipswich_Crazy added 16:17 - Oct 17 Are you serious? Right balance? Charging £34 for a ticket is fair? I dont think so! Come on Us fans want a fair price like £20 for grade A £16 for grade B and £10 for grade C games.
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BotesdaleBlue added 16:24 - Oct 17 I absolutely disagree 100% with the MDs on match day prices - which went up in the summer remember: My concerns include:- i) The actual price of matchday tickets per se, in relation to season ticket prices. Such tickets for a grade A match bought via a turnstile can be well over £15 more expensive than my season ticket. This is just unacceptable whatever way you look at it. ii) The grading of matches, which in this division is a complete nonsense; iii) The £2.50 "fine" for paying on the day. There is no excuse for charging this in my book. iv) Closure of the ticket office, which makes it more difficult for non-connected fans to buy tickets. I will conclude by saying that, as a season ticket holder, I am not unhappy with the price I have paid, but I have major concerns over match day prices and their impact on the pool of future season ticket holders. The 3.4% (my calculation) drop in attendances already seen this season is concerning given the positive turnaround in home fortunes over the past year and I believe the biggest factor, by far, is the cost of match day prices, whatever the joint MDs say.

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OldClactonBlue added 16:24 - Oct 17 Well thought out decisions? Long maybe, but well? I need a lot more convincing. The high walk up prices are a real disincentive. In my opinion the prices are very expensive for the entertainment provided. And the gates would appear to suggest quite the contrary, that there is a problem. This club used to consistently get gates in excess of 20,000.
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TractorCam added 16:39 - Oct 17 The attendances have definitely dropped, but even if they hadn't, that's still only 17,000 a game. About 5 years back our lowest attendances would be 20,000, we're lucky to even reach that now a days.
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Benters added 16:48 - Oct 17 With everything else going up i.e household bills,i wonder if this will reflect in next seasons season ticket sales
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SuffolkPOSH added 16:49 - Oct 17 "the club have no plans to drop matchday ticket prices" And I know many people who have NO PLANS to go to any games due to your ridiculous pricing policy.
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Jimmy86 added 16:50 - Oct 17 Shows just how out of touch these two yes men are along with our faceless owner. The ticket prices are far too high and dont appeal to the casual fan that could go to the footy on a saturday afternoon if they arent doing anything. Yes look after season ticket holders bit for god sake reduce ticket prices to allow a bigger gate which will create better atmosphere which in theory should help the players on the pitch. We have not moved forward since clegg left!!! Farce!!!

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strikalite added 17:05 - Oct 17 I buy match day tickets, my gripe is only with graded A games and not the price of the B and obviously C games....
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TractorBoyOlly added 17:22 - Oct 17 How to you "grade" a game against Blackburn against a game against Burnley. Nonsense! If it is Liverpool compared to Crystal Palace you could understand! However I still think this system is bonkers, if we drew Man United in the cup you would want to sell tickets at the highest of £20 a pop to get a packed stadium!
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village_blue added 17:35 - Oct 17 There were over 17,000 fans in PR on Tuesday night when England under 21's played probably due to the fact that Adult tickets were £10 and consessions £5, almost the highest gate of the season!!
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MyBlueHeaven added 17:55 - Oct 17 are the MDs aware that we've had gates of over 25,000 in the past in The Championship? So this was when we in/around the play-offs regularly but it shows that people *will* come to Portman Road. Attractive football is half the story - prices are the other half. I reckon we lose 10 points a season by having a poor atmosphere from low crowds. What would we pay for a player - fee and wages - who could give us 10 points a season?

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bluemikey100 added 19:06 - Oct 17 if tickets cheaper wud we get much more crowd only way is if in premiership wud crowds be alot more too many mediocre seasons
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RegencyBlue added 19:11 - Oct 17 Talk about self delusion! If these two muppets really believe that attendances are not down there is no hope whatsoever!!
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blueboy1981 added 21:14 - Oct 17 ........ words that smack of people who really don't know the game, or indeed what they are talking about. They must be the only people to not realise that crowds have not decreased. Amazing. Another indication of the Club being a shadow of it's former self unfortunately.
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blueboy1981 added 21:16 - Oct 17 ..... delete the second word 'not' . Sorry, but it is late - ish .....
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blueboy1981 added 21:20 - Oct 17 ..... such words do not exactly fill you full of confidence.
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reaper added 21:39 - Oct 17 They clearly haven't thought long enough or hard enough about it then! It's not just about "we make £x amount more on a match day with higher prices", increases in new season ticket holders, higher shirt and merchandise sales, a entire new generation of fans who will support the club for their entire lives... all of these factors are not being given high enough consideration. In terms of looking at the club long-term, this season has begun well what with the investment in the academy, getting rid of loan players and giving our own players longer contracts... but the matchday ticket prices are still extremely short sighted

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ElginCityBlue added 22:05 - Oct 17 I mainly go to away matches, this just reinforces this decision.
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AlexanderFields added 22:33 - Oct 17 I can only ever attend these days at short notice and I haven't had to think very long or very hard to decide that I'm not going to make a long journey to be ripped off at the gate.
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Likenoother added 09:32 - Oct 18 I live on Voyage Estate just over the Bobby Robson Bridge, about 4 minute walk from Portman Road and the closet i will ever me to the ground. In spite of this i am no closer to actually being able to afford to going to games which is a real shame as i'd take my son as well it it wouldn't cost £50 for the both of us each game. Sort it out Ipswich Town, you are losing supporters who can't afford to go. Mathematics show less ticket prices, more bums on seats = same revenue as more ticket prices less bums on seats. Simple.

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BillBlue added 10:32 - Oct 18 This is truly disturbing and comes at a time when I was beginning to feel more hopeful. These two silly persons are telling me that Marcus Evans, the Marcus Evans Group and ITFC are still completely out of step with, and have no understanding at all, of all things football. The damage these people are doing to our club is iredeemable, they are turning people, permanently, off football and from supporting Ipswich Town and those people will be lost for all time. The amazing thing to me is how Evans has made money, it just shows how gullible many people are bcause neither Evans, nor the people he employs, have a grain of business sense, these people think and talk like accountants which is something lower than solicitors.

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apm_77 added 14:04 - Oct 18 Disappointed that these two have no real clue as to the realities of being a football fan these days; it's not them that has to fork out each week, year after year, like I and many others do (although that number seems to be dropping) in the vein hope that the club I have supported all my life might one day scale the heights of the past again. The grading thing is what really gets my back up; theres not a single team in this division I'd pay any more to watch than another, and I'm sure I'm not alone in resenting being asked to pay £13.50 more to watch Leeds a fortnight after watching us play Millwall. Were they to drop the prices to a more realistic level, I genuinely believe more fans would turn up, and while in the ground, be more likely to spend some money on beer, food, merchandise etc. That pushes revenue up and bring money into the club. Simple. 20,000 paying less for a ticket but physically being in the ground must surely be better than 15,000 (how long before its down to 13, 12?) meaning the ground expanded ten years ago to accommodate 30k is half or even less full. I can honestly see a time when the top tiers of the the North and South stands are shut to keep costs down. The club is treading water, financially and in footballing terms. Something needs to change.

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jabberjackson added 15:23 - Oct 18 What a pair of completely out of touch tits Our ticket prices Are a rip off, AND AN EMBARRASSMENT I am relatively well paid with a young family, but I cannot afford to go to matches without seriously making sacrifices elsewhere Going to see your team play should not be a luxury QED
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