Liverpool VP of ticketing and hospitality, Phil Dutton, spoke to the ECHO about the proposals
Liverpool are to consult fans over all aspects of its ticketing strategy as it seeks to make improvements. The feedback is intended to shape the long-term approach for the club.
The issue of ticketing at Anfield in recent years has been a thorny one, and not without criticism from supporters, most recently seen during the summer when a technical issue occurred on two separate occasions, impacting ticket sales after being forced to temporarily suspend. While one impacted the friendly with Sevilla, the other affected ticket sales for the first half of the season.
A survey is to be emailed to supporters from a wide number of groups, including current and lapsed members and season ticket holders, with the club seeking “honest and open feedback” from fans about how the club’s ticketing platform can be improved across areas including access to home and away tickets, pricing, auto cup schemes, and match credits.
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The move to seek fan feedback on how to improve things has been driven by fan sentiment that has already been seen in relation to the current state of play, with the club having also engaged the Supporters Board on the matter.
Speaking to the ECHO, vice-president of ticketing and hospitality at Liverpool, said: “It’s something that we’ve we’ve looked at previously, but we started the process just before Covid and obviously Covid kicked in and people back in the stadium, etc.
“We’ve had new ticketing systems in that time, new access control systems. So the timing was right for us. But I think we now feel that we’ve been able to do this.
“We recognise there’s a whole raft of things we need to address. Our ticketing policy has largely been in place for about 10 years and we’ve kind of laid things on top. So the way we sell hasn’t really changed much in the last 10 years or so.
“What we want to try and do now is use this process to ask if the way we sell tickets is transparent. Is it too complex? Do we need to change things? The best way to do that is to engage with supporters.
“What we’re trying to do is get an understanding of where our priorities should be from a supporter perspective. What is it they think we should be looking at?
“We have a whole team of people who get ready to work on this and we just feel now is the right time to look at this and take it into the next five, ten years, make sure we get everything right.
“We’re not blind to what goes on, what people are thinking. I get hundreds of emails on this topic all the time. We know the issues.
“This is simply good business practice. We should be doing this. But I think what we’re aware of are the issues and the scepticism maybe that some supporters have. That does lend itself to how we’re going to go through this process and make sure we engage in the right ways. The feedback will absolutely influence what we’re trying to do.”
Demand outpacing supply is not a new phenomenon at Liverpool. Such a football mecca as Anfield has fans around the globe clamouring for a chance to get a seat and watch their idols in the flesh.
The completion of the Anfield Road End redevelopment helps to address some of that demand by taking the capacity to 61,000, but even that is only truly “scratching the surface,” according to Dutton.
“We’ve always had demand,” he said.
“So if you go back 10, 15, 20 years, this club’s always sold out, even when the football’s not been quite where it is now, the demand has always been there.
“I think what has changed in society is the way people want to consume more live events or football concerts. You saw the Oasis stuff and the demand levels have gone to the next level. Whereas perhaps pre-Covid people were more relaxed around queuing for two or three hours to get tickets, if it is longer than half an hour, 45 minutes the whole thing’s a shambles and everything isn’t great.
“The dynamic of the way people interact with sports entities, arenas, and concerts has definitely changed in the last two or three years. The technology has advanced. Not just the technology that we use, but the technology that supporters use. We want to make sure that we have a very transparent and simple process for people to buy and use tickets, but we also want to use our technology. The signal system we are seeking at the moment probably will probably only use about 50% of its capability. We want to open up that system to offer supporters far more variation in what we can and can’t do, and this is part of that process.”
Putting a timeframe on when changes might be implemented would be a challenge, said Dutton, although given that the season had already started it wouldn’t be mid-campaign.
“I think that the ticketing process right now is probably too complicated, too complex,” said Dutton.
“We want to come back and do this with a fair, transparent system, and every supporter knows how they can buy tickets and claim processes easily, how they can understand what they can and can’t do with a ticket, and that it’s not fixed.
“We want to make sure that obviously, we’re rewarding funds in the right way. We want to look at how those tickets are distributed, and how those tickets are used. But the underlying premise of this is simplification. We want to make sure everything is as easy as possible for supporters to use their tickets. So if we can come out the other end and everyone goes, actually, this is all right, now I can use it, and it’s fair, I think we did a good job.”
The club have released a new set of ticketing principles in line with the survey. Those principles, which have been created in consultation with the Supporters Board, include the ambition to make ticket access a realistic goal for all supporters while also recognising loyalty, with transparent data, protection against criminal activity, and a considered pricing approach.
Surveys are to be emailed out this week with the deadline for feedback at 5pm on Thursday, October 31, 2024.
