Moving away fans to Upper West Corner

[traff]

Apparently, the club are looking at moving fans to the Upper West corner.

"Ahead of releasing Season Ticket details for next season, we wanted to inform you of proposed plans to potentially relocate the away fan allocation within the stadium bowl.
One option is to utilise the Upper West corner on the south side of the stadium to accommodate visiting supporters – an area which is currently a home supporter section in which you have your seat.
Why?

The rationale behind this would be to improve the home atmosphere by moving the visiting supporters further away from the goal for the majority of fixtures and to enable us to sell more tickets to home supporters without sales restrictions when the away fan allocation is taken in full. Furthermore, creating an allocation for visiting supporters in the Upper West, this would also enable us to charge away fans a higher ticket price than we are currently able to."

Thoughts?

[Fezza]

I'm all for charging some clubs more for their allocation (Leeds if they come down).

[Hendo]

Apparently, the club are looking at moving fans to the Upper West corner.

"Ahead of releasing Season Ticket details for next season, we wanted to inform you of proposed plans to potentially relocate the away fan allocation within the stadium bowl.
One option is to utilise the Upper West corner on the south side of the stadium to accommodate visiting supporters – an area which is currently a home supporter section in which you have your seat.
Why?

The rationale behind this would be to improve the home atmosphere by moving the visiting supporters further away from the goal for the majority of fixtures and to enable us to sell more tickets to home supporters without sales restrictions when the away fan allocation is taken in full. Furthermore, creating an allocation for visiting supporters in the Upper West, this would also enable us to charge away fans a higher ticket price than we are currently able to."

Thoughts?

No problem at all with this, bit in bold is key. Club are obviously a bit pissed off that more clubs haven't reciprocated their £20 offer.

[tidus_mi2]

Think it makes sense, most clubs will look to tuck away fans somewhere in the ground they can least affect the game, if it means we can charge away fans more and still give clubs the £20 offer we might see more reciprocation. It's an easy one to turn down when the difference is £22 vs £20 for STH.

[Sutekh]

Apparently, the club are looking at moving fans to the Upper West corner.

"Ahead of releasing Season Ticket details for next season, we wanted to inform you of proposed plans to potentially relocate the away fan allocation within the stadium bowl.
One option is to utilise the Upper West corner on the south side of the stadium to accommodate visiting supporters – an area which is currently a home supporter section in which you have your seat.
Why?

The rationale behind this would be to improve the home atmosphere by moving the visiting supporters further away from the goal for the majority of fixtures and to enable us to sell more tickets to home supporters without sales restrictions when the away fan allocation is taken in full. Furthermore, creating an allocation for visiting supporters in the Upper West, this would also enable us to charge away fans a higher ticket price than we are currently able to."

Thoughts?

No problem at all with this, bit in bold is key. Club are obviously a bit pissed off that more clubs haven't reciprocated their £20 offer.

Good. Excuse to charge them more too. Fed up that some clubs get away with charging OTT prices for away fans, and in some cases for utterly cr@p viewpoints.

[Hendo]

Apparently, the club are looking at moving fans to the Upper West corner.

"Ahead of releasing Season Ticket details for next season, we wanted to inform you of proposed plans to potentially relocate the away fan allocation within the stadium bowl.
One option is to utilise the Upper West corner on the south side of the stadium to accommodate visiting supporters – an area which is currently a home supporter section in which you have your seat.
Why?

The rationale behind this would be to improve the home atmosphere by moving the visiting supporters further away from the goal for the majority of fixtures and to enable us to sell more tickets to home supporters without sales restrictions when the away fan allocation is taken in full. Furthermore, creating an allocation for visiting supporters in the Upper West, this would also enable us to charge away fans a higher ticket price than we are currently able to."

Thoughts?

No problem at all with this, bit in bold is key. Club are obviously a bit pissed off that more clubs haven't reciprocated their £20 offer.

Good. Excuse to charge them more too. Fed up that some clubs get away with charging OTT prices for away fans, and in some cases for utterly cr@p viewpoints.

Agreed, there can't be many ST holders in that corner either, OP excluded, obviously. Would imagine that would be the least disruptive if they did move.

Could also mean that people leave SJM Stand can finally turn right rather than turning left.

[Brogue]

Lots of things to consider

They currently have; R30, R31, R32

So I guess they are saying they won’t have that anymore and will move to GU1 GU2 & GU3? Or not GU3? Is GU3 classed as upper west corner, or just upper west?

Or will they have GU1 & GU2 and R32 for instance.

If Reading fans get the whole of the south will they open up the interior doors in the concourse and make it open plan like in the north?



I would suggest that those in the upper west i.e GU4 would be quite pissed off to have the away fans so close to them. They are the more expensive seats. If the the away supporters were moved there I can see a lot of Reading fans moving seats to be further away from them. Unless of course they plan to only give them GU1 and GU2 and put the segregation sheets over the seats in GU3. Which brings the question - How will segregation work in the seated bowl if they move?

I assume the concourse can be segregated with the blue internal doors. Will it reduce the number of bars the home fans can use in the upper west? As one will have to go to the away fans now I guess.

How many seats are in GU1 and 2? What would be the new away allocation?

Would this mean that club 1871 would be able to expand into R29, R30, and R31 permanently?

Also not sure about having away fans sat above home fans with the potential for them to throw things down to the Reading fans in the lower west.

[Elm Park Kid]

Obviously any concerns about being able to sell more tickets to home fans seems redundant at the moment. Maybe expanding 1871 capacity is *less* ridiculous, if we do improve next season.

I would have thought that having the option to expand away support for certain matches was more of an issue right now.

[Royality creeps In]

If it does away with that bloody gate behind 1871 I'm all for it.

[bluerinse]

Better to move Club 1871 to Upper West, and expand South Stand to accommodate 4000 away supporters and increase revenue for the club. There are plenty of "bigger " clubs in the Championship next season who have good away support, especially if Southampton and Bournemouth get relegated.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

Depends on what allocation is given to away supporters really. It might be better to have home fans behind both goals and it might give us a greater capacity to extend C1871 which would generate us a better home atmosphere as well.

[tidus_mi2]

Better to move Club 1871 to Upper West, and expand South Stand to accommodate 4000 away supporters and increase revenue for the club. There are plenty of "bigger " clubs in the Championship next season who have good away support, especially if Southampton and Bournemouth get relegated.

Club 1871 have been a massive boost to home atmosphere, why would we ever do something that has the complete opposite effect just to chase a small amount of additional revenue?

[Hendo]

Better to move Club 1871 to Upper West, and expand South Stand to accommodate 4000 away supporters and increase revenue for the club. There are plenty of "bigger " clubs in the Championship next season who have good away support, especially if Southampton and Bournemouth get relegated.

Hi John Smith!

[paultheroyal]

No problem at all with this, bit in bold is key. Club are obviously a bit pissed off that more clubs haven't reciprocated their £20 offer.

Good. Excuse to charge them more too. Fed up that some clubs get away with charging OTT prices for away fans, and in some cases for utterly cr@p viewpoints.

Agreed, there can't be many ST holders in that corner either, OP excluded, obviously. Would imagine that would be the least disruptive if they did move.

Could also mean that people leave SJM Stand can finally turn right rather than turning left.

Your last sentence alone is enough reason to make this happen! Good shout!

[SCIAG]

Seems like there would be logistical/safety issues, especially when dealing with the likes of Cardiff and Millwall (or heaven forbid Everton). Would away fans be queuing up for the gates next to the players’ entrance?

[PATRIQT]

Better to move Club 1871 to Upper West, and expand South Stand to accommodate 4000 away supporters and increase revenue for the club. There are plenty of "bigger " clubs in the Championship next season who have good away support, especially if Southampton and Bournemouth get relegated.

Thus making the away fans louder once again, handing them a significant advantage. No thank you.

[Snowflake Royal]

Better to move Club 1871 to Upper West, and expand South Stand to accommodate 4000 away supporters and increase revenue for the club. There are plenty of "bigger " clubs in the Championship next season who have good away support, especially if Southampton and Bournemouth get relegated.

That's a dreadful idea

That would increase cost for C1871
Put them in a far worse position to create atmosphere
Be more dangerous for standing


All for the proposed move.

[tidus_mi2]

Yep, I would say most clubs treat away fans as a compulsory inconvenience and try to limit their numbers and effect on the game as much as possible, how many times have people gone to away game and found themselves tucked away somewhere? Before Club 1871 we were far too accommodating with giving the entire South Stand and allowing away fans to dominate the atmosphere.

When hopefully better times return to the club and attendances increase we can really capitalise on a strong home support.

[URZZZZZZZZ]

Very much onboard with the idea, but I think the concourse entry situation could be a nightmare.

The gates for Upper West are right next to the Lower West ones, meaning either you have home and away fans in the same area, or you need huge structural changes.

It's also right next to the Players' and Media entrance, which seems counter intuitive.

Really interested to see how this pans out though, having home fans behind both goals would be excellent.

[RFCMod]

Would love having home fans behind both goals but the small percentage being moved from the Upper West if relocated behind the goal wouldn't make an impact on the 2000 empty seats
Club 1871 works because everyone sits together and builds the atmosphere in a small space,open the South Stand up and suddenly you have the lads wanting to give it large to the away fans either shifting across to sit beside them or charging across the empty seats when any action happens
Obviously there's plenty who want to move to 1871 but not a couple of thousand