The trust have had their say on the club's statement about changing the way fans buy tickets
The Tottenham Hotspur Supporters' Trust have had their say on the club's latest announcement regarding ticket sales.
Spurs are changing the way supporters can buy match tickets for the first full season in their new stadium.
In previous seasons there were 19 separate ticket-buying windows for fans to get their hands on a set inside the new ground, but now they have decided to put tickets on sale in batches.
There will now be just seven on-sale windows throughout the season in which tickets to two or three matches will be put on sale at one time.
Tickets will remain on sale for individual matches, however, and will not be available to buy in packages - so you buy a ticket for one game, not all three.
The online ticket-buying system, run by Ticketmaster, has often been criticised by Tottenham fans, with the 'Circle of Doom' a common bugbear highlighted by social media users.
It can often take some time for fans to get through to be able to buy their seats, but plans are in place to upgrade the queuing system later in the year.
The clubs' announcement can be found in full here.
Here is the trust's response in full:
"Last week, members of the Trust Board met with the Head of Ticketing and the Ticket Office Manager at THFC for a long overdue catch-up ahead of the new season. The day before the meeting, we were informed of planned changes to the match ticket sales process for One Hotspur members, details of which have been released by the Club today.
"As a membership organisation, we think it’s important we clarify our position on those changes and explain in detail what we lobbied for during our recent meeting.
"CHANGES TO ONE HOTSPUR ON SALE WINDOWS - The Club has decided to reduce the number of One Hotspur member on-sale windows from 19 to 7 for the 2019/20 Premier League campaign. We have concerns around the ability of Ticketmaster to deliver a platform capable of coping with the increased traffic the truncated sales windows will cause. The new system means the need for a reliable queuing system that has the confidence of members is greater than ever.
"We are told that the improvements needed to implement a credible queuing system will not be completed until the end of September, after almost half of the sales windows have closed. So, for at least the first three windows, the user experience will be as erratic as it has been to date. With the demand for tickets sky high in the new stadium, inevitably more members than not will miss out during these windows. This was already the case for games played in our new home last season; the difference now being members left waiting on the notorious ‘wheel of doom’ will potentially miss out on up to three home games in one hit, not just one.
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"We also have concerns around the financial impact of buying up to three matches at once and around the complexities of purchasing up to three individual games in one site visit.
"The Club say they have introduced these changes to benefit fans by streamlining and improving the member experience. Yet this new system has been implemented without member consultation, without member demand and against the recommendation of their recognised fan group. In our opinion, we felt undertaking a period of consultation with One Hotspur members and delaying any changes until Ticketmaster had made essential technical upgrades would have been the most practical and sensible approach.
"MATCH CATEGORIES FOR THE NEW PREMIER LEAGUE CAMPAIGN - Along with the change to the sales process, the Club has also altered the mix of Premier League match categories for the 2019/20 campaign. Historically, the 19 matches were broken down into 6 x Category A matches, 6/7 x Category B matches and 6/7 x Category C matches.
"While it is pleasing to see one less top-priced Category A game, it is not pleasing to see that 9 games will now be charged at the Category B rate, leaving just 5 games at the most accessible Category C price point.
"We are grateful that one match has been recategorised from B to C after our meeting but consider the current split to be unbalanced. We recommended reducing three of the then ten Category B matches to Category C, which would have left the breakdown as 5 x A, 7 x B and 7 x C. The Club has recognised the issue with the new categorisation split by reducing one game from B to C, but this is the barest minimum it could have done.
"We were told the new category breakdown meant season ticket holders were effectively getting a discount on the 19 league matches. Trying to position a price rise for members as a win for season ticket holders was an admirable display of PR spin but it’s not wise to try to play off one set of fans against another. And having checked our bank accounts, we’re still looking for that ‘discount’.
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