Move to allow AFL members to on-sell tickets to general publicAFL members, clubs and fans are set to benefit from a move towards allowing reserved members tickets to be bought by the general public. SEE HOW IT WORKS
Josh Barnes
HeraldSun
August 26, 2023 A murmur went through the crowd on August 11 when the scoreboard flashed an attendance of 78,749 for a game that was sold out of public tickets between Collingwood and Geelong.
A sensational Magpie win, nobody in the general public could buy a ticket ahead of a Friday night bounce after it had ‘sold out’ on the Monday, yet there was room for more than 20,000 extra fans inside the MCG.
Again, this Friday night, when Essendon hosted Collingwood, no public tickets were available yet the ground was less than three-quarters full, with 74,344 in the house.
Amid the most well-attended season in history, some clubs across the AFL are slowly shifting to ways to get more people into ‘sold out’ games, as the league encourages fans to pass on reserved member seats to get more through the gates.
And the on-sale options clubs are working through presents a win-win-win, for the member, the club and the fans.
Termed a “general public sell out”, 12 Victorian games this season have exhausted general admission seating.
In MCG matches, the home club, the AFL and the MCC are left with a guessing game about how many club, AFL and MCC members will turn up to their reserved bays.
Each club holds a different allocation of member seats, varying between 25-40,000.
Of the 12 public sell outs year, nine have been at the MCG – with three others being staged Marvel Stadium – and the nine games have averaged a crowd of 83,917, still excellent numbers but short on capacity.
The hugely anticipated round 20 blockbuster between Carlton and Collingwood was one of the hottest tickets of the year in the week before the Friday night game.
Thousands of public fans would have gladly snapped up tickets to the game before the bounce, but it lodged a still phenomenal crowd of 86,785, almost 14,000 below capacity.
Clubs are hesitant to change seating arrangements for home matches, as members buy the right to a reserved seat at the start of the season and pay upfront for that.
The AFL said it encourages anyone who has a seat to games and can’t make it to pass that seat onto someone else.
Geelong has successfully implemented a seat return system for its games at GMHBA Stadium in recent years.
For those games, reserved seat members can return their ticket and they receive money off next year’s membership, around $35 per game, while the club gets to sell on the ticket.
That leaves the member earning a discount on next year, the club getting to fill the seat for the game, while also making a little bit of extra money on the resale.
Powerhouse club Essendon enacted a similar trial of a return system this year, including at Friday night’s season-closer against Collingwood.
Similarly to Geelong’s system, reserved seat members can put their ticket back into a pool and receive credit to a 2024 membership, with non-reserved seat Essendon members getting first dibs on snapping up the seat.
The Bombers have been pleased with the return policy and told this masthead they are planning to bring it in for all home matches in 2024.
The seat-return policy is a popular one across world sport, with NFL powerhouse Dallas Cowboys and EPL giants Manchester City spruiking it in their season ticket packages.
Those clubs offer ‘season tickets’, similar to reserved seats, that can be returned into the club’s pool to be on-sold to ensure packed houses.
Home-and-away contests and their seating are largely left by the AFL to home clubs, with finals controlled by the AFL.
The AFL said it was happy to leave seat return policies for club seats to the home clubs, with no pressure to implement any returns.
The league has been thrilled by the record crowds this year, as well over 300,000 fans flock to the footy every weekend.
The AFL members section holds both reserved and walk-up seats to most home-and-away matches, with the reserved section selling out on a handful of occasions this year.
The MCC allows members to reserve seats in certain sections for every AFL game, with leftover seats then left for walk-ups.
All finals are fully-ticketed, so outside of the MCC no walk-ups are available, giving a closer guarantee of strong crowds.
Last year’s grand final between Geelong and Sydney hit maximum capacity as 100,024 were counted going through the gates.
The grand final breakdown gives club members 17,000 seats each, with AFL members and the MCC making up a further 36,000 on the biggest day of the season.
The remaining 30,000 seats are shared between corporates and extra club tickets, plus top-tier hospitality.
The cheapest seat on grand final day will cost $185, a price frozen in place since 2019.
https://www.codesports.com.au/afl/move-to-allow-afl-members-to-onsell-tickets-to-general-public/news-story/ef3c2883865f95b9ca2504cf9e77d88b
