Thomas has agreed to join a Zoom Q&A with CAST members on February 10th. Registration details to follow shortly.
If you would like to take part but you are not a CAST member joining details can be found here:
https://www.castrust.org/2022/01/thomas-sandgaard-qa-february-10th/ 
Comments
Zoom calls have a place but I do think we need some meetings to be face to face so you can read the room, and follow up questions can be asked to the answers that have been given
Forget completely about Covid for one moment, I used to go to lots of in room Q&As and there was always a lot of imperfection with it; venues not always ideal, travel impact, sometimes poor turnouts, some people could dominate in asking questions etc. Positive side is it’s a social event, gives people the opportunity to meet others, could lead to more debate and challenge etc
I think long term there’s a good balance to be had with maintaining both. Purely from a locational perspective, 200+ people online meetings definitely holds some value vs 20-40 people in a room. Also much more appealing in attracting guests.
https://www.castrust.org/2022/01/thomas-sandgaard-qa-feb-10th-register-here/
Considering the ongoing schemes to fill The Valley, -which I would like to add has the right intentions as a full Valley is better than thousands of empty seats - but with the idea of handing out free tickets, cheap tickets, and whatever it might be, please can you provide us current season ticket holders as to what the benefit is for us to renew for next season? The value per game has risen dramatically with the schemes and will continue to do us until the end of April, and with many of us paying around £500 for what has been a shocking season so far, why should we renew for another season of League One football if we can pay per game for cheaper price or receive free tickets from others instead? The best way to attract fans back in is to reduce the price on season tickets and to actually provide some kind of benefit to them instead of providing the benefits to everyone except those who committed before the season started.
1) when do you think you might purchase the valley and sparrows lane?
2) Is football club ownership more or less what you expected? Are you enjoying it?
3) What has been your highlight so far?
4) do you believe Jackson can and will take the club forward?
5) Are we planning on making a lot of signings in the summer? How many exactly?
6) how long do you feel you want to be the owner of Charlton athletic? 5 years? 10-20 years?
7) Is it already a catastrophic financial pain in the backside?
8) when are you gana perform at reading festival? 😉
To what benefit to me is it that I pay a lot of money, in my opinion, for a season ticket, to be handing out free tickets to 3 other people?
I am all for more fans in the ground, but make tickets in general cheaper then, make it easier for people who are struggling to be able to go and release any inhibitions on a Saturday and enjoy a day of the week at football even if we lose.
Being able to hand out 3 free tickets to other people does not directly benefit the season ticket holder.
Make football affordable for the vast majority and be creative with getting them in the ground and that will have a bigger impact than free tickets. That’s my point.
Depending on whether you think watching us is nice
The club need to price point season tickets in a way to attract as many people as possible. Charlton and it’s surrounding areas are high need and highly deprived. The only way to encourage more people to attend is to take this in mind and price them more reasonably from the offset.
Many, many people will attend the free games because they’re free. They won’t come again until the next offer. You’ll get the few who do, but to really drive attendances, you need to be mindful of peoples situations, and look after those who commit previously.
mine , when Roland was here, was spend as little as possible, hence I sat in the family stand with my kids and only bought the odd reduced price kit .
now it’s Sandgaard I’m west lower next to directors box , car park pass with Lounge access .
Giving a freebie away is nice and of course we oversaturated these offers but they had the right intentions .
if I give someone a free ticket who can’t afford it I’m happy for them , I see a benefit in that and the fact they may want to try and pay to get along further down the line or they may offer me a beer or whatever minimal benefit but as a season ticket holder only an associate of mine will benefit , giving is good !
it’s far from perfect but if you want better value choose a cheaper seat in that stand and sit in the middle or move to the covered end to save some dough or carry on supporting the club (financially) as much as you can .
let’s face it if they offered 24k free season tickets with £100 fine , per game, if you don’t make it they’d prolly still have small crowds .
This football is not attractive even as a freebie .
The intentions were right at the beginning as having more people in is always a good thing, it’s better seats are used than not at all. I’ve always said and believed that. I used the offer to bring people to The Valley, few who otherwise wouldn't have been able to go and it’s great in that respect. But they wanted to do it for the rest of the season and that completely devalues the season ticket holders and the point of buying one. Giving is good and helping out where you can is great, but handing out 1000s of freebies each week is not a business model to success, nor is it a way to gain and retain new/existing supporters. Thankfully, they decided not to do it for the rest of the season and saw a bit of sense. But they need to be better at encouraging people to come along. Of course, winning games of football help too.
The other point is that even in the cheaper areas, many people simply cannot afford a ticket or season ticket. We are a League One club, the football is unattractive, the last however many seasons have been in this god awful league, what is it 9 in 14 or something? We have lost a generation of supporters, and alongside that the area and areas around The Valley are on their knees. Highly deprived and food banks are running out of food as the demand is so high, more and more people are struggling financially so yes giving free tickets away is great, I applaud the club for it, but making it more affordable from the outset and being creative and rewarding those who can and do commit is what is going to gain and retain supporters. Not a free ticket handed out because they know a season ticket holder.
I like where I sit and I paid for it last summer. I don’t want to change and could afford it last year. But the point is, 1000s of others simply cannot and rather than giving tickets away and making some feel less valued, tap into the work CACT do for example, the amount of people CACT engage with across boroughs and down into Kent is unbelievable. It doesn’t all have to be free tickets. Provide a discount code or percentage off to those who are signed up to programmes or something. Encourage partners to come along more often. That way they get the whole experience. Free tickets are handed out every week and many do not attend, let alone come back. But find out what is stopping people from actually attending anyway. Do some research, ask the question, if it’s finances, how much do they deem as reasonable? If it’s other things, find out what the club can do to be more attractive or encourage them to come to The Valley instead. The population to Greenwich and Bexley boroughs are around a combined total of 550,000, that’s without looking into Kent further, find out why we are only getting around 1-2% attending games.
We want to grow our support, we want to grow our club, but you have to assess the market you’re aiming at and understand that so many more people now are struggling, so to be sustainable or at least provide a model more sustainable than free tickets, free tickets, free tickets, and to keep people happy, going forward it needs to be affordable for many and not the few. And they need to actually be actively looking at what can be done to help get the percentage from around 1.5% up to 3%.
I agree that it needs a much more sophisticated approach and while Fleetwood is a rubbish fixture it's quite dangerous to issue that many comps and not something you can do regularly.