Liberty ticketing - We asked for it...

Swansea's new Ticketmaster ticketing system has come under fire from a small(ish) section of fans following delays in entry to the stadium - is the criticism justified?

Not so long ago the Swans were paying tradesmen with season tickets at the Liberty. How things have changed. This summer we announced a tie-in with Ticketmaster, as the club look to address long-term criticisms of a ticketing system which we had, in all honesty, completely outgrown.

When I recently attended the annual fans' forum I was glad the club didn't come under fire for the delays in people gaining entry to to the last friendly of the summer - the home game against Villarreal - and I think most people accepted that, with no season tickets and the game entirely all ticket, it was generally going to take a bit longer to sort things out. Couple that with the first use of the new ticketing system and you'll almost always run into some kind of teething problem.

Fast forward a week, and the club were obviously keen to avoid any kind of problems of this nature. Maybe it's just that I've worked in sales, but the email announcing a discount on pre-match beer if I got down there super-early, to me, read; "We're quite worried the ticketing system might have some more teething problems - try and avoid creating a last-minute rush if at all possible". Perhaps that's just me being a cynic though.

Either way, it seems there were, sadly, a few problems at the weekend. In fairness, as mentioned, the club have addressed the issue. Ticketmaster aren't some two-bit company, so it's not like we've gone with a cheap option, and while it's frustrating it hasn't got off to a seamless start it'll surely soon be functioning better than the previous system. There will have been a study done on how this system will work, and if it didn't make sense we wouldn't be employing it. 

Also, when I saw a few criticisms on Twitter I asked the question whether people had experienced issues or not. The overall consensus was that there'd been no problems, but it seems there were a few; some missed kickoff due to long queues (and were again admitted through the disabled entrance due to the delay in people getting into the ground), with one fan commenting that he missed kickoff, and there were still up to a thousand fans waiting to gain entry to the ground outside when he did get in. I also read of another unfortunate jack who was told, when his season tickets were scanned, that they'd already been admitted, and that he had to go to the ticket office to sort it out. Not what you want fifteen minutes before kick-off!

My experience so far has been that I've had no real problems, much like (it seems) the majority of the Jack Army. Ok the queues were long against Villarreal, and ok people missed kickoff, which is very annoying, but the club did say for people to come down as early as possible, and they've just implemented a brand new ticketing system which they've never used before. Surely delays are to be expected given you can't "dry run" a system of this nature?

The system is, as yet, far from perfect. That does not mean, however, that once the teething problems fade we won't be left with a much improved system, that the club have no doubt invested heavily in. The main issue seems to be the scanning on entry - at other stadiums this is done on barcode readers built into the turnstiles, but the Swans currently have hand-held equivalents. Whether we're looking to get the built-in jobbies is anyone's guess, but I get the feeling the deal with Ticketmaster is more to modernise the backroom aspect of the ticketing system, as opposed to making the turnstile operation dramatically quicker. 

My opinion would be that, for now, to criticise too harshly would be premature. I feel sincerely for anyone who's missed kickoff as a result of delays in gaining access to the stadium, I really do, but the reason these temporary delays (and I'm sure they'll be just that - temporary) are occurring is because the club are actively addressing a problem which has long been criticised from a vocal section of the Swansea support. The club is still playing catchup - as Huw Jenkins said at the forum there's numerous aspects of the club which are far behind our Premier League rivals - and the ticketing system was a glaring example of that. 

With two home games in the next five days, the club will undoubtedly be working hard to get it working smoothly. I, as usual, have no reason to doubt them. As I've said, it's really bad if anyone has missed part of a match in the last two games, but we are still growing as a club. Not an excuse, but an explanation. There will be times when things go a bit pear-shaped as we attempt to adapt on the fly, without the opportunity to practice things first, and without the benefit of prior experience. 

Much like when the board first came in, the challenges and problems they're dealing with on a day to day level in the Premier League will have been completely new to them, so it's natural that sometimes things won't go exactly as planned.

I wouldn't have it any other way. Assuming I'm in my seat for kickoff, that is.

Edit: The Swans posted this (link) shortly before I put this blog up, but I hadn't seen it at the time of writing. It further explains some of the delays,  and I'm sure I'm not alone in expecting the issues surrounding access to the stadium being resolved soon.