English League One football club Bristol Rovers, via its partnership with Ticketmaster, has introduced an online-only system to allow season ticket holders to exchange their tickets with the club if they can no longer make a match.
Rovers and Ticketmaster, as well as a number of other clubs, have tested and worked on the system over the last few months. The service will now be on offer for the final 10 matches of the 2022-23 season on the platform.
This is an improvement on the previous over-the-phone or email request system that has traditionally operated in this area.
Season ticket holders will now have the ability to sell their ticket at a pro-rata rate to other supporters for any League One home fixture they are unable to attend.
Tickets can be available on the Ticket Exchange right up until the day of the match, with season ticket holders able to list their seats up until the turnstiles open at the 9,832-capacity Memorial Stadium. Tickets purchased through the Ticket Exchange are non-transferable and non-refundable.
“We received a lot of feedback at the end of last season that fans wanted the club to be able to offer something online for season ticket holders to be able to release their tickets back if they couldn’t make a match,” said Bristol Rovers’ head of sales, David Bright.
“When I met with retail and ticketing manager Pete Weymouth before the season started, we agreed that the Ticket Exchange would be one of the key pieces of development that we’d like to launch in the season.
“It’s a win-win for all involved; the season ticket holders get the value of the game put back on their Ticketmaster account, and the club can re-sell the ticket to someone looking to come to a game. With the limited number of seats we have on offer match-by-match, those who have seats as season ticket holders will see theirs snapped up between now and the end of the season.”
Season ticket holders will be able to log into their account and list their ticket on the Ticket Exchange. Once the ticket has been sold, the holder will receive a notification and Ticketmaster automatically credits their account with the pre-agreed values.
Once sold, the game will be removed from the season ticket holder’s card and validated through a new e-ticket that the buyer will then receive.
Retail and ticketing manager Pete Weymouth added: “Owing to the issues we had at the start of the season, we didn’t want to launch anything until we had full control of season tickets and all actions associated with this.
“We feel that January, with 10 games remaining, is the right time to launch this, and will also allow our new ‘half season ticket’ holders the chance to benefit as well. We have always tried to help as much as we could by email, in person, or over the phone when putting tickets back on sale, but something like this aligns our processes with the way we’ve recently worked to take the club forward.”