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ESTC Second Sales Explained

ESTC Second Sales Explained

Posted by Team England at 15:40 on Tuesday 07 February 2017

Following the completion of the Scotland v England ticket sale Travel Club members may want to note the following information regarding the sales process.

There is no “second ballot” for the second chance sale, it is simply a first-come, first-served sale for all 2016-2018 Travel Club members who missed out in the first sale.  Some of you have suggested that the second sale should only be open to those who registered in the first instance.  The issue with this is that it would encourage many more members to register for a match which they are unlikely to attend just to be sure that they could access the second sale should their plans change.  This in turn would result in the caps cut off for being guaranteed a ticket being much higher than it should have been.  Experience has shown that the number of members who access the second sale without having first registered is very small and so not impacting the access to tickets greatly.

For members purchasing tickets via the website, the ticketing portal will allow a number of people to enter the site as soon as it opens without queuing.  This number is preset by us depending on how many tickets are available to ensure that tickets are available for all those who enter the site at this time.  Everyone else is then placed in a queue and you will be moved into the ticketing site as soon as someone else has left it by completing their transaction and if tickets are still available. 

When you join the queue for a ticket, the system will estimate how long you have to wait  to select your ticket(s) based on the number of fans who are ahead of you. The time will also vary depending on how long it takes other supporters ahead of you to complete their purchase.

So, although you may be 10th in a queue, this doesn’t mean that there are only 9 people in front of you before you can select your ticket . There are 9 people in front of you in the queue, plus the members who are already in the ticketing site selecting their seats. 

Ticketmaster are also able to sell tickets through their call centre on our behalf.  They have access to the same tickets as the online site.  It’s a personal choice whether you wish to queue to speak to an operator to try to secure your tickets or try online, both routes have their merits and so many members will try both to increase their chances of securing a ticket.

This match sold out at 12.05pm today but a few people were able to buy tickets after this time for the following reasons. The tickets will remain in your basket for 10 minutes and some people do take 10 minutes to enter their payment details and complete the transaction.  So, at 12.05pm all tickets were allocated to members but not all were paid for by this time.  By 12.15pm all tickets were paid for with the exception of a couple of members who failed to complete their transaction and so these tickets were released back for sale and sold via Ticketmaster.

We are now operating a wait list for this match and as is the case with every single away match we do expect to receive a number of cancellations in the coming weeks and months.  These will be allocated to those on the wait list with the highest caps total.

Please be assured that we have also requested additional tickets from the SFA and we will let members know should any become available.

Have Your Say
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  • You said you'd requested more Germany tickets but we have had no update??

  • Team England, thank you for this News Item. Information which gives us an insight into how the system works and why it is done that way are greatly appreciated.

    More, please, on other topics. For example :-

    When a host association offers tickets to you, is this on a sale or return basis or do you have to pay for all of them ?

    Are you told our allocation before or after you run a register of interest ?

    Do you negotiate the allocation based on the interest registered by fans or do the host association determine it ?

    Prior to a second chance sale, have you considered a second 70%/30% exercise amongst the unsuccessful participants from the first round ?

  • So far I haven't had any luck getting tickets for any games. How can the fa ask for such a low amount of seats even though they know how many people want to attend the match.

  • To be fair, a very good explanation.. Many thanks.

  • Shambles.

    I was on the choose my tickets page at 12pm, chose 1 ticket which then said 'my ticket allocation was not available' and no matter what I did , whether I refreshed or changed the tickets to a different number then back to 1 it still said unavailable.

  • I was in @12.00 on my phone and p.c and both said no tickets available I think it's a joke...

  • clicked on at miday, got on within seconds, 2 tickets no probs

  • there was only under 6000 requests for tickets in the 1st place!!!!!!!!!!  the fa never have a problem in giving Scottish fans far more than that whenever they come to Wembley !!!!!!!!!! The reason this situation has arisen is because the fa want to hand pick the audience as usual!!!!!!!!

  • We didn't sell out in Slovenia so people carn't complain that the FA don't ask for enough tickets, for the Scotland game demand will always out way supply.

    Hampden park holds 50,000 and to get nearly 5,000 is very decent tbh.

    Wembley holds 90,000 and rarely sells out for England games so fair play on giving Scotland 14,000 as they can sell them and England wouldn't.

  • is allocation based on Active Caps or Total Caps?

  • @Martin - active caps (you carry forward caps from 1 membership period, plus from the current campaign - so current members have caps from post-WC 2014 onwards, then after WC 2018, any members will have caps from post-Euro 2016 onwards)

  • Thank you for the explanation, very good info.

    I would still like to see some sanction against those who habitually register/apply for tickets and then don't buy.

  • When you registrar interest for a ticket you are charge a Fiver if not successful then there should be a second ballot NOT first come first served some people do work for a living and dont have access at work  and as people have said The FA ticket online tend to freeze more often Also paid members should ALWAYS have first go at tickets at Home matches not just registered members

  • As has been mentioned a clear and concise explanation. This time around 341 is just 7% failure, compared with some times that is low. The location helps here of course.

    It is still unfair that people are missing out to people who register and then don't pick up their ticket. To say that "The issue with this is that it would encourage many more members to register for a match which they are unlikely to attend just to be sure that they could access the second sale should their plans change." doesn't really hold much water really. Fans can do that already and so the question is why don't they, because they know they can't go. They just simply won't buy the ticket if they are successful again.

    Perhaps as Martin says, perpetual registrees who fail to accept their ticket should eventually go into the sin bin for a period (3 strikes). In that way it dissuades people from wasting time.

  • @ Peter Sherwood

    I favour a caps deduction for anyone allocated a ticket who does not take it up. People who have a genuine reason would just have to bite the bullet but time wasters might be discouraged.