'Pay what you want' - A novel idea by Chelmsford City

So the weekend was deemed an overall success. A clean sheet maintaining the unbeaten run that has been put together by the Clarets new gaffer, and a few old faces returning alongside some unfamiliar ones too as locals took advantage of ‘paying what they want’. But what has this done for the club?

Firstly, Chelmsford must  be applauded for giving something back to the fans and attempting to prove what fun can be had at a local non-league club for those that had forgotten during a recent period of heavy thumping’s. The club has gone the extra mile by letting any fan pay whatever they choose to attend. Surely it was an event put on with no real benefit to the club other than to give something back to the loyal Clarets fans?

Although it’s heart-warming to think so, hopefully not, as a lot can be learnt from a day such as this. Everyone can see that attendances have been dwindling recently. One of the unfortunate things about football is the fact that when you are doing well, crowds arrive to cheer you on. When times are not so good, everybody finds something better to do. It happens in every city, town and village up and down the country; admittedly at different rates. But it’s not only success on the pitch that will determine the gate.

Gate prices at the Melbourne are pretty standard for the division, and looking at some of the grounds, we offer very good facilities. However, the Chelmsford City business mind should be wondering what effect the price is having on the fans. Basic economics says that every product will react differently to a change in price. Some will see a really large change in demand, some will stay exactly the same. A pay what you want game allows every fan to vote with their feet on the price of entry.

To put it simply, if the cost of entry on a standard match day is £14, and an average gate is 600, setting prices to £7 will require 1200 fans to show in order to break even. If 1300 flock through the turnstiles then perhaps a reduction in price will even lead to increased revenues? Our average attendance in August was 667. Some poor performances and cold weather sent this figure down to 545 in November if we are looking at just the league attendances. Saturday brought in 718, an increase of 31% on this figure. At a time when people are cutting back for Christmas, It not a bad attendance at all, and will have pleased everyone at the Melbourne who put the event together.

Unfortunately it probably hasn’t done enough to mean that gate prices will decrease by 30% for the rest of the season, or at all for that matter. Although it would possibly bring in a few more faces, which would also increase sales of refreshments and programmes etc, the extra 100-150 that came at the weekend were probably paying a lot less than even half of a normal price. Hopefully the turnstile attendants were asked to record the amounts so that this could be looked into in a bit more detail, as it would have been a fantastic opportunity to really review the pricing structure of the club. What with the local businesses boosting up revenues on this occasion, a costless opportunity at that.

I guess the key thing to realise is that if the boys are doing it on the pitch, within reason the price that the fans pay is irrelevant. We hope that this is what the men behind the scenes conclude anyway. Heres to 2014 and a year of success for the Clarets!