I actually think that Doug Gillen has done a masterful job in scheduling thus far in his tenure and this seasons home slate looks very appealing to me as well. Question though - Since we have had some issues with selling a larger portion of season ticket packages in the last couple of years, is there any chance to bring back a mini season ticket pack for families that just can't justify buying 6 tickets a piece? What are everyone's thoughts on this ? I know they can wait until August and purchase what they want but the mini season pack works for lots of folks that I know.

They discontinued, as i recall, part of the miami deal. It was a tool to increase total ticket sales. It would be terrible business to do so with WF on the docket.

I think DG should take a long look at the mini packs and how to market them. If he decides to reinstate the minis, do not include the Wake game. Allow fans who purchase the mini packs advanced purchase of tickets for Wake, say the day (or 2) before they go on sale to the general public. I liked how they set up the purchase of additional tickets this past year for the U. Yosef donors at the highest level got first priority to buy additional tickets and it staggered down based on contribution level. Mark up the mini tickets by 15% ($40 per ticket instead of $35 for full season tickets).

He came from Missouri who still has mini-season packages, and maybe he didn't think it was that successful. My biggest issue with the Half-season options was that you still had to decide which set of games you wanted to attend. I like what Missouri has in place where you get to pick how many and which games you want to attend. I know Daphne has expressed the pain of parking passes for half-seasons in the past. To that I say, parking passes only go to full-season ticket holders.


http://www.mutigers.com/news/2016/7/28/ ... h=football

Good ideas all around. I just still think that there is a place for a mini season ticket package and agree with the cost increase of mini season tickets by $5 or $10 per ticket and to exclude games like Wake.

I definitely miss the mini-season plans. I'm sure it resulted in more total sales last year with Miami on the schedule, though who knows how many of those seats went unused for the other games. For me, it probably resulted in buying tickets for one fewer game. If I could have bought a three-game package that included Miami and parking passes, I likely would have. Instead, I just bought single-game tickets for that one and one more.

I also think any boost from the Miami game is likely to be a one-time gain. Maybe Wake will help retain some of those new buyers, but in the long run I don't think many people who bought season tickets just to lock in Miami tickets will keep buying them in the future without a similar big-name opponent.

You can't exclude certain games though -- otherwise one of the mini packs would only include 2 games. You can't just add another game to replace it because then there would be 2 sets of mini-package tickets fighting for one seat.

Gillin told me that the conversion rate of half-season ticket holders to full season ticket holders was way more than those who just dropped them altogether, so he's not going back to half-season ticket packages. He's been very vocal against them.

AppStateNews wrote:You can't exclude certain games though -- otherwise one of the mini packs would only include 2 games. You can't just add another game to replace it because then there would be 2 sets of mini-package tickets fighting for one seat.

Well you could, if you just made the mini-packs "Pick any 3 games" (or at least three games), which is the more fan-friendly approach anyway. However, I don't think there's much point in doing mini-plans if you exclude the most popular game. Don't think there'd be much of a market for them.

84 I'd post a message in the ticket section and see if anyone wants to split season tickets. I'm sure both parties will want to attend the Wake game, so just buy extra tickets that are available to season ticket holders before they're available to the general public.

I do something similar for Hornet games and then we are able to buy additional playoff tickets so all parties get to attend those games.

In case you haven't looked yet today, the season tickets are on the site now. No mini-season packages again, but I'd get the full 6 games anyway. The Wake game single ticket is $60, if you plan to go to 3 or 4 games including the Wake game it's not that much more of a stretch for the full $210 6 game package. I've never had an issue selling extra tickets if I couldn't go or all in my group couldn't make it up on any particular Saturday. I'd rather have the tickets in hand and, sell if I can't go and know I've got good seats, rather than risk not getting a ticket or a good seat if I don't get season tickets.

Unless we make a NY6 game next season, do any of you foresee 2018 having a large drop off in season ticket sales? Garder-Webb and Southern Miss are hard to sell the way the Miami game was, and Wake game will be sold.

/\PP ST/\TE GRAD 09 wrote:Unless we make a NY6 game next season, do any of you foresee 2018 having a large drop off in season ticket sales? Garder-Webb and Southern Miss are hard to sell the way the Miami game was, and Wake game will be sold.

Yes.

The ticket page has some glitches. I tried to set up the monthly payment plan for my Yosef donation and it kept telling me the percentages did not add up to 100%. Also, no option on the webpage for spreading the ticket payments over four months. I'll just call on Tuesday and get it done, but these options should be available on the webpage and they should work properly. It's just bad optics for these things not to work.

appst89 wrote:The ticket page has some glitches. I tried to set up the monthly payment plan for my Yosef donation and it kept telling me the percentages did not add up to 100%. Also, no option on the webpage for spreading the ticket payments over four months. I'll just call on Tuesday and get it done, but these options should be available on the webpage and they should work properly. It's just bad optics for these things not to work.

Call the Yosef office for sure. I was getting the "does not add to 100%" message as well. Turns out there was a rogue 2017 Laps for Apps pledge that needed to be removed.

They've definitely made strides in encouraging and helping with payment installments.

Sorry but in this day and age it's unacceptable that they can't create a page that is simple enough for folks to complete these tasks. I don't have a problem calling because the folks are usually super helpful but it would save time to be able to accomplish this online.

hapapp wrote:Sorry but in this day and age it's unacceptable that they can't create a page that is simple enough for folks to complete these tasks. I don't have a problem calling because the folks are usually super helpful but it would save time to be able to accomplish this online.

I agree completely. I've been harping on this at every meeting for what seems like eons. I can finally see efforts being made to update some of the technology. For that, I'm grateful. I'll be glad to see the day when I can do the financial, mechanical part of Yosef easily online and spend the interactive time bringing in new Yosef members and telling the stories of our student-athletes.

Officially giving up on making my donation and buying tickets online. Tried to do the 110% pledge option and got an error message. Now my pledge has doubled. Will have to make a phone call.

hapapp wrote:Sorry but in this day and age it's unacceptable that they can't create a page that is simple enough for folks to complete these tasks. I don't have a problem calling because the folks are usually super helpful but it would save time to be able to accomplish this online.

That page belongs on a dial up connection. That's how outdated it appears.

App74 wrote:Officially giving up on making my donation and buying tickets online. Tried to do the 110% pledge option and got an error message. Now my pledge has doubled. Will have to make a phone call.

Thanks for being persistent. Until we get a semi-current web platform we'll continue to shoot ourselves in the foot with building our donor base. Personally, I'd love to see Yosef with its very own website that can be accessed through a link on appstatesports.com or through the Yosef site itself. It also makes sense to have a mobile app.

Just looking at the web addresses as I muddle through getting to my account, it looks like we're strapped to Neulion. The Yosef accounts are at tkt.xosn.com which has @neulion addresses on the whois.com registry.

Questions that come to mind:
Do we have a contract with Neulion that we must honor before we can switch?
Do the donations and ticketing have to be tied together?
What are the costs / limitations of exporting current data / historical records from Neulion to this century?
What platforms integrate seamlessly with the university's Banner platform?
Is it possible to use Banner for donation tracking and a ticket vendor just for tickets?

Of course, as soon as I type one question, another comes to mind.

If you have any difficulties at all with donating or purchasing tickets, I would greatly appreciate your calling Yosef regarding the donation process and the ticket office regarding the ticket process. Please be specific with them in describing the issues you ran into. If you'd like to shoot me a PM with your real name and the issue, I'm happy to compile those to pass along. Please be as specific as possible.

Thanks for the help, folks.