Falkirk Football Club would like to address supporter concerns following the sale of tickets for our Scottish Cup fifth round tie away to Stenhousemuir.
Firstly, and most importantly, we want to thank our supporters for their continued backing of the team. The demand for tickets once again underlines the level of support this club enjoys, and we do not take that for granted.
We recognise and apologise for the frustration felt by a number of season ticket holders following tickets going on sale on Friday. We accept that the communication around this process should have been clearer and provided with more notice.
Communication and ticketing arrangements
Arrangements for this match took longer than normal due to increased involvement from Falkirk Council and Police Scotland. Final decisions were only confirmed on Monday, with ticketing information provided to the club by Stenhousemuir on Thursday afternoon. Details were released at midday on Friday for a 3pm Season Ticket holder early release and a 5pm general sale.
With hindsight, we should have communicated on Thursday evening to give supporters more notice. That is a lesson learned, and one we will take forward.
The decision to sell tickets via an online link on Stenhousemuir’s ticketing platform was taken by the home club, partly due to the tight turnaround. As this was not our ticketing system, we were unable to provide an exclusive priority link, operate a ballot, or hold back tickets for a phased release.
We did attempt to give season ticket holders a head start by emailing a link to the Stenhousemuir ticketing site in advance of the general sale. However, we accept that this approach also contributed to confusion rather than providing the advantage to season ticket holders intended.
Email communication
The speed at which emails had to be issued to season ticket holders effectively acted as a stress test for our systems and highlighted several issues.
We identified that around 8% of season ticket holders have previously unsubscribed from receiving emails from the club. Due to data protection and electronic communications regulations, we are legally unable to contact these email addresses. Unsubscribing from direct marketing communications such as our Bairns View newsletter also activates this restriction.
Supporters who believe they may be unsubscribed can re-register to receive club emails by completing the form at the link HERE.
In addition, some supporters later found the email in spam or junk folders. This can often be avoided by marking emails from Falkirk Football Club as a safe sender within individual email platforms.
As part of our review this week, we also identified an automatic suppression feature within our email distribution system. This prevents emails being sent to addresses whose providers have continually flagged club emails as spam over a prolonged period. This affects around 260 contacts from our entire marketing database of over 20,000, and we estimate it also impacted around 50 season ticket holders on Friday.
This feature has now been disabled. We apologise that this issue was not identified sooner.
Next steps
We are committed to continuing to improve how we communicate with supporters, particularly around ticket sales. As a result:
- We will provide earlier and clearer notice wherever possible.
- Supporters are encouraged to re-register for email communications via the form above.
- We have launched a new official Falkirk FC WhatsApp channel, allowing for quicker, direct updates. Supporters can join here:Â https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VbBPJcQCcW4t9Obkgy31
For supporters unable to attend on Sunday, the Brockville Bar will be open, welcoming fans to watch the match together:
- Doors Open at 5.30pm
- Pre-Match Scottish Cup Quiz with Prizes
- Multi-Screen Venue
- Doors Close at 11.00pm
Limited hospitality packages, priced at £75pp and £95pp, also remain, sold through Stenhousemuir. To book please call the Stenhousemuir main office on 01324 562 992.
Once again, we thank you for your patience, your feedback, and your continued backing of Falkirk Football Club. We will take the lessons from this experience to ensure we can better manage these kinds of situations in the future.
