THE LEAGUE says it should have made club members who were not AFL members pay to enter the AFL reserve on Monday when Geelong played Hawthorn at the MCG.
Its decision to allow club members who had not pre-purchased tickets to scan into the AFL reserve and access available seats on the top level, when most members had already spent money to pre-purchase tickets was heavily criticised.
However AFL commercial operations manager Darren Birch told AFL.com.au that one of the key lessons was that those entering the AFL reserve on a club membership ticket should have paid for a seat as well.
"One of the key lessons we learned here is that if we are going to be actually opening up the AFL reserve to anyone except AFL members, they will be paying," Birch said.
He said the decision was made because the AFL wanted to give as many fans as possible a chance to attend the game and were concerned when just 5,000 tickets were available in the public reserve on the day of the game.
With the game attracting a walk-up crowd of 9,000 in previous years, it decided to open up 1000 seats in the AFL reserve for club members at no additional cost.
Birch conceded the gesture backfired to some extent but said those patrons took a massive risk in not pre-purchasing their tickets.
The decision also focused attention on the controversial variable ticketing pricing policy.
Birch said there was little chance of the ticketing strategy being changed in the future because "it's the right model".
He said introducing a new ticketing system after 20 years without change meant time was needed to bed the system down.
He said the system should just be known as a ticketing system rather than a variable ticketing pricing system because it confused the message.
And that rather than affecting membership numbers negatively the changes would make buying a membership better value in comparison to those who buy tickets on the day.
Geelong's home game on Easter Monday was one of four MCG games designated as A-reserve games (which means everyone attending the match must have a valid reserved seat ticket).
Many Hawthorn members were disappointed at having to pre-purchase a ticket on top of their membership when they did not have to do the same for the corresponding fixture in 2013.
Birch said that entry for those holding general admission memberships was always subject to capacity however he understood the change in ticketing was a big one.
"It is quite a complicated membership and ticketing landscape," Birch said.
Birch said the AFL would determine in the next 24 hours whether one of those four designated games – the round seven clash between Carlton and Collingwood – remains an A-reserve game.
