Everton’s victory over Crystal Palace extends the club’s unbeaten record at Hill Dickinson Stadium to five competitive games.
This time the game was played in front of 51,000 fans, a near-capacity crowd and over 10,000 more than Goodison Park’s maximum capacity. But that figure will confuse some fans who have struggled to get tickets.
The crowd was notable for two sections of empty seats at the back of the East Stand. The blocks would have had to have been sold despite nobody actually turning up to fill the seats. So what is going on?
The blocks of seats are situated in Club View, a section dubbed ‘premium’ by Everton when it sold season tickets for £1,200 with the promise of a private bar area, club merchandise displays, the chance to meet former players, and a £10 food and drink voucher.
As it turns out many of those claims were exaggerated. Club View does offer excellent views near to the halfway line but the ‘private bar’ is a Dockyard Kitchen that completely fails to meet the demand of the four blocks of fans. A couple of ex players do attend and spend five minutes on a makeshift stage in the corner of the stand, while the promised merchandise displays and decor has not materialised.
Fans who cannot attend are blocked from listing tickets on resale, meaning those who cannot attend will need to transfer to another member or leave the seat untaken.
While Club View has been a disappointing mess, Everton have another problem. Two large blocks of seats were sold to Seat Unique, the club’s hospitality and premium ticket partner.
The problem is that Seat Unique lists these tickets for £200 a time – a ridiculous price given the Club View offering is actually weaker than a standard ticket in any of the other stands. For the opening game it was easy to see why the tickets were snapped up but demand will not be so high for future games at that price.
Seat Unique could reduce the price to a more reasonable rate and that may shift some tickets but it does raise the worry that for bigger games like the Merseyside Derby an away fan would simply be able to buy a ticket in this section despite it being in the home end of the stadium. Fans do not need a membership to buy tickets on Seat Unique and that means two large sections of the home end will either be empty for games, or potentially full of away fans while Everton fans struggle to secure tickets in the ballot.
It is a problem of the club’s own making. Sell large blocks for ‘premium’ prices with few guardrails in place to ensure they can be sold back into the club’s ticket platform if they go unsold. Follow it up with having a partner charging excessive amounts for them while offering a sub-par experience.
Everton may simply be happy that the tickets are bought and paid for by Seat Unique, with few concerns about the optics of the empty seats or away fans in the home section. But for fans navigating the ballots and resale to get a seat at Everton’s new home, it is a visible problem that needs to be fixed.