It’s goodbye to season tickets from next season as all tickets to the Emirates will be digital. You’ll need a smartphone and the Arsenal app to get through the turnstiles. And the technology being used means you can’t screen save and share the digital pass.
The club’s reasoning is to make tickets more secure – in other words, to make touting of tickets more difficult. For full details, members will need to check their emails, where there is a message from the club with links to helpful videos, or go to the club webpage and FAQ page.
AISA has been part of a working group where the plans have been presented and discussed. While we accept the need for this, we have consistently raised issues about genuine ticket sharing between family and friends, and what happens to those without smartphones. The answers to those questions are within the club’s notes and FAQs if you search, but here is what they have told us.
I want a friend/family member to have my ticket
You can still do it. You will need to register the person on the Ticket Transfer page. Once they’re in, you can then transfer a matchday ticket to them. There used to be a cost to this. That’s gone. Now there’s just the faff of registering them! The transferred ticket will be sent to the recipient by email for access to the stadium.
I don’t have a smartphone
For individuals who do not have a smartphone that is compatible with Digital Ticketing, they should fill in this form and the club will be in touch with them by 31 July to confirm how they will enter Emirates Stadium next season.
Membership cards will still work for the remainder of this season.
I need help
There will be members of the team at South West Collection at our ‘Digital Ticketing Support Centre’ by Turnstile A before kick-off at the three remaining home games of this season. There will also be ‘surgeries’ during the off-season for people to come and get support with digital ticketing. There will also be support available from Fan Services via the Enquiry Form and on the phones, though the club is encouraging people to use the Enquiry Form to avoid having to wait in a queue on the phone. You can request someone to call you via the Enquiry Form if you’d like to speak to someone.
We can’t claim to know all the answers to the multitude of likely other questions, so suggest you try this route. If you run into trouble, please let us know what, when and how, and we’ll do our best to support you.
And, as far as we know at this time, none of this applies to Women’s matches. But we’re checking.
I am in a household of 3 silver members, what happens if my son for example can’t make the game on the day, can I exchange it on to my friends device if I register him, also on the day and my phone is lost or for some reason the battery has died is there another way to gain entrance?
As we understand it – yes, you can transfer it, so long as the other person is on your friends and family list (it’s now free to do). The new person will then be sent a new digital ticket. And that you can do it up to several hours before. (Not exactly sure how many, but the message we had during discussions with the club bout this a while ago was that it could be the same day.) As for dead batteries on phones, the general answer has been that there will be help points on the day. We are compiling questions to fire at the club nearer the day, but there are so many and so varied and different, the best thing to do might be to ask the club your specific one on their questions link- https://help.arsenal.com/support/tickets/new – and if you get an answer, please post it back here!
I done a reboot on my phone I lost my season ticket from the Wallet on my iPhone can I get it back ?
As a season ticket holder, if I transfer 8 tickets to a family member this season, does that give the club the opportunity to take the season ticket away next year as technically my ticket will not have been used much? I was wondering if there is a threshold that needs to be met specifically under the season ticket in order to secure it for the following season? The reason for this is my nephew wants to attend a few games so I wanted to see if I can send him tickets without risking any sanctions next year.
I don’t want to use a smartphone, I’m actively trying to be less connected to the annoying little device and more connected with people. Have contacted the club and will wait to see what they say but I have a new phone contract starting soon, and was hoping to go back to a basic phone. Feel aggrieved if I’m expected to essentially restrict positive lifestyle choices due to a daft ticketing initiative that nobody I know was consulted on.
And it didn’t stop touts in the least bit, it just seems to inconvenience normal fans. The seat next to me has a different person every game, paying up to £2600 for a single game via an agency (that’s somehow not a tout?) and nobody was that surprised by the problems prior to kick off against Forest.