Thank you to all who responded to our recent survey. Here is what you told us.

STADIUM ATMOSPHERE

As the club has been keen to improve the atmosphere inside the stadium, especially prior to kick off, we asked: ‘Are you in your seat before kick-off and after half time?’

 89% of you said you are. Why weren’t the others? Not being able to take your drink to your seat was one comment, and others complained about the choice – and volume – of the music being played. And on that topic . . . the music levels upset 40% of you when we asked about the atmosphere generally. That 33% hadn’t noticed the volume suggests that how you feel probably depends on where you’re sitting, and that certain areas are hotspots for volume.

Likewise, regarding the screens, your responses are probably defined by where you sit. 38% of you thought they are difficult to read and 43% said they weren’t. We’re guessing that if you’re underneath or close to one, there’s no problem. If you’re on the opposite side of the stadium, it’s different.

In both instances, because there are so many people who do have problems, AISA has been raising these topics with the club. As a result, the screen font sizes have been increased and sound levels do seem to have been reduced to some extent, at least to this writer’s ears, but not always, and it does seem to depend on the music played – and 43% of you don’t dislike the music. Maybe it’s an age thing. What we do know is that the players are now choosing some of the music you hear and, according to feedback to us at the latest Matchday Forum think tank, they respond to what they hear. Maybe that’s why pre-match music is from the 2020s, but if the club also wants to get the crowd going pre-match, why does it save the sing-along golden oldies (the likes of ’Glad All Over’ and ‘Sweet Caroline’) until the end?  We’ll keep our ears out on this one.

Standing during matches upsets 43% of you – but then 34% are not upset. Maybe this latter group is those who stand. AISA is on a group that was looking at ‘safe standing’, but it hasn’t met for a considerable length of time and the difficulties of making it work in the Emirates seem to be overwhelming, even though the club says it’s still looking at it. We’ll keep asking.

A quarter of you said you don’t like ‘Angel’ – but just after we asked you, the club kept changing when they played it, it’s now difficult to judge if you meant the timing of it, or the song itself. It now seems to be timed to the pre-match huddle after the coin toss- except Champions League matches when the CL anthem takes priority. Whether we like it or not – and judging by the gusto it’s now being sung, most people do like it – it seems here to stay. Well done Louis Dunford! Incidentally, at women’s matches, they put the lyrics on the big screen. Would that work for the men’s?

Finally, when asked if the pre-match entertainment is good, nearly half of you say you hadn’t noticed. Seeing as the club is putting great store on this, it’ll be interesting to see if the responses change when we ask this question again in a year!

MATCH DAY CONCERNS

We have raised all the issues above with the club. AISA is in discussion with it over the ticketing and entry concerns and on security. As reported in the feedback from the Matchday Forum, supporters are asked to give specific details of when and where things are awry so the club can investigate properly. On the food issue, the club promises to invite AISA and other supporters’ groups to meet the caterers to get some answers – though we wouldn’t be surprised if the cost charged by the club to suppliers had quite an impact on the cost of a pie at the counter.

SATISFIED OR DISSATISFIED?

We gave you a range of topics that have been brought to our attention and asked if you, across the group, had a problem with them.

The green bar in the charts below shows you were satisfied, the dark blue shows people who had no opinion, yellow was ‘could be better’, and the light blue was those of you who were very unhappy.

In the first group, there seems no general consensus, though a significant number of the first two categories suggest there’s something that needs the club to be made aware of, and AISA is doing that.

We won the fight for seniors with concessions to retain their seats, which was at risk at the start of the season. And we accepted the club’s argument that to offer senior concessions across the stadium would mean a significant decrease in match day income, and so have accepted their alternative, which was to focus on the discounts for younger supporters. The responses from you probably reveal the age demographic of many of our members. Without losing awareness of the concerns of our traditional and established membership, we are currently looking to encourage younger supporters to join us so we can be fully representative of the match day crowd.

And better news for the club on its responsiveness to queries. While overall satisfaction on responsiveness is low (11%) which is not surprising when you can wait an hour or more for a telephone reply, generally, dissatisfaction is less than 25%, reflecting how once you get through, they are excellent and their online responsiveness appears to be quicker and effective.

It’s clear what is upsetting most of you about ticketing from the set of questions. And these questions were asked before the increases for next season were announced. AISA co-chairs the Advisory Board that comprises main supporters’ groups alongside the club’s main Board members. The supporters’ groups opposed the increases (see AISA’s statement issued in March) but the club chose to go ahead anyway. As we wrote in that March statement, ‘We didn’t win that battle but we will continue to press the club to take supporters’ interests into account when they decide their strategy for next season.

Of the remaining issues we listed, the quality of the ‘Rewards’ was one that displeased nearly 70% of you, while – a positive at last – 50% of you liked the arrangements for ticket transfer and exchange, with hardly anyone being very unhappy.  Similarly with the website, which gets a 35% approval rating with only 10% thinking it’s poor, a great improvement from previous surveys.

That’s enough survey for one newsletter! But we also covered questions about AISA and what you’d like us to focus on. We’ll report back on those responses and what we’re doing as a result here and in the May newsletter.