2010 'After Party' Membership an added cost

[Brian]

The thing that really makes me madder is the fact that for the past few years the SC has really only been a place to catch up with friends who don't sit together.  Seeing the players up close used to be a great part of the SC for the kids to enjoy but now the boys are herded in the back way and positioned behind barriers so they're not 'bothered' by the general public.  Kids have no opportunity to talk to their heroes and get their jersey's signed or have photo's taken much at all.  That used to be a major selling point for membership. Plus, most players seemed to enjoy the 'regular' chat. 

Whilst I understand that players sometimes don't really want to stop and chat to people it's seriously taking away the family atmosphere from our once famous FAMILY club!  :(

been coming for the last 5 years tigger

[Tigger]

The thing that really makes me madder is the fact that for the past few years the SC has really only been a place to catch up with friends who don't sit together.  Seeing the players up close used to be a great part of the SC for the kids to enjoy but now the boys are herded in the back way and positioned behind barriers so they're not 'bothered' by the general public.  Kids have no opportunity to talk to their heroes and get their jersey's signed or have photo's taken much at all.  That used to be a major selling point for membership. Plus, most players seemed to enjoy the 'regular' chat. 

Whilst I understand that players sometimes don't really want to stop and chat to people it's seriously taking away the family atmosphere from our once famous FAMILY club!  :(

been coming for the last 5 years tigger

Oh I know, it just makes me sad 

[Buzz]

Tigger - I don't know how the pricing compares for family memberships in the past, but I see the new membership as a more flexible arrangement (not talking about pricing).

The previous packages of 2 Adults / 2 Kids or 1 Adult / 3 Kids obviously excludes those that have less of either. For instance, Single parent (attending) and two kids don't get the full benefit.

The new package allows for that flexibility and allows you to add as many children as you like to the package. Now a family membership can cater for 1A/2K all the way to 2A/9K or whatever. To me it makes sense to add this flexibility. Again - I don't know how the pricing compares to previously (for instance if the 1A/2K is the same price as 1A/3K I can understand the anger).

From my perspective, my membership pricing (Reserved Seat in 2009) has gone from $310 in 2009 to $430 in 2010. The lumping of reserved seat and premium reserved seat members appears to hurt the former most. Add to that the idiocy of removing a previously valued $50 Social Club and not replacing it with the $90 After Party means that my membership has effectively jumped by $210 if I choose to add the After Party to my membership. CRAZY!

And then if I want to visit or join the Thunder Squat peeps, I would need to fork out another $200 for that privilege or lose my current seat with the folks.

As I said... CRAZY!

[Rose Madder]

I dont mind paying so much as the limited access we get to the players now,it seems that though they are happy enough to take our money,they are not forthcoming with the reason we all go to these games and in particular the social club.If they expect us to pay for the privilege then they have to give us more access tp players and not expect us to stand behind a barrier like screaming kids at a rock concert waiting for one of them to catch your eye to get an autograph

[Taliesin]

Have no problem with the game price increase,though the crappy jingoistic 'Storm Spirit' tag gets up my nose.
Always been a terrace rat - Always will be.
The 'After Party' however is another matter 
Maybe it's slogan should be "Join the most corporate party off turf" 
The increased cost & reduced numbers were flagged partway through last season,but I was hoping common sense would prevail.Sadly it hasn't 
I think the club can look forward to an after party top heavy with corporate people guzzling free alcohol & those Storm members who REALLY have good incomes.

I guess the extended Storm family that has existed for 11 seasons & brought in new blood through interaction at both the game and the VERY important after party will be choked to death in 2010.

See you all at the game & to all the friends I've interacted with over the years at the Social club & After party

THANKS & GOODBYE 

[Christabella]

Hey Tigger, screw this new corporatised social club lets all go back to your place after the games!
We'll have more fun that way. 

[Tigger]

Hey Tigger, screw this new corporatised social club lets all go back to your place after the games!
We'll have more fun that way. 

Now there's an idea........not like it hasn't happened before 

[StormRepublic]

I remember the first year Brian Waldron was in charge and he got rid of the free social club for general members. He tried to make you pay a extra $50. I and everyone i go with just stopped going. I don't know who makes the money out of the alcohol sales but i bet it dropped. Put the $90 in your pocket and you can have a few beers at a pub on the way home from the games. Also when Waldron was asking for the extra $50 he didn't put reserved seating memberships up, it was just a added bonus. So you have got about 4 years of free social club while some poor people had to pay $50 a year.
Plus if the club decided that the social club is not free for anyone, people who don't go to the social club shouldn't have to pay or subsidize those who do. Plus with a limited capacity it's a good chance if you pay the $90 you will go after most games. Imagine the crying if you got there and it was a full house, this website would go into meltdown with all the complaints.

[Bourbon Rat]

Plus if the club decided that the social club is not free for anyone, people who don't go to the social club shouldn't have to pay or subsidize those who do. Plus with a limited capacity it's a good chance if you pay the $90 you will go after most games. Imagine the crying if you got there and it was a full house, this website would go into meltdown with all the complaints.

I think the club has always misunderstood what the social club/after party was about.
Regardless of where you sat at the game - Regardless of your job/position/income when you got to the social club you were just a member of the Storm family interacting & networking with all the other family members.
You were also introducing new people who you'd brought to the game to what made being a member of the Storm family just that bit extra special.Funny how many of those people continued to come & enjoy being part of the family.
I guess the Storm sales machine will have to try & drag those people in now.
O HANG ON............................Didn't the membership blurb say that was our job ?
Bit hard when the club is killing off such a wonderful selling tool.Not to mention a part of the membership culture 

BTW Always been a general member.Always been to the social club.Most of my group has.Have friends that cover the whole gamut of membership levels & most have expected the prices to rise for the new stadium,no problem there.The culling of the social club is going to be the telling factor in introducing new people to Storm's family.

Yes Noa
I KNOW it's a business & "The Club" is trying to maximize it's effective returns from the sponsored after party but I have a feeling this method is going to be counter productive in both the short & long term.

[Surandy]

I'd really like to know peoples thoughts on this topic.  I'm in two minds because one of the best things about Storm home games was heading to the social club to catch up with fellow members and visitors.  I understand the capacity issue may well be out of the clubs control but there is a dining room with up to a 1000 person capacity.

Tigger, I was at the Twenty20 game today and afterwards asked Cactus about the limit considering the new stadium has a 1000 person capacity room.

He said that room is for the corporates and the next biggest room has a capacity of 500.

[Joe_Storm_FB_2025]

After they nade you pay for the SC access then I doubt they ever got 500 anyways.

[Taliesin]

They aren't likely to get more than 500 corporates either 
Unless of course their looking to pack more than 20 people into each of those 24 corporate boxes ?

[CooperCronk]

So with all these price increases and changes to memberships what are the chances now of breaking the 10,000 Members barrier.I think they have made it a harder task.

Totally agree with you.  Makes you wonder what their thinking is.......

Packages are very comparable or better then the most of the NRL, I reckon potential new members would find them very attractive e.g the new Strom neighbourhood membership package looks very good to me with Players to exclusively visit the area and the family packages on a few types look very good, particularly those with 3-5 kids.

The costs are quite good considering we are moving into a state-of-the-art stadium, really what did people expect.

I agree with Noa's thoughts, I think the packages on offer are very reasonable and comparable, if not better than a lot of other nrl clubs.
Just on social club $90 one off fee, for those that can't afford it, don't take it up and voice your disapproval to the club or at the forum on 13th Feb...if the club gets too many complaints, they may change it for next year.

Just remember guys, if we want a club in future, we have to dip our hands in the back pocket as News Ltd. won't be around much longer to back our club.

[minichick]

+1 to what Buzz said about the reserved seat members and the premium getting lumped in together, that's what I was whining about in the other thread. Its a serious increase in price and not to be sniffed at.

I also hear what Noa and CooperCronk are saying - BUT to me, the club is still struggling to get bums on seats and people to buy memberships, so I ask how a significant rise in cost is going to assist that? 10,000 members, not bloody likely. Yes, the club is a business etc but, can they really afford to massively p!ss off a whole stack of current members? Because quite frankly that's what's happening.

And maybe it does stack up reasonably against other NRL/AFL clubs, however considering our place in the Melbourne sporting landscape (not bad but needs to be a whole lot better) - shouldn't we be offering BETTER packages to attract and keep people? I have always thought that selling more of a lower priced thing is better that selling a handful of high priced things, but maybe I'm just nuts.

I too am sad about the way the club is going 

[sallymay]

I too am sad about the way the club is going 

Your wrong
With this new stadium the only way is UP