Cashless turnstiles

[tripie]

You are probably correct but until it happens why not retain a cash turnstile? I am not at all sure about the "reduced fraud risk" as I don't know of anyone who pays full price at Mansfield & if you are going to employ enough staff to check every ticket there will be very little in the way of a "reduced wage bill", any business can set up an account that doesn't charge for cash deposits & unless we go completely cash free at our catering outlets I would be very surprised if we haven't got this facility.

Staff don't check the tickets, the machine does. It shows a green light for a full price ticket, an orange light for a concession and a red light if it's a dodgy ticket. You just need one steward for every four turnstiles which are already there anyway.

Bank charges for cash deposits are very high. Which bank offers them free, I think you are wrong about that? Plus I expect we have to have cash counting machines or pay staff to count, put money into bags and reconcile to gate counts and then pay someone like G4S to collect and bank the takings. It's an expensive business dealing with cash.

[i961pie]

Almost every club in the northwest I have visited has had cashless turnstiles for many years. Blackpool have had it since at least 2005 and Fleetwood had it when they were non-league. Change always takes a bit of getting used to but Notts have been well behind the times.

I wonder if that as anything to do with their attendances?

[ancientpie]

Staff don't check the tickets, the machine does. It shows a green light for a full price ticket, an orange light for a concession and a red light if it's a dodgy ticket. You just need one steward for every four turnstiles which are already there anyway.

Bank charges for cash deposits are very high. Which bank offers them free, I think you are wrong about that? Plus I expect we have to have cash counting machines or pay staff to count, put money into bags and reconcile to gate counts and then pay someone like G4S to collect and bank the takings. It's an expensive business dealing with cash.

One Steward for four turnstiles at Stags must cost them a fortune as I know "youngish" fans that get in with juvenile tickets & "oldish" fans that get in with seniors! I'm not certain if it is still the same but 7 years ago when I was in business the Nat West charged for cash deposits unless you agreed otherwise,most businesses that dealt mainly in cash negotiated a deal. I would think that with the cash taken on Programmes, food, drink, club shop etc we already pay someone like G45, please don't underestimate the cost of extra staff in the ticket office, the kiosks, the potential loss of even 10 or 20 fans & we are still employing turnstile staff. As I have posted before, if & when I can see logic & savings I will see the point in this but until then why not make it as easy as possible for all fans to attend?

[tripie]

I wonder if that as anything to do with their attendances?

No. Fleetwood has a population of 20,000 so 2,500 home fans isn't too bad in that context. Blackpool has an ongoing fans boycott due to the owners suing fans and allegedly extracting large amounts of money from the club to prop up their other failing businesses.

[tripie]

One Steward for four turnstiles at Stags must cost them a fortune as I know "youngish" fans that get in with juvenile tickets & "oldish" fans that get in with seniors! I'm not certain if it is still the same but 7 years ago when I was in business the Nat West charged for cash deposits unless you agreed otherwise,most businesses that dealt mainly in cash negotiated a deal. I would think that with the cash taken on Programmes, food, drink, club shop etc we already pay someone like G45, please don't underestimate the cost of extra staff in the ticket office, the kiosks, the potential loss of even 10 or 20 fans & we are still employing turnstile staff. As I have posted before, if & when I can see logic & savings I will see the point in this but until then why not make it as easy as possible for all fans to attend?

Believe me, I work for a business that has a lot of cash takings. It costs a fortune to administer hence we are doing everything we can to move as many income streams onto cashless systems as quickly as we can. I haven't even got onto forgery and the relatively excessive administration costs of employing people to work for two hours a fortnight for 38 weeks of the year.