That is the membership department phone number. I tried calling on my work phone and on my mobile phone (which allows its number to be displayed).
EDIT: tried again from my mobile number and this time I got through - but of course the business hours are 10am to 4pm, like they’re some sort of public service department and the only staff member is Sue who has to go pick up the kids from school at 4. And all this right in the middle of the sign-em-up season. Just so amateurish.
My son got a library bag this year 
he said when we opened it “how the heck we gonna bring our twisties now dad”
Just trying to help, i know it it IS the membership number, im glad you resolved as suggested.
Do we still get a discount with smart?
What did she get ?..Edit oh right
Update: the membership number now works! Baby steps EFC, baby steps.
Given that they haven’t responded to my email (I mean, why respond to someone who’s trying to send you $1200 but doesn’t actually have to?) I’ve decided to sit on the call.
And … waiting.
I’ve now heard See the Bombers Fly Up more times than I heard it for the entirety of season '23.
Aaaand no, they weren’t able to help me access my account on the EFC app. Even when I re-installed the application on my iPhone it threw http 500 errors. I have about 120 apps installed on my phone and only one of them throws http 500 errors. I should add that I’m not some techno klutz, I’m a data architect who’s developed apps for iOS in Objective C, I’ve written software for earlier mobile devices in C++ and I’ve developed the back end APIs for those apps in C#.Net / T-SQL.
We have a serious problem with the competency of our membership department. They really can’t do much right, and we get healthy membership counts in spite of them, not because of them.
Am I right in thinking the club is reintroducing the ability to sell your seats for particular games in 2024?
I thought I read it somewhere.
Thanks in advance.
It’s not fully the membership department.
All website stuff is still hosted through Telstra.
The app is the same.
Ticketmaster and ticketek (depending on where the game is held) have their own websites too.
It’s all supplied rather shoddily by the AFL and the clubs are at the front dealing with all the rubbish.
There used to be ticketek and Ticketmaster stalls in shop (Coles and Myer) to buy tickets but it’s now fully online.
My app also does the same thing with the errors you’re saying.
So I’d say, once Ticketmaster or ticketek provide the individual tickets to games and have the fixture in place, it’ll work.
I’ve also had another problem where the Ticketmaster password and username overwrites my Bombershop username and password. So every time I use either, I just reset my password.
It’s a shambles, but it’s not fully on membership department.
It would be great if they could be reached though. It’ll be pretty poor between now and January as people start needing their assistance.
We had it last year for the Bulldogs game and Collingwood game.
From the sounds of it, they are going to open it up to all games (but I’ve heard conflicting information). The return $$$ is being reviewed.
I wouldn’t be expecting to get much on a return of a GC game at Marvel.
Thanks a lot Blummers
Would you expect customer service to resolve the issues of the apps you developed as well?
It’s a Telstra app. Maybe they can assist?
Such a dumb idea opening it up to the general public to purchase tickets in Essendon reserved seat areas.
Once the steam goes out of our season you have the same situation as this year where bulldogs and collingwood fans purchased all the seats our fans gave up.
Just wanted to give a shout-out to the Essendon membership guy I dealt with earlier( which I could remember his name). Wanted to change my reserve seat location for MCG home games, took all of 2min to get it done and organised for a new updated card to be sent in the mail.
Yes @Begbie . They introduced a seat return and resell for a couple of their late home games this year. Apparently rolling it out for all homers in 2024. Great if you can’t attend, dollars credit for 2025 membership. And Club gets to optimise capacity by limiting unused reserved seats (if it works).
Pretty annoying for those that pay for reserve seats to sit with other Essendon supporters- to all of a sudden being surrounded by opposition fans.
Apparently, they go to our members first. Closer to the gameday, I’m sure they get released to anyone else.
I know in my reserved seat area, it’s full of opposition supporters because annual reserved seat holders no longer have those seats and there is no demand for anyone else to pick them up. So the tickets get sold to general public (opposition fans).
I think for memory every club has 22k~ seats available for annual reserved seats. That’s home only. Collingwood also did away games recently (but it’s at a large cost). I think we are at 17k reserved seats.
They could just squeeze everyone closer together, but when they tried it a few years back, members got annoyed. Some people become so attached to their seat.
Good points.
I believe reserved seat sales have declined considerably the last 4-5 years. I think they only have about 15,000 now (was 18,500). Membership in the seating categories have dropped away, High Mark level 2 at Marvel used to have a waiting list. I reckon you could buy 100 seats today.
The current tally is about 44,000, down on this time last year (46,000 at 17/11/22). So early signs point to another drop off. AFLW membership was off 20% too, bottom 4-5 in the league…
Remember, with two weeks until membership cut off this year we had 80,500 members, then heaps of X members reported being given a free membership for last couple of games. Then the Club announced a new membership record of 86,283!
So, I reckon the Club lost about 5,000 members in 2022 and it’s struggling again. Lots of reasons why. Crap team (1), lack of trust in Club (2) and poor fan engagement (3) would be the big 3.
I have a reserved seat at Marvel, and hasn’t been anyone sitting next to me in YEARS.
Not that I mind that I’ve got more room to be honest.