Memberships

I’ve had eldest kid signed up on the cheapest baby/junior membership since she was born. This year I noticed it’s a 4 game membership. Im up in QLD so dont have 4 games to take her to. Can the 4 tickets be used on 1 or 2 games? So can I get her and her younger sister into a game and that would subtract 2 games from her membership? Or is it only 1 ticket per game?

Best to ring the Ckub for an accurate answer!

I thought it was 150-200 that showed up. Could have been over 1000 if the weather was decent.
Pretty much all the players came over and took their time chatting, signing and having photos taken (the one positive of a small crowd, more time fornphotos etc).
The interview/question time was inside the Hangar. While nothing particularly insightful was said, questions were from the crowd, and the number of players and coaches they had on stage was great for the supporter interaction.

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How is it that Essendon Silver Membership ($775) is more expensive than AFL Silver Membership ($655)?

The AFL membership gives access to more than double the amount of games.

Is there something I’m missing in terms of what each Membership option provides? Because I’m willing to forgo voting rights to see way more live footy.

EDIT: I see - Essendon Silver has Grand Final access. Don’t think that’ll be needed at the moment.

And Essendon membership gives you a dedicated reserved seat which AFL doesn’t (I think).

On memberships, tracking slowly unfortunately.

20/01/22 - 58,000
20/01/23 - 56,200
15/01/24 - 51,650

Given 2023 I believe was actually down from 86,000 to ~81,500, current trend has us at around 77,000 (unless they give out 9,000 freebies to hit a record :thinking:). This would have us below Geelong and Hawthorn in 2024. Sobering and tbh, unacceptable for the Board.

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It’d help if we weren’t so poor at football for such a long period.

We could have the best marketers/C-levels in the industry. When the end product (on-field performance) is not up to scratch for so long, eventually people are going to stop spending money on it.

It is part of the reason I’ll go AFL rather than Essendon membership. If we are no good this season (and I’m not entirely ruling it out), I at least have the option to go to fewer Essendon games and more games between better teams.

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In principle I agree, and years of failure have broken the base after the fans were so stoic, standing by the club through the saga and post saga period where the clubs membership, as far back as 2019 was 84,200 and alongside Collingwood.

The concern is Essendon would be the only Club in the AFL to not grow its membership the last 5 years (?). And in fact, Essendon’s would decline nearly 10% the last 5 years during a period of strong growth in membership across the league.

Now it’s true our on field form is the driver and the supporters have acted accordingly. This isn’t criticising the supporters who’ve been great.

Where I have heightened concern is that ‘Essendon’ (Board / Exec Team and down) will accept that membership ‘must’ fall dramatically and significantly due to a reset of the Club and this would be deemed understandable, acceptable and expected. If do, this runs the risk of breeding a soft underbelly culture off field where senior execs are in effect, given an out for missing their targets in membership (in this case). I compare it to Peter Jackson in about 2004 when he declared Essendon must go back down the ladder, rebuild again to go back up. This proved wrong, as Sydney proved, as Geelong proved etc. It created acceptance of failure, a sub conscience, bread mediocrity and we all know the culture created around this time would be damaging long term.

It’s vital and pleasing we’re seeing a big step up in on field professionalism and culture. It’s becoming noticeable and it’s terrific to see.

At the same time the Club can’t afford to accept poor off field results and easily dismiss them as due to poor on field results and simply move on and think everything is ok…. When it’s actually not and we’re seeing a destruction of core / base level support of the Club that is now hurting our financial performance, could impact our ability to commence or the scope of major capital projects and hitting our (members) hip pockets via larger than expected membership price increases in 2024.

*Assumes website tracking is up to date and current figure is correct at 51,650.

Cmon i got my 10 year badge last year as milestone thanks, whats not to be happy about?

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I assume this is access to a ballot rather than a guaranteed seat. In any case AFL silver members pay full price for a GF seat, even in the event there are seats left after gold members have had their turn (a rare occurrence).

Lets be honest, the club is finished.

No growth, no future.

Look at Melbourne now, premiership and top 4 finishes and still irrelevent.

That is where this club is heading, within 20 years time that will be Essendon. An irrelevent club, with average attendances and membership numbers.

Hawthorn will be part of the new “big 4” followed by Geelong as 5th biggest.

Collingwood will ascend to a point as a club that comparing us to them would be the equivalent of comparing melbourne to collingwood now in terms of club size.

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Nah

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Bit of success and tide will turn. So many cancelled memberships, lack of attence re on field rubbish. Will turn pretty quick IMO if we start winning, odd final etc. If not, not sure finished right word but will just keep being there abouts until finally clicks, when it does, off we go. Well, thats what im hoping.

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Sad to say that was my impression from the final GWS and Pies games.

Members may also be dropping on the basis that the 2022 board/coach/CEO turnover meant the Club admitted it had been on the wrong track. We were so used to just hanging on blaming the saga, but this was the slap in the face to say there were other problems.

Still reserving those GF tix myself though.

Do you have a source for this?

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Days since Essendon were premiers = 562

Way too long for my liking.

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20??

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I’m also pretty despondent. With the saga and our consistently ■■■■ football with boring players means there will have been bugger all kids choosing Essendon since 2012.

We probably have a very small pool of fans to turn into members and match attendees.

A pleasing update today, website has the membership up to 57,145.

The additional ~5,300 lift would be the inclusion of AFL Club Support packages in the clubs tally.

Compared to this time last year we appear to be tracking slightly up (20/01/23 - 56,200).

Fingers crossed momentum continues upwards.

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After some info from someone with an Interstate Membership (NSW.) Do you usually have any dramas getting a ticket to the Swans game as your home game and can you get a second ticket?

I was looking to add a digital membership to my 8 game membership as I can’t get to all games due to living in country Vic. I emailed club to see if I could get it discounted due to getting 2 memberships with some similar inclusions. Reply was that they wouldn’t as I was already saving on Kayo subscription. I’ve had a look and can get the digital membership through Giants cheaper…has anyone else gone through this issue with the membership department?