Season Seven Seat Reservation

[suzanne]

What does this mean exactly?

but the merchandising fees are prohibitive on an £82.50 transaction

[suzanne]

If someone has paid the fiver but cant make it/forgets etc...are the chips put on the table to blind away?

If not how long does the reservation last?

I ask because I am not the greatest at getting there on time but would hate to set out not knowing i had a seat

[AJDUK]

I don"t think this is a great idea tbh, regardless of the merits of this it just doesn"t have the right "APAT" feel to it. Can"t see a casual player being too impressed.

I agree with Dave. Feels like dropping the ball. Not sure how you attract new players to the fold with tournaments costing more for committed players than others who aren"t prepared or able to commit.
It"s backwards to the hotel idea - i.e. with them if you commit and pay early you get your room cheaper. The later you leave it the more it costs or it"s just sold out.
With this plan loyalty and commitment to APAT will be costlier. Where"s the sense in that?

Why can"t we just BACS the cash to an APAT bank a/c, and you then BACS it to the casino say 5 days before, then the remaining seats go on sale at the casino? Any drop outs need to seat transfer or forfeit if no takers. There must be a flaw in that I guess!

[BOINGBLITZ]

I don"t really understand why we can"t return to the old system where the seats go onsale on a certain date and if you want in then you BUY one, not reserve one.
  If not, then use what Andy says in that you pay £75 to enter up until say 2-3 weeks before the event. After that the cost goes up to £80.
 I don"t believe it is fair to charge (possibly) 8 x £5 for loyalty for a season......and of course, when the WCOAP came around, that could / will mean you would pay an extra £30-£40 for the whole series on top of this??

No No No.

 

[Paulie_D]

If someone has paid the fiver but cant make it/forgets etc...are the chips put on the table to blind away?

If not how long does the reservation last?

I ask because I am not the greatest at getting there on time but would hate to set out not knowing i had a seat

Nope

All the £5 does is guarantee your name on the list. If you don"t turn up on time to buy-in on the day your name comes off and you"re SOL.

No chips on the table until the buy-in is done.

[Paulie_D]

What does this mean exactly?

but the merchandising fees are prohibitive on an £82.50 transaction

It means the "rake" taken by the processing company would be excessive.

They take a fairly huge percentage and this would have to come out of the prize pool.

[Paulie_D]

I don"t really understand why we can"t return to the old system where the seats go onsale on a certain date and if you want in then you BUY one, not reserve one.
  If not, then use what Andy says in that you pay £75 to enter up until say 2-3 weeks before the event. After that the cost goes up to £80.
 I don"t believe it is fair to charge (possibly) 8 x £5 for loyalty for a season......and of course, when the WCOAP came around, that could / will mean you would pay an extra £30-£40 for the whole series on top of this??

No No No.
 

APAT has no mechanism in place that can do this without substantial cost.

As Des mentioned, the buy-in through APAT Poker is unworkable and processing fees for other online payment options are prohibitively expensive.

One way or another we"d end up paying (as I understand it) an extra amount to either guarantee a place on the iist or buy-in early.

[Paulie_D]

Why can"t we just BACS the cash to an APAT bank a/c, and you then BACS it to the casino say 5 days before, then the remaining seats go on sale at the casino? Any drop outs need to seat transfer or forfeit if no takers. There must be a flaw in that I guess!

At first glance, its sound like an optimal solution but it is fraught with administrative issues of it"s own.

Firstly, commercial banking is not free so it would cost APAT money to do this.

It would still involve manual lists.

What happens if a payment arrives after the deadline?

Etc.

I take your point about the hotel idea but none of them offer a "pay a small fee now and we guarantee you a room but we won"t charge you the full whack if you don"t turn up" option.

No, you have to pay in full up front and, as has been mentioned the various options for doing that are either too expensive or still involve a lot of administration that APAT is clearly trying to eliminate.

I"d rather NOT pay myself but I recognise that something has to change pending another solution coming along..ideally a revised buy-in procedure using APAT Poker.

[Joker161]

My view is that £75 is an absolute steal for such a well organised and structured event. Plus you get to meet lots of great people (looking forward to GX tomorrow!).

Adding £5 to this cost for a guaranteed seat and to give APAT, who, I assume, do silly amounts of work behind the scenes, is a price very well worth paying.

Also, whenever I get the chance to play an event, travel and hotels bills dwarf this £5 charge.

[SirPercival]

Firstly I think we should stress the point Des has made about consultation with members. This is one of the things that makes APAT great and we should be pleased that we can debate this before it is implemented rather than just moan about it after (which we will anyway!).

I am very much against this idea, but not for selfish reasons, as I am lucky enough to be in a position to pay extra for something I want and not bother enough to care if it was good value. Apologies if that sounds arrogant.

So my reason for not being in favour is because I don"t believe this would be in the long term interests of APAT.

Is APAT wanting to please its hardcore members who want to play every event at any cost? Those that read and contribute to the forum? Those that hit f5 until their finger bleeds on the day that Des says an announcement is going to be made? OR do they want to create a sustainable brand that appeals to all amateur players new and old. Attracts new players to the game and continues to influence the industry to provide good value for money to the average Jo poker player? (Des: I ask this every year - what is the vision? when you know this you can make decisions of whats best for APAT, when you have to guess/assume etc then its difficult to give an informed opinion in order to help those decisions)

So assuming that we are trying to appeal to the latter category of player as well as the former what is the benefit to them to pay an extra £5? what do APAT offer that the others do not? Why pay extra when I could go somewhere else?

I have said before that I fear APAT is losing it"s USP. It used to be rake free, this was unique. It still does offer well run good value deepstack tournaments but now so do many others. It still does innovate and try new formats but so do many others. It still does have a strong loyal community but so do many others. I think charging (albeit optional) extra for a seat is a USP, but not a positive one.

[SirPercival]

As my post above doesnt offer any solutions to the revenue issue I thought I"d reserect one idea I suggested a few years ago (and others have too) which is to reintroduce a membership fee.

A "Gold" "Silver" "Bronze" type approach would allow it still to be free to all -  "Bronze"

"Silver" could be a small annual charge and could give benefits like being able to use the staking thread, a drink bought by Des at a live event* etc.

"Gold" could allow you to preregister for events (the admin cost of such is covered by the charge for gold membership)

* OK, I accept this idea needs some work!

I accept this may seem like a contridiction to my arguement above in that it is reintroducing a fee to get a seat and it is still optional however I think if marketed correctly, the "membership" element could be built into a strong USP.

[kevod85]

Don"t like the idea of paying £5 to reserve a seat for every event, as others have stated i do think it would put off new players and only really end up costing the regular APAT members more who will always want to guarantee their seat.

Could something similar to the staking license not be done? Eg "Season 7 priority player" Kind of a membership but only for the duration of that season? Giving that member priority seat reservation and no seat resevation fee? I"m sure in the past ive read something similar to this on here, only been a member for 18 months so if this is something you have tried in the past i apologise for repeating it

[Des]

There is some really good feedback here everyone, so I appreciate that and look forward to running through and responding in detail this evening.

Ultimately there are two elements in discussion, it"s not just about revenue.  There is also the admin question and some of the responses to date aren"t necessarily taking that into account.

That aside it"s positive to hear members say that they are afraid of APAT positioning ourselves as being too expensive and worrying how new members might perceive this. 

Could I offer an opinion that perhaps APAT offers a more personalised and community orientated service to our customers and for that reason what we offer might justify a premium fee?   Whether you view it similarly is very important and if you do, what a premium is worth is equally important.

The final thing I would say now is don"t underestimate the important of having a clear message on the home page with an instant call to action.  "Buy Now".  How difficult is it to buy a seat to an APAT event if you"re a new player?  Very difficult in my opinion.  If we go down this route then I believe for recreational players, it becomes easier to get a seat with APAT than with any other tour nationwide.

Not saying I"m right, but I"m throwing my thoughts in there alongside yours.

[Jon MW]

..
Could I offer an opinion that perhaps APAT offers a more personalised and community orientated service to our customers and for that reason what we offer might justify a premium fee?   Whether you view it similarly is very important and if you do, what a premium is worth is equally important.
...

This is true, but I think the biggest problem is to do with attracting new players - you can"t tell that this is the case until you"re already involved with APAT.

I think the perception will be of £75 +£12.50 tournaments - and that"s going to put off a lot of recreational players because people rarely tend to look at even the most basic of details before coming to conclusions.

[SirPercival]

Could I offer an opinion that perhaps APAT offers a more personalised and community orientated service to our customers and for that reason what we offer might justify a premium fee?   Whether you view it similarly is very important and if you do, what a premium is worth is equally important.

I dont think APAT is any more personalised and community orientated than many of the others out there. YES it is personalised, YES it is community orientated and if you ask forum users for an opinion on this you are likely going to get the loyal followers saying it is.

Just a thought? Is there any way to ask for feedback from those who are more loyal to other communities? Many of these will also be members here. In fact if you look at the dynamics of the APAT community there are sub groups made up from other communities. Maybe we should just get BCPC to charge £10 to get a seat at their events - problem solved!