Fan Advisory Board meets at Villa Park

We readily acknowledge that this year we didn't engage with the FAB to complete as we were restructuring during the period in which the report needed to be submitted, however this will categorically not be the case moving forward and we are very keen on a much more collaborative process this year.

The PL requires us to submit the final approved Fan Engagement Plan by August 31st 2026, and we will work backwards from that point in time. As an outline plan, we will share at least one draft version of the document with the FAB for review during the off season in summer 2026 and can then schedule any follow up meetings as required before the final submission. As we move nearer the time, we will provide more concrete dates and engage with the FAB in the spring to plan out the steps required.

As normal, via Club channels (website and social media). Conversations with internal and external stakeholders continue and when appropriate to comment, the Club will do so.

At the meeting the Club thanked the FAB for being understanding of the complex situation. The FAB also asked for it be noted that they felt the Club had responded appropriately to the advice it was provided by safety authorities.

We're not expecting the game to be cancelled. In the extremely unlikely event that this happens, our priority will be to communicate any refunding process.

The SLO is more than happy to assist, as will colleagues within the Communications department. A Teams call with Craig and Andy has taken place, and the FAB informed the Club that they plan to have the FAB website, details of the sub group priorities and the ability for fans to contact the FAB live from November. The Club welcomed this news and is happy to provide appropriate channels to grow awareness.

Happy to follow this process.

The Club will bring this to the meeting - if the FAB could please provide a breakdown of which FAB members are leading which groups, the Club will then circulate an updated org chart of working groups with Club counterparts after the meeting.

A follow up meeting is planned with the club's Head of Safeguarding, following this we will look to advertise the young FAB through club media channels. Matt has a small number of eligible applicants from the original FAB recruitment process who we will invite to apply for the young FAB

We are more than happy to facilitate this and see it as one of - if not the most - critical current topics between the Club and the FAB. We have seen that informal contact at various levels is already happening, and we will formalise the Ticketing working group as a priority following the meeting.

We are also keen to address most operational Ticketing topics through this working group, rather than in the main FAB, so that we can use the main meetings to cover a broad range of Club and fan-related topics and not just limit discussions to a narrow set of themes.

Please allow us to address all of the above questions in one: 

Sales criteria for all European away games are normally released when all key allocation, pricing and safety elements have been agreed with the opposition and their local authority. Once those details are confirmed we draft the relevant criteria and policy as quickly as we can and endeavour to make any information available to fans at the earliest opportunity. 

However, we understand that sometimes this is closer to the travel date than some fans may like, and on that basis and in response to the FAB's request, for the remaining away Europa League games we will endeavour to release comms in advance that provide some provisional details of allocations and the ticket selling criteria. We will also highlight where we are still awaiting information from the host Club to be transparent.

The Club would be grateful if the FAB could provide thoughts on what specifically an advance comms could include, especially in the case where the away club may not have provided complete information.

Please note that this will always be subject to police or local authority amends.

The travel forms are not a UEFA or legislative requirement, but they assist the Club, and the opposition, in planning how supporters attend the game and how to assist supporters in getting to the stadium. Having an understanding of when supporters will arrive and where they will be based helps local authorities planning in advance of the games, as well as supporting with transport planning on the ground.

As a real-life example of how the Club uses the information captured, in conversations with Go Ahead Eagles the information provide on the travel forms has ensured that we've agreed with GAE that transport will be provided from Amsterdam - information that we only knew from having received the travel forms.

However, if the FAB believes that the supporters would prefer not to complete the forms, then the Club would be prepared to remove the need to complete them, provided that the FAB agrees that the Club communicates it is doing so under recommendation of the FAB, and that the FAB accepts some on-the-ground services will likely be less effective as a result.

The Club does not have any official secondary ticket sales partner and as such, any tickets that are made available on these types of sites are not official, and in all probability are either a scam or will not work at the turnstile. 

The Club would appreciate the support of the FAB to identify any such sites claiming to sell tickets on behalf of the Club. Furthermore, to be clear and as stated in our Ts and Cs, we will remove season tickets from any supporters found to be selling their tickets through these platforms.

There is no separate allocation for GA+ Season Ticket holders, they fall into the same criteria as other Season Ticket holders. There is an allocation for hospitality members based on the percentage of Hospitality Season ticket holders to standard season ticket holders at Villa Park (9%) but they still have to meet sales criteria. Any of these tickets that don't sell are released into the general allocation.

The Club understand that there might be some confusion over this allocation amongst the supporters and therefore will be adding this detail, as a FAQ, on the ticketing part of the website.

We generally go on sale 4 - 5 weeks in advance of a particular fixture as this allows us to understand the TV schedule and other competition schedules that might affect our kick-off dates and times. On that basis, we don't generally have an issue. However, there are always occasions when circumstances dictate a change, such as the Crystal Palace game this season. In that instance we try and manage the situation as best we can to ensure all supporters are informed and compensated should they need to be. 

To help with general understanding of this situation we will add another FAQ onto our website.

The Club has decided to make digital ticketing a key component of the ticketing policy, and as a result, all tickets this season will be distributed through the AVFC app. We feel that this is consistent with most other venues and football clubs, and the reasons for such a decision are not only benefits to the Club, but also to supporters, allowing them to share and resell tickets much more easily.

Having said that, we understand that a certain number of supporters are physically unable to use digital tickets and as a result we have distributed 912 physical season cards. Each of these applications was treated on a case-by-case basis to ensure that all worthy requests were granted. We're confident that we've now provided physical cards to all that require them, however, we've not and wouldn't want to assume that physical tickets are required just based on age as there are many older supporters who are comfortable with this technology.

We have also provided support for all Season Ticket holders to be able to access the tickets in their app, this support ranges from direct email comms and "How to..." videos, through to trained on matchday. We've opened the ticket office specifically to deal with these issues and for the Burnley game, we wrote specifically to all first-time visitors to Villa Park this season to explain how to use the tickets. As we are now several home games into the season, we are increasingly confident that the majority of supporters are now comfortable with the technology.

AVFC Support is an important communication tool for our ticket office to interact with supporters. We accept that sometimes the language in the communication is not entirely accurate. We are committed to working through how to improve this, whilst still maintaining a speed and relevancy of communication. 

Based on the valuable input from the FAB at the previous meeting, the Season Ticket Friends and Family sales window has been kept in place as is.

We operate with a staff level aligned to manage the peaks and troughs of the business, and we employ temporary staff to help manage the times of highest volume. We are looking at new technology through our website and a new telephony system that will leverage AI to help our ticket office staff on the phone. We will also roll out a Chatbot functionality on the website to answer many of the queries and removing the need for a contact.

This new technology will be launched in the coming months, and we will keep the FAB informed.

Our new telephony system will hopefully make the collation of data more straightforward. We'd be prepared to share some of the call handling data to the Ticketing Working Group and would welcome any ideas that they might have as a result.

We agree and this is absolutely how we want our app to work. This functionality is in the pipeline and is currently being developed by our ticketing provider along with improved resale functionality. Estimated arrival is late 2025, in the meantime this functionality is currently available via our ticketing website, or we can help supporters who call the ticket office (as we have in previous seasons).

We experience queues at the ticket office on every game, and this season has been consistent with previous seasons and matches. However, we do track data of supporters who enter the ground after kick-off as this seems to be the most appropriate measure of ticket and turnstile queues.

On average over the past couple of seasons, the number entering the ground after kick-off is anywhere between 400 and 2000, and this season has been no different. 

For the Fulham game the number was 1,300 - slightly higher than the previous games, but lower than Burnley. The delay in fans accessing the stadium was probably down to problems on the motorway rather than any other issue.

For the first few games of the season, we had increased staff at ticket office and turnstiles, with an additional 25 promotional staff on hand to assist with queues and queries at the turnstile. They were all there to support fans to use their app and download their tickets.

We're confident that any issues or queries relating to the use of tickets within the app have now been resolved.

There are various important reasons as to why we like to have the opportunity to sell Memberships to fans year-round, rather than simply tied to the Season Ticket release calendar. We know from our analysis that Memberships are often used as birthday or Christmas gifts, and therefore this would be lost if we had a limited renewals window. Also, not all fans are buying a Membership purely for ticket access, and therefore we'd like to make sure they can join at any point in the season.

Please note that the Membership programme was previously run by a 3rd party and was brought in house this summer. As 365-day memberships have already been sold to supporters before we took control in house, this has had to be maintained for the transition. As a Club will continue to explore the best ways to manage membership and welcome FAB input over the coming months.

There is no separate allocation for GA+ Season Ticket holders, they fall into the same criteria as other (i.e. GA) Season Ticket holders. 

There is an allocation for Hospitality based on the percentage of Hospitality Season ticket holders to standard season ticket holders at Villa Park (9%) but they still have to meet sales criteria. 

Any of these tickets that don't sell are released into the general allocation.

We generally go on sale 4 - 5 weeks in advance of a particular fixture as this allows us to understand the TV schedule and other competition schedules that might affect our kick-off dates and times. On that basis, we don't generally have an issue. 

However, there are always occasions when circumstances dictate a change, such as the Crystal Palace at the start of the 25/26 season. In such instances we try and manage the situation as best we can to ensure all supporters are informed and compensated should they need to be.