At The Tilehurst End we’ve received a few emails and a fair number of tweets at about Reading’s ticketing arrangements for the Play-Off final, so we thought we’d take a look at what’s been good and what’s been bad about these, three days into tickets sales. The club received a lot of criticism for decisions they made prior to the FA Cup Quarter-Final with Manchester City, so just how do the decisions they made before this match stand up?

Firstly, though, let’s remind ourselves of the enormity of the problem they faced.  We beat Cardiff to secure the play-off final place against Swansea less than 13 days before the play-off final, so that’s less than 13 days to sell 39,002 tickets.  And not only did they have to sell them in that timescale, they had to do so in a way which kept everyone happy – including all those who might feel that someone else was being given priority in the queue for tickets then they deserved!

To make this happen the club made three key decisions about the timing and distribution of ticket sales.   Let’s look at each of these in turn.

Read the full article :  http://thetilehurstend.sbnation.com/2011/05/21/ticket-system-of-a-down/