Stockport County FC

Stockport County is a professional association football club competing in the EFL League Two. Nicknamed the ‘Hatters’, Stockport has played its home games at Edgeley Park since 1902, an all-seater stadium with capacity for 10,852.

Stockport was the Vanarama National League Champion in 2021-2022. The club has won the Manchester Seniors Cup on four occasions and is a seven-times winner of the Cheshire Senior Cup, most recently in 2021-2022.

Challenge

In 2020, Stockport required a compliant social distancing seating ticketing solution following the Covid-19 pandemic. In addition, the club was seeking the ability to allow its supporters renew season tickets online and to purchase tickets within the ticketing office as part of broader moves to digitalise its offering to fans.

Solution

To meet these requirements, Stockport migrated its entire ticketing from Eventbrite to Future Ticketing, which has a proven track record in Ireland, England and Scotland of enabling a safe return of fans to stadia.

In 2021, on the back of promotion to EFL League Two, Stockport experienced unprecedented demand for season and general admission tickets. Future Ticketing worked with Stockport to ensure fair and simple ticketing for season ticket holders who raced to get tickets every Monday morning at 10am for away games. Today, the stadium is sold out on a weekly basis. 

Once the structures were put in place for operational ticketing, the club began to focus on strategic ticketing including the club’s wider commercial and marketing teams in the ticketing process. Stockport also expanded the Future Ticketing solution into non-football events such as fan events, ABBA tribute concerts and comedy events staged at Edgeley Park.

Value-added 

In 2022, the growth and improvement journey grew further with the commencement of an API project designed to enable Stockport to build and create its own bespoke customer journey for fans. In addition, Activity Stream was integrated as the club’s preferred email marketing and data analytics tool. The ticketing team also grew from one person to five, with ongoing training and support from Future Ticketing ensuring smooth operations for the club and also the customer.

In preparation for the 2022-2023 season, Stockport partnered with Future Ticketing to launch the API customer journey, moving customers towards account only ticketing and introducing friends and family for over 5,500 season ticket holders and general customers. In 2023, Future Ticketing also introduced the progressive web app.

The agile nature of Future Ticketing’s technology and service has enabled Stockport to grow and continue to achieve its goals year on year.