'We are not' - Peter Ridsdale's assurance over Preston North End & Ticketmaster partnership

Preston North End director Peter Ridsdale insists ‘nothing has changed’ on the back of the club’s Ticketmaster partnership.

The Lilywhites announced Ticketmaster as its new ticketing provider in mid-May. That sparked quite the backlash from supporters, with fears setting in over potential rising admin fees and the functionality of the system. But, Ridsdale has stressed that the partnership should not impact the ticketing experience for North End fans.

"It's had a mixed reception, because I don't think people understand what we have done,” Ridsdale told BBC Lancashire Sport. “We have not outscourced ticketing. We have always had a ticket supplier, who supplies the software to provide the tickets. We had See Tickets, who decided to get out of the market. They were one of the biggest players. Then we changed that, maybe five years ago, to a company called Advanced and they are now doing the same - getting out of the market, for football clubs.

“Therefore, we went to market to see who we could replace them with and we've gone with one of the biggest in the world: Ticketmaster. We are not outsourcing to Ticketmaster... they have got two parts of their business. One is where you go on their website to buy concert tickets or whatever. That is one method they have of supplying tickets. But, they have a separate business which is to supply the backroom and software etc - just as See and Advanced did.

“Nothing has changed, other than us paying Ticketmaster, not advanced. It's the same ticket office staff and same method of buying. We think it's more flexibile, obviously once it settles down - there have been a few hiccups. I think, because everyone knew Ticketmaster's name - as opposed to Advanced and See - they thought we were suddenly outsourcing it and ticket office staff were being made redundant etc. Nothing has changed, other than we are paying someone else to supply the software for our ticket system.”