Alarmed by the poor turnout in their IPL-4 opener at home, Kolkata Knight Riders today decided to slash ticket prices for the upcoming matches.
The Knight Riders CEO and managing director Venky Mysore today informed that they have taken a conscious decision to reduce the ticket prices that will now start from Rs400.
In a late night announcement yesterday, team principal owner Shah Rukh Khan said that they were looking forward to reducing the ticket prices so as to get a packed house.
The 63,500-capacity Eden Gardens witnessed a turnout of about 35,000 for Knight Riders' first match at home. However the primary reason for the poor turnout is believed to be due to Shah Rukh Khan-led-management's decision of not retaining city's favourite son Sourav Ganguly.
Mysore assured that those who had already bought tickets in advance through online would get the refunds.
As per the new ticketing slab, the gallery tickets will be priced at Rs400 (all upper tiers), Rs500 (all lower tiers except B, C, K and L blocks) and Rs900 (K and L lower tiers) from the earlier rates of Rs500, 900 and 1200 respectively.
Prices for the seats in the lower tiers of B and C block remained unchanged at Rs1800.
The upper tier seats of B C Roy Club House has been slashed to Rs2400 from the earlier Rs3600, while prices for the premium lower tier seats remained unchanged at Rs9000.
"There will be a loss of revenue but we want to give the crowd a total value for money. We want to give them maximum opportunity to watch some good, exciting cricket," Mysore told PTI.
Mysore denied the reports that the Eden last night witnessed the lowest turnout in their entire IPL history and said the gate sales were 40% less.
"In fact, yesterday we had the highest-ever collections, though there was about 40% drop in gate sales. In the first season, we had about 50% turnout in three games, so it was not lowest last night," he pointed out.
Asked whether Ganguly's absence could be a reason, he said, "It could be. But we must take into consideration that it was late night start on a weekday so many office and school goers could have given it a miss.
"Let's not forget that so far we have been losing. Now, we hope to get a packed house for our next home match that is scheduled on Sunday."
He further said tickets of less than Rs 500 were the most sought after and that accounts for 80 per cent of the total 49,000 that go for sale.
