"It WILL be a shame if , because of the vagaries of the system , there is shortage of Stewards come the day , and those that HAVE got in will have to work longer shifts !"

If anything, what we have found is that, while some people have been working many hours, every day, some have worked very few hours for a couple of days and enjoyed the same benefits. What we ARE trying to do is make sure that the system is as fair as possible, regardless of what job you are doing or which venue you are assigned to. This is likely to ensure that we keep a strong, dedicated team of stewards year on year, where no one feels they are being treated unfairly. It should also help to ensure that we are using the team we have as effectively as possible.

We also have to balance the experience of previous years with the reality that season ticket sales are up almost 25% from last year, and individual event tickets have not even gone on sale yet. We have to make a new system work with audience numbers that are not following any previous trends and are rather unpredictable. So a cut-and-dried "this is the way we've always done it, let's carry it through to next year" approach is simply not going to work.