March 11, 2025 • 43 mins
In this episode of Tickets to Travel, we kick off our brand-new Fan Travel Stories series with a tale of passion, perseverance, and Premier League obsession. Meet Malcolm Hardiman, a die-hard Liverpool FC fan who took the ultimate leap—planning a dream trip from Austin, Texas to Anfield to watch his beloved team play live on Boxing Day.
🚀 But the journey wasn’t easy...
- How did Malcolm plan a trip to London, Paris, and Liverpool with the help of Costco Travel (yes, really!)?
- Why was getting match tickets the most challenging part of the experience?
- What can the travel and ticketing industries do to make fan trips smoother?
- And most importantly—was it all worth it?
🏟️ Whether you’re a soccer superfan, a travel planner, or just someone who loves a great adventure, this episode is packed with insights, humor, and lessons learned about international sports travel.
📲 Follow us on social media:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to Tickets2Travel, the business of travel experiences, and we are now starting a brand new series called Fan Travel Stories. The series where travel tales meet market research. Because nothing says we can do it better than a passionate fan looking to make their travel experience dreams come true.
(00:01):
By planning their trips and buying a ticket for that coveted event. In this first episode, we meet Malcolm Hardiman, an American based die hard Liverpool fan who braved the holiday chaos to see his team take on Newcastle over Boxing Day. That makes things complicated. From booking his dream trip through Costco travelyes, that Costco To navigating the quirky twists of scoring game tickets at Anfield, Malcolm's Adventure is part comedy, part inspiration, and a whole lot of what can we learn from this, guys?
So buckle up, grab your scarf, and prepare to laugh, nod, and maybe even say, I didn't know Costco did that. And Hey, remember to subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts because tickets to travel starts now.
Hey everyone. Welcome to tickets to travel. This is Mario Bedouin. We talked about the business of travel experiences, and today we got something a little bit different. We're going to talk about the fan travel experience. In our series, we'd like to highlight various fans who went out of their way to show their passion for either their team, their artists.
A particular brand, doesn't matter what it is and how they created the journey to fulfill that passion. And so today we have a good friend of mine, we've known each other for a long time, Malcolm Hardiman. Welcome to the pod. Thank you for having me. Yes, friend. It has been multiple decades. Yeah. Multiple decades.
Are we really going to say that? I mean, that's like, uh, yeah, yeah, we're, we're old at this point. Well, you were kind of an inspiration for this series because of the, the various B2B businesses that we work with, or we highlight on the pod. But essentially it got me to ask the question in general was that when we, we'd known each other since we were probably 18 years old, but I never knew you as a sports fan.
That's a pretty recent development. Music was fine. You know, we, we had our, our time, we'd go to shows we do, you know, you were a DJ. Obviously, but when did you become an English Premier League fan, and which team specifically did you start to support? As they say, in the uk, that is what they say. So I started to get really serious about soccer after the, I guess that was the 1112 World Cup in South Africa.
I think a lot of American fans watch World Cup soccer because it's just exciting, right? Kind of like the Olympics, but with soccer exclusively, which is cool. And I like that the cadence every four years, you know, there's a big buildup. It's cool. I also know that football and soccer is beloved and watched the world over except in the United States.
At least back then it was still kind of a niche sport, right? A niche sport, Malcolm, but like I played it all my life and I was also always very somewhat annoyed that you weren't a sports fan back then. That's right. You know, not in a bad way, but it's just, it is the nature of cultural interest, right? The NFL kind of dominates the American conversation and the NBA too, especially back then.
So it's always interested me that soccer and football, basically 90 percent of the world, the entire planet loves soccer and we don't. And I just always thought that was an interesting kind of challenge to myself to, you know, I want to understand what is all the buzz about, right? Not to be contrarian or different or any of that, but Just as cultural cachet, what does everybody know that I don't, you know, why is this a thing?
So, my girlfriend, soon to be fiance and wife, and I were watching matches in South Africa. We were living in Las Vegas, but we were watching games overseas. She had a great time with it, I had a great time with it, and I just, honestly, I just decided, I just decided, I said, I'm going to Be able to sit down for 90 minutes, watch a match, speak intelligently about it, and see what I'm missing.
And so, I decided to go with The Premier League for all kinds of reasons, mainly because it's in English, right? That would be probably the main reason, as opposed to Well, not that it's also the highest level of I think it's the big Processional soccer that is not on a world class platform. Bundesliga, which is competitive, and Wunderfuls, La Liga, they're all great, but I do think the Premier League is on the top of all of those, respectfully.
Respectfully. So that's right. So 11, 12. So yeah, so the 12, 13 season I started watching, I hadn't really picked a team yet. I was kind of taking the season to decide. I was looking at Chelsea football club. I was looking at Tottenham, Arsenal. Yeah. Big, you know, big, the big teams, not because not for any other reason, but just those are the ones that attracted me.
And I had some basic inkling of, of what those teams were about. And I also was watching Liverpool football club for a variety of reasons, namely Steven Gerrard, who was a transformational midfielder for the position for the team, for the position I'm in for soccer as a whole football as a whole, they just captivated me.
And I was like, I like Liverpool's now I have selected Liverpool is the side that I'm going to support my ride or die team. So when you made that That decision. Yes. You were living in Las Vegas, Nevada. That's right. And so as a U. S. fan living in Las Vegas of Liverpool football club, was there any support in the Las Vegas area that sort of enhanced your fandom?
Good question. At that time, Not to the short answer is not to my knowledge, not then. And so in between, so once I've sort of adopted Liverpool, we then moved to Austin, Texas, and we were in Austin, Texas for 11 years. Great town, a big soccer town. This is before Austin FC, right? They, this is before an MLS team has come that are no professional sports in Austin.
There is a very robust, well organized rabid fandom of an official Liverpool supporters club. That is sanctioned by Liverpool. There's a charter in place and there's some, you know, rules and general guidelines that you have to do to be awarded that designation from the club. But, you know, and there's support around that.
But the official Liverpool Supporters Club is, is a machine in Austin. Now I'm not exactly sure why that is in terms of, are these U. S. based fans? Are these overseas fans that live in Austin? Could be a combination of all that. No, I would credit it to the, let's say it's a fan club, supporters club organizational structure, right?
Because they're constantly managing that list of fans, creating events around games, pushing merchandise, I'm sure. But also to get a yearly, you know, annual sort of scarf range and stuff that they release, they also have built a great relationship with. It's a club in Austin at BD Riley's and that's the other kind of fulcrum point for fandom, right?
Like everybody goes to BD's for the games, you know, champions league, regular season games, cup games, that's where it all happens. And that's everybody's comes out in their kit and it's, it's good times. And you know, obviously there's camaraderie there and, and all that, especially if you're new to Austin, Texas, right?
You started to develop a community from being a Liverpool football club fan. And associating yourself to that organization, would you say that's accurate? Oh yeah, and they're, you know, welcoming bunch and good times and bads, wins, losses, all the, all the drama of it, right? It's uh, It's the emotion. It is.
Of the experience. Opera football is very It's very romantic, right? I mean, it's very, it's, it's very, it's a romantic enterprise to sort of watch and, and sort of the highest highs and the lowest lows. That's what makes it exciting. So you've developed a community. You are a loyal Liverpool football club fan.
(00:22):
You know, everything about the team. You also, there was a story, right? You won some award or you, you did something in particular where you, you sent this to me, you remember what I'm talking about? You were on a TV show or a radio show. You submitted something. I, you remember? It had to do with Liverpool where they identified you as some type of fan was, were you betting on the game?
Was it? In Austin? Maybe it was. Oh, maybe it was this. It wasn't anything formal, but we, uh, the, the, the Premier League has started doing those fan fests here in the United States, picking cities. A few years ago, they had selected Austin. This is just as, uh, Austin FC has come online. I think they were there the six months, maybe before the season was going to start their, their inaugural premier season.
Maybe something along those lines, I think I had gotten a chance to talk to Rebecca Lowe and Robby Musto and Robby Earl and maybe something along those lines. But did you do, you were on a video or another, maybe another podcast or something like that where they were asking you questions about I did make a really funny, fun Men in Blazers.
You've seen like the Men in Blazers podcast? This is what I'm talking about. So let's made a I wrote and illustrated a Men in Blazers. Podcast, color ebook, just as a gag. It was a PDF that they have on their site, I'll send you the link, but it was just a good time. All that to say, too, soccer makes you do crazy things, right?
It does. It's not my fault. It's football's fault. Well, I mean, shout out to the Men in Blazers, obviously, right? And what is the Men in Blazers exactly? Uh, so they, they were initially a podcast run by Roger Bennett and Michael Davies. Michael Davies actually has a huge television career. I think he's an executive producer on big shows through Bravo.
I have a TV man, uh, Roger Bennett's a writer, a brilliant writer, and a long, lifelong Everton supporter, which is coincidentally Liverpool's crosstown rival. So they had gotten together and started doing a football podcast, kind of for an American audience, which is great. They also had and have, uh, an NBC television show, a half an hour sort of sports recap show of the previous weekend's games that's on terrestrial broadcast television.
Very funny, very entertaining, kind of hard not to get caught up in it with those guys. And their podcast is really funny, and so yeah, it's the Men in Blazers, and just had become a fan. And sort of as a result of that, just there's a lot of, like in any sort of, sort of like niche fandom, there's a lot of memes and inside jokes and just general camaraderie.
And, and that's why I'm putting you as a little bit more of a highlighted Liverpool fan because you did these type of things very passionate about. So in terms of you sitting in your living room with Shannon and saying, you know what, I want to go see a game in Liverpool. What was the, I guess. We're getting at is travel planning.
There's a couple of different stages to all of this. One, there's the initiation of it. Like I'm a fan. I want to do this. The first thing is how do I, how do I get there? Maybe from the U S perspective, but if you're in the UK, it's really about buying tickets. So as someone who's sitting in Austin, Texas and looking at creating a trip there, what was your thought process in terms of booking the trip?
There were several drivers here all at once. I don't want to get too, I don't want to back up too far. But so we went in 2018, Shannon was turning 40 that year. So we kind of wanted to celebrate that in a, in a big way or as big a way as we could. We wanted to travel to the UK. We had decided to go at Christmas time.
Just as see a Christmas in London, kind of a romantic notion and just what a great way to celebrate the birthday and Christmas and all of that good stuff, right? As we started to have that conversation, also at the same time, I was like, you know what, maybe we can catch a match while we're at it, while we're in London, maybe Liverpool away or something like that.
At that point, I probably would have watched. Even as a neutral, anybody. I would have watched Chelsea at home, it's damp for break, I would have watched anybody. How special would it have been to be able to pull off catching the Reds while we're on our holiday? And I, and I understand that, like when I, I, I saw Spurs against Sunderland because I was in, I was in London for meetings.
And I was like, you know what, I'm, I'm still awake and I, I made a quick purchase and had great seats and I saw Harry Kane, second row, midfield, got to experience how they section off Sunderland fans away from the Spurs joust. And this was in the original thing. White Hart Lane. Yeah, it's in White Hart Lane.
Versus I think it was like one of the last games before they were going to knock it down and build the new one. So I was like, wow, this is a, it's an amazing experience. But I was there because I was working and I made it part of the trip versus what you're doing. You're like, this is. Yes. Destination is London, but the intention was really to go to the city.
And it was in the sense that we're already going to be there. Let's parlay this. Because, you know, I'm a working class guy. Like we're not going to have a lot of bites at the Apple to go overseas conveniently. Right. So to be frank, we wanted to pack in as much as we could and really maximize our time. So that was kind of the calculus for adding Liverpool to what was a great trip already on its own.
We added this sort of game component to it that really took it up to 12. I mean, it really made it special and memorable. And we actually wound up going to the match on Boxing Day, December 26th, which, this is a true story, that is my wife's birthday. So, we were at the game, on Boxing Day, on her birthday.
Happy 40th to her, but also happy, I'm not telling you how old I am, to me, uh, that's none of your business, but it wound up being one of those human experiences. Yes. It's overstated, but unforgettable experience cannot be stated enough. And hence why we're sitting here, grab the tickets to travel podcast.
So that's, that's amazing. We will, we will talk more about that experience, but in terms of the planning of the trip, how did you book your travel and what was sort of the process? Was it, was it value? Was it ease of use? Was it, how did you arrive on getting yourself from Austin to London and then eventually to Liverpool?
I was thinking, there's a, there's an interesting post script about that or asterisks about traveling on Boxing Day in Europe. So we had initially just started doing this the hard, stupid way a la carte, looking directly at hotels or Google searches, Expedia, just kind of getting a lay of the land, right?
So once we kind of committed to the idea, Shannon found that our Costco membership also has the benefit of a huge travel arm and sort of an entire, an entire machine dedicated to travel through Costco. I was initially skeptical, like, that sounds kind of. Not going to be meaning you're typically going to Costco to get toilet paper and bottles of water in bulk.
Yeah. And now the concept of them selling you travel was a little foreign. It just felt a little not in their wheelhouse, right? Like just not a, not a competency of theirs. No disrespect, right? Sure. And also I was coming to that conclusion in ignorance. So Shannon pursued it and, and she quickly won me over and got me on board.
(00:43):
They had had, they had a package that was. Taylor made for us, it was a trip to London and Paris, like a combination trip. They've set up the days, calendar wise, but also logistics wise, it was basically two trips. We did a large portion in London, we did a short portion in Paris, and then back to London, and then home.
So they kind of built the trip that way for us. So once, once we had gotten, arrived to this as our provider, it was, I cannot stress to you enough, like, what a comically laughably seamless process this was for us. Now was this mainly online or did, did you speak to somebody over the phone? To be honest, They are so buttoned up and squared away and their interface and their, their front end is so strong that we only really had to have one conversation through their 1 800 number once to just confirm some small, minute detail.
But it is effectively a fully online experience that is clear, robust. It, it offers options. Basically, they gave you a list of hotel partners that they work with and in contract with. And we made our selection based on where we wanted to be in London. Having never been there, it doesn't really matter because we don't know any better, but we were making some educated guesses and, and some of that stuff.
So we selected our hotel. So this included air hotel. This included the Eurostar Eurorail from London to Paris, the ticket, forth and back, the two nights in France, and then yeah, our outbound. Inbound to London Heathrow and outbound to London Heathrow back to Texas. So it was truly an all inclusive experience.
It was our air. Our hotel for our entire stay and the train to get us from London to Paris. Now, now, wait a second. Did Costco sell you the tickets to the Liverpool game? They didn't. Really? They did not. Elevate your travel business with Victory Live, the platform featuring six billion dollars in professional sports, concerts, festivals, and theater inventory, including Broadway hits, Las Vegas shows, and top events like Coachella.
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How did you upon your, this is the asterisks that I want to circle back to. So this is the. This is the sort of extra part that we had to build for ourselves, uh, which isn't a bad thing, but it was a thing that we had to do, mainly because, uh, in Europe, I mean, I knew this, but didn't know it, know it, the whole country shuts down in England for Boxing Day.
It is a bank, a high holiday. There is nothing open. It's very similar to Christmas, basically the 25th and the 26th in a good way. People are at home with their families and like. Doing things that make them happy, which I am in full support of all that to say trains don't run because normally you could take a train from London to Liverpool, probably 300 miles away, 250 miles away.
So not so that's what it that's like a four hour change, right? Well, probably less than on train, but like a four hour car ride. So if I got nothing, actually, the other thing I need to mention as well that Costco offered, which was great. They also gave us travel tour vouchers for a tour company on Christmas day, because the whole country's pretty much shut down.
We got to use a travel voucher to take a tour and we got to go all over England. They put us on a bus with other tours, right. We went through Greenwich and saw where the, where Greenwich mean time is set up at the, at the Naval Academy. Like, that's cool. Yeah. I just see the white cliffs of Dover, which was cool.
They took us to Canterbury, and we got to go to Christmas service, uh, with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Church of England church service, like, it was just cool to see the The cathedral, I mean, it's, it's quite impressive and we were getting all the, you know, in Canterbury is this old, you know, old, old city, you know, like it sounds, you know, exaggerated or hyperbolic.
It's not. I mean, these are old, old, ancient places. Amazing. You sound very American right now, by the way. Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah. We drove through Kent and they did all, they basically, they did a great tour. It was an all day affair for Christmas. So we weren't just sitting in the hotel cause there's nothing to do.
We really made the use of our time and Costco set that all that was included in our price. That was just great value, right? Like just as a customer, but also it wound up being this pretty significant part of the consumer. So let's talk about price for, for just a second. I mean, there's been a little bit of time and you know, we would think that that is a maybe somewhat shoulder high demand period maybe, or maybe it's coming off of a, of a low upper shoulder demand time for London in particular.
How did you view the price and if you remember what the price of the package was versus maybe individually shopping it, because obviously when they're packaging all of these components, they're getting, as you know, net pricing and such, and they're creating a margin there. But overall, if you were to book all of these separate pieces, it would probably be, I don't know, probably another 20 to 30 percent more.
Do you think that that was easily, I felt like we would have gotten, if we had tried to do this. And build at retail a la carte, I think we would have gotten killed. I think it would have been prohibitively expensive. And also, prohibitively expensive slash really hard to build the tim Cause a lot of this is timetable stuff.
Especially relative to the Paris trip because they booked the train, they gave us windows of times when we could leave. But I don't think I would have been confident enough to go to the train station website, buy the tickets and know that How long everything take. I just don't think I would have that confidence.
I didn't have that savvy. I still don't. I would still rely on a partner to sort of set this up for us. They did all the legwork in, in. All the best ways. Global transparency and convenience. And if you remember, it doesn't have to be exact, but what is the sort of range of price for the amount of times you were there?
Yeah, it was probably between like 8, 500 or something like that. Per person or for both of you? For the whole, for the whole show. For the whole, for the both of you to travel and you were there for seven nights? Yeah, give or take. We got there on the 24th and we left on the 1st. Yeah, that's fantastic.
That's amazing. It was not over 9, 000. I just don't remember that. Okay, so then, now you have to find tickets to the, mainly the, yes, it was Shannon's birthday, but let's, let's be real. So, how did you find your tickets and where did you sit? And give me give me those details because that's going to add on to that 7, let's call it 8, 000.
So this is, this is also a function of Anfield is the stadium that Liverpool plays at. I think a lot of stadiums are like this. They have a lot of seating, but only 50, 000, right? And it's also, you know, Liverpool live and work and play in the city of Liverpool. So there's fans there that just are. From Liverpool or in the, in the area and love the team and go every week.
There's a huge quantity of tickets that are already spoken for week in week out. So when you're buying tickets from America or possibly any foreign country, I'm saying this badly, but maybe this will further illustrate the point. It's a pain in the ass to do it. It's really hard and convoluted and is stressful.
(01:04):
That was. Honestly, buying the tickets to the match was the most difficult. thing about the trip so that, you know, it's particularly hard because of what you described. So you know, you have these club teams that have been in this stadium for X amount of years, literally they're selling seat licenses and a lot of it are just passed down from generation to generation.
So usually how we're used to buying a ticket here is maybe Stubhub versus there. It's really tough to aggregate that inventory. So, and then because the, the fans themselves are so loyal, they don't care, they don't care who they play. They're going to go, they're going to show up. So finding that inventory can be somewhat tough.
And so that's why I'm asking. So much so that we could not buy a straight pair of tickets just to the match. What I wound up having to do was purchase a package that included like a dinner, like near Liverpool at this beautiful facility, but it basically included dinner. A Liverpool fanny pack, I don't know, whatever, right?
Like some basic stuff. It's very close to the ground so you could, you could eat and then walk. But because it was Boxing Day and we had to drive from London for our trip, we didn't have time to get there before the dinner. Basically, I couldn't even use that part of the package. Like we just got. We just took an L on that and just got burnt on eating because we had to go straight to the game.
It's a 3 p. m. kickoff or, but we had to leave London like 8 in the morning just to, you know, it was, it was pretty hairy. Like we were barely getting there on time. We don't know where we're going. We're just trying to figure this out, right? Yeah. So I had to buy the tickets with this package, which we couldn't even use, uh, just to get to the game.
But I was like, well, In for a penny, in for a pound, we're doing this. So, Malcolm, you're hitting on some, uh, some interesting topics because most people don't realize this, but it's illegal, almost illegal. There's a lot of weird legislation there to resell. A ticket in the UK or in Europe. Oh, I did not know that.
Okay. Especially to someone who's international. So what you said tracks in a big way in terms of, I had an earlier episode, uh, episode 10 with, um, one of the guys who's kind of an old school reseller. And so he sees this as an emerging market for U. S. international people to purchase EPL tickets and so on and so forth.
Because of that reseller rule. And it's exactly that. It just has to be a dinner or it has to be a, a t shirt, but it has to hide the cost of the, of the base ticket price. Right? So my question to you is who'd you buy that through? So I bought it directly through Liverpool, liverpool. com or liverpoolfc. com or whatever, or co.
uk, you know, I'm identifying myself as an American or an overseas purchaser. And I felt like. It kind of put us into this separate web module that was To dib. And at liverpool. com, I mean that is clear, right? It felt like as a user that I was in a separate part of the site that was set up for our situation.
Tickets, we don't live there, etc, etc. There just wasn't real click. Like, even after I, I like, you know, triple check the times and the price and everything, there was a sense that even after I had put in the credit card information and pulled the trigger, I wasn't like totally confident that it actually worked, that I was actually going to get the ticket.
We did, and it's fine, but there was probably a few days where I was like, well, I either just got hustled through some weird scam site or we're going to a Liverpool game. It could go either way. 50 50. You'll see. Well, that's, that's the challenge, right? When you're buying a resale ticket is whether or not those tickets are valid.
If you have the ability to transfer the ticket, these are, these are big topics in the war of resale tickets versus what, what Ticketmaster does, right? So, and we can, I can give you that education later, but not really important for this. So when did you get the tickets delivered and how did that, how was that process?
I'm looking at the ticket. We did get a hard copy ticket. Okay, so physical ticket and what I don't, this is what I don't remember. Did they mail them to us through DHL and do they come to the house or did we pick them up there and like a will call situation? That's right. And now that I'm talking about it, this was stress, this was, this was stressful.
I remember. They didn't mail the tickets to us because like I said, we'd purchased this dinner package, right? So all I had was basically like our confirmation number and a letter saying you bought this thing. So I basically took the letter to the, to the facility that they were hosting the dinner at, and they had the tickets in an envelope that they gave to us.
Oh, wow. Okay. So the package, so you had to, so the restaurant served as will call to a certain degree. Yes. So when you show up, you show my dear, Hey, I'm this American guy. I need my tickets. And so it's quite possible that that Owner of that establishment had that you're buying their tickets, your AV. And at this point, I mean, we're so committed now, you know, well, this is the other thing I had to rent a car, right.
Which we could not do through Costco. I would have, but it just, I had to rent a car because we had to, we could not take a train or public transportation. We had a boxing day and, or, and I'm pretty sure you you're used to driving on the opposite side of the road. I am absolutely not accustomed to that.
And that is a very stressful thing, which it's fine. Once you're on the freeway, right. Bye. Getting out of London and getting back into London, that is a level of concentration that I do not want to employ anytime soon again. So you go to this pub restaurant, pick up your tickets. It's maybe a few blocks away from, from airfield.
That's exactly right. It's. Less than 10 blocks. And so what was the price of the tickets? I believe the package and everything. And again, I don't know the price of the ticket, right? Right. I want to say it was about 500 bucks for us to go for a pair. That's right. I'll give you a little bit more, but under 600, like we, I want to be in a couple hundred dollars a ticket in my brain.
And so in terms of accessing the stadium, what, what happened next? You had the hard ticket. They scanned it. We envelope with the, yep, here you go. It reminds me a lot of, um, Lambo Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin, which I've never been to, but like where there are residences adjacent to this. Oh, sure. Same thing.
It's in the city. Yeah, it's in a neighborhood. It's not like the Foxborough, yeah. Out in the middle, nowhere. Like in this parking lot, like out in this weird industrial area, like it's in the city. It's embedded. It's a part of the community. It's very cool. But we walk, you know, the 10 blocks we produce our, you know, and it's, again, we're partially, this is just, we're just very disoriented, right?
Never been there, et cetera, et cetera. So we're trying to find the right gate or sort of gantry to get onto and all that. But, you know, we turn in the tickets, we walk up a few flights. Our seat is we're sitting on the Anfield road. So there's two sides, right? Uh, The cop end, which is where all the supporters are, like the hardcore supporters with the flags and the singing.
(01:25):
Awesome. We're on the infield roadside. So we're looking at the cop, which is great because I want to see those guys singing and the scars and the whole thing. Right. So for us, that was better. So we're sitting on the infield roadside. We are up. We're almost directly. We're at the left hand corner of the goal up at up a level.
So there's one level below us and we're very, very close to the edge. Of the upper level. Okay. Dynamite seats is the short answer. On, on a, on a corner or midfield or? Uh, mid. We're almost behind the goal, like directly behind the goal, just to the left. Pretty cheap ass seat. So much so that we were playing Newcastle that day.
So Newcastle was facing us, uh, for the first half. But for the second half, Liverpool was coming towards us. So we got to see goals and like action up close. It was brilliant. It was amazing. Chills. Truly, you know, you're, you're fat, that the intention was fulfilled. Oh yeah. Like the fan travel mission was accomplished.
Yes. And then, you know, I was having, you know, we're watching the game and it's great. We won four zero that day, crushed them. Right. It was awesome. And it was just a perfect game. It was brilliant. It's cold, but it was great. The other interesting thing, this is also just, I've only been overseas once, but the food was pretty delicious in all phases of.
Well, I was going to ask you this in the stadium itself. So you, you, you get, I mean, there's nothing like having that feeling when you get to your seats and then you see it, you're like, okay, how are we going to plan this out? This is amazing. You stay here. I'm going to go get. Whatever. So if you remember, what did you get and what was about the pricing about it?
Because I'm just curious. I think people are curious about swag stuff. It, whatever, whatever kind of completed your experience. I remember the food being fairly priced, but it was so like, they did like a hot dog and a bun thing, like a bagel thing. It was just like, it was really well cooked. It was just good food, you know, and then they did a meat pie.
Super good, like, it felt like the carrots were real, the peach were real, the potato, like, it felt like real food and like a real baked crust, like it was a baked item. It was delicious, is all I'm saying, and it felt reasonably priced, nothing crazy. Of course, we went to the merch shop after the match to get some memorabilia, I mean, you have to, I mean, I'm not that cool or cynical to say, oh, you know what, I'm good, like, I'm, you know.
You also want to go back to Austin and flex, right? Like, you're like, I, I'm going back to the pub in Austin and oh, but where did I get this? I was in live. Have you heard of it? I was out there in the fields. The merch was fine. Some of it was laughably overpriced. Like I'm not going to give you, I'm not giving you 150 for a sweatshirt.
I'm just not, I love it. You know, I'm just not, I'm just not, I'm a jerk, whatever. I'm not doing that. I hear you. We've got a few things. Uh, some scarves and stuff like that was reasonable. I spent more than I wanted, but it also couldn't be avoided. It's an investment in the trip and it is kind of a declaration that we were there, right?
So seven nights, plus a game, an amazing fan experience? Yes. Under 10, 000? Yes. Around the holidays? Yeah. I mean, we got, you know, and Paris was its own. Wonderful. In some ways it wound up being like a, like a getaway weekend because we were only there for three days and two nights and really more like two and a half days.
Right? Like we got there in the late morning, early afternoon on the 27th. We stayed the night of the 27th, the night of the 28th, we come home back to London. I say home, London, it really, we wore London well, right? It was great. And when we came back, it was like, Oh, this is cool. We're back in like, like, yeah, we're back in London.
You know, I've done that myself. And the thing that's a little crazy, the first time I ever felt culture shock, like literal culture shock was getting off the Eurostar at Garda Nord. And getting off and looking at all the signs and listening to everything and being like, Whoa, whoa, whoa. I don't know any French.
I have, I have no idea where I'm going. So I, and then also that part of where Garden Nord is, isn't like the best spot, you know, it's kind of East Oakland ish over there. So anyway, then you, you know, you, you find some way to get to wherever your hotel is and then you're off and running. It was good because we, you know.
Maybe other people are used to this, but you know, we're living outta suitcases, obviously. Right. Like our whole, our whole world is in two bags or whatever, so. Right. It was kind of nice to be able to just get on the train with our bags, load our luggage. The other thing I'll add to, I know we're, I hope we're not jumping around too much for you, but No, what the other, the other important, again, this is just a quality of life cool thing that Costco did, they, when they booked the Eurostar for us on our behalf, it also included a meal.
You know, it's a two hour. Train ride, which sounded kind of lame and long, but honestly it was super pleasant, very clean, very almost quasi futuristic looking, but like the food again was delicious and the staff were, they were wonderful, just total pros. It was like a, like a yummy cold sandwich thing and Shannon got white wine and it was fancy.
It was really nice. I think that was the like top tier ticket, but it was. Just a matter of, it was just a matter of course for Costco. I think that's not all they offer, but yeah, no, no, they, but they did the extra mile, whether they went through in an operator or went to Eurostar directly and negotiated that.
You're getting that, I'm in Torrey, but it's just, it was such a nice quality of life, little extra thing there. And, you know, we got a snack and we weren't starving when we got to the hotel and it was just nice, it was just classy and it. It made us feel fancy, right? It was cool. So Malcolm, in terms of the experience itself and the booking experience, what are some, I guess, words of wisdom you could provide to anybody who's looking to do the same thing you did?
I mean, I'm sure there's a few Liverpool fans, or at least we'll tag them on a social media and you could, you could talk about your experience. Like, what would you tell them? What are the top things? That you would have done maybe differently or not. Oh, sure. That's a really good question. I'm trying to think if we had any real like regrets, right?
I think I would say part of this is just these are the unknowables. You don't know what you don't know. Um, I, you know, I'm not a, and I'll say that this is also my own personal bias. So take this with a grain of salt. I'm not a big tour guy. I don't really enjoy traveling like that. I tend to. You know, I'll do my research about things to check out online and go and do those things, but I don't love structured presentations of destinations.
I just don't, probably to my detriment, to be honest, I'm really happy what we took the tour because like the museums there, for example, are all free. You know, they're paid by public tax, right? So, there's no entry, like, we stayed very, very close to Trafalgar Square, and there's a national museum there. It's awesome.
And we went, and it was time well spent, but I wonder if we could have rung out a little bit more. Cultural interest. If we had done another walking tour, if I had sort of swallowed my pride and, you know, followed the person with a little flag, we get a little bit more. If you do some of that stuff, I don't know.
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Not to say that Costco doesn't, we actually had had some credit left on our voucher sort of account because we weren't able to use everything partially because our three day, the 26th, we went to the game, right? So that was our sort of. special day, but for people trying to do this themselves, I, I think if you've never been, and even if you have, I think you're better off connecting with a partner, right?
Who just knows more and can give you options. The thing that I really liked was it's kind of building modules, right? Air travel, daytimes, windows, et cetera, et cetera. Logistics, you sort of check that section. Now, accommodation, proximity to things, price. Availability, et cetera, et cetera. So, you know, the, so you sort of check that box, right.
And then the train, same thing, windows, you know, the only thing that we were really like calling audibles on, it was like the cab from the Paris train station to the hotel, you know, we stayed at a Sofitel, which was very nice, right. And I, I knew that brand from having worked in hospitality before, top shelf brand, like just again, classy people, wonderful restaurant, just class, you know, great product, just professionals.
Yeah. I would say. Even if you're confident you might be missing out if you don't have a travel partner or someone's kind of driving your itinerary for you, it helps to have support. I would definitely do it again that way. It sounds like you had a great experience using Costco Travel. But it would have been, and I would put it, you're talking about an eight and a half, nine here, but to put it over to the 10 plus would be whether or not they just had a ticket package for the Liverpool.
And then, cause then it's game over. Like I, yeah, without any equivocation either. And at that point. We can't be the only international travelers going to the game, you know, if they had kind of put a shuttle together, like we'll get up at two or three hotels and run you guys up there in a, in a coach or a van or whatever, or, you know, airport shuttle or offer rental car, you know, people want to do it like that.
Now, again, that's the boxing day sort of.
I think it's really quick. I think it's like a two and a half hour, three hour trip. It's nothing. You're on a plane with people doing, living their lives. Don't, yeah. But I mean that, you know, everyone has their own experience and when they go, there's going to be, that was just one of those travel anomalies that, that you and Shannon had to experience just to overcome it.
Right. As like, yeah. And then partially, I'm not going to. Cause I kind of thought about design, maybe it's just not, don't push it, man, you know what I mean? I was like, Oh, we're here. Like we're four hours away. You can't like, we can do this. That's the, that's a trip from Las Vegas to LA in a car. Like I can do that.
Well, Hey man, thanks for your, uh, your experience. I mean, there are, uh, countless takeaways here for the travel and ticketing industry. I think that we will, we will summarize here shortly, but again, thanks for joining us on tickets to travel. We really appreciate your time. I love it, man. Alright then, thanks.
That wraps up Malcolm Hardiman's epic Boxing Day adventure. So what did we learn, guys? First, Costco travel isn't just for bulk paper towels and toilet paper. It's a surprisingly solid way to book a trip. But let's face it, the travel and ticketing world could step up its game quite a bit. How about a one stop shop package that bundles airfare, hotel, and maybe a behind the scenes tour of Anfield?
Fans would love it, and their wallets might actually survive the trip. Oh, and the ticket part? Seriously, we can stop the scavenger hunt, right? Teams and venues can partner with reputable resellers, so fans aren't left Googling. Is this guy in a parking lot legit? Malcolm made it work, but let's aim for fewer gray hairs in the process, right?
At the end of the day, fans like Malcolm remind us why this matters, because nothing beats the magic of being there. Until next time, keep dreaming, keep planning your travel trips and experiences, and keep rooting for your favorite team or artist. And hey, don't forget to subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts, because Tickets to Travel is just getting started, so we'll see you on the next Fan Travel Story.
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Welcome to Tickets2Travel, the business of travel experiences, and we are now starting a brand new series called Fan Travel Stories. The series where travel tales meet market research. Because nothing says we can do it better than a passionate fan looking to make their travel experience dreams come true.
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By planning their trips and buying a ticket for that coveted event. In this first episode, we meet Malcolm Hardiman, an American based die hard Liverpool fan who braved the holiday chaos to see his team take on Newcastle over Boxing Day. That makes things complicated. From booking his dream trip through Costco travelyes, that Costco To navigating the quirky twists of scoring game tickets at Anfield, Malcolm's Adventure is part comedy, part inspiration, and a whole lot of what can we learn from this, guys?
So buckle up, grab your scarf, and prepare to laugh, nod, and maybe even say, I didn't know Costco did that. And Hey, remember to subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts because tickets to travel starts now.
Hey everyone. Welcome to tickets to travel. This is Mario Bedouin. We talked about the business of travel experiences, and today we got something a little bit different. We're going to talk about the fan travel experience. In our series, we'd like to highlight various fans who went out of their way to show their passion for either their team, their artists.
A particular brand, doesn't matter what it is and how they created the journey to fulfill that passion. And so today we have a good friend of mine, we've known each other for a long time, Malcolm Hardiman. Welcome to the pod. Thank you for having me. Yes, friend. It has been multiple decades. Yeah. Multiple decades.
Are we really going to say that? I mean, that's like, uh, yeah, yeah, we're, we're old at this point. Well, you were kind of an inspiration for this series because of the, the various B2B businesses that we work with, or we highlight on the pod. But essentially it got me to ask the question in general was that when we, we'd known each other since we were probably 18 years old, but I never knew you as a sports fan.
That's a pretty recent development. Music was fine. You know, we, we had our, our time, we'd go to shows we do, you know, you were a DJ. Obviously, but when did you become an English Premier League fan, and which team specifically did you start to support? As they say, in the uk, that is what they say. So I started to get really serious about soccer after the, I guess that was the 1112 World Cup in South Africa.
I think a lot of American fans watch World Cup soccer because it's just exciting, right? Kind of like the Olympics, but with soccer exclusively, which is cool. And I like that the cadence every four years, you know, there's a big buildup. It's cool. I also know that football and soccer is beloved and watched the world over except in the United States.
At least back then it was still kind of a niche sport, right? A niche sport, Malcolm, but like I played it all my life and I was also always very somewhat annoyed that you weren't a sports fan back then. That's right. You know, not in a bad way, but it's just, it is the nature of cultural interest, right? The NFL kind of dominates the American conversation and the NBA too, especially back then.
So it's always interested me that soccer and football, basically 90 percent of the world, the entire planet loves soccer and we don't. And I just always thought that was an interesting kind of challenge to myself to, you know, I want to understand what is all the buzz about, right? Not to be contrarian or different or any of that, but Just as cultural cachet, what does everybody know that I don't, you know, why is this a thing?
So, my girlfriend, soon to be fiance and wife, and I were watching matches in South Africa. We were living in Las Vegas, but we were watching games overseas. She had a great time with it, I had a great time with it, and I just, honestly, I just decided, I just decided, I said, I'm going to Be able to sit down for 90 minutes, watch a match, speak intelligently about it, and see what I'm missing.
And so, I decided to go with The Premier League for all kinds of reasons, mainly because it's in English, right? That would be probably the main reason, as opposed to Well, not that it's also the highest level of I think it's the big Processional soccer that is not on a world class platform. Bundesliga, which is competitive, and Wunderfuls, La Liga, they're all great, but I do think the Premier League is on the top of all of those, respectfully.
Respectfully. So that's right. So 11, 12. So yeah, so the 12, 13 season I started watching, I hadn't really picked a team yet. I was kind of taking the season to decide. I was looking at Chelsea football club. I was looking at Tottenham, Arsenal. Yeah. Big, you know, big, the big teams, not because not for any other reason, but just those are the ones that attracted me.
And I had some basic inkling of, of what those teams were about. And I also was watching Liverpool football club for a variety of reasons, namely Steven Gerrard, who was a transformational midfielder for the position for the team, for the position I'm in for soccer as a whole football as a whole, they just captivated me.
And I was like, I like Liverpool's now I have selected Liverpool is the side that I'm going to support my ride or die team. So when you made that That decision. Yes. You were living in Las Vegas, Nevada. That's right. And so as a U. S. fan living in Las Vegas of Liverpool football club, was there any support in the Las Vegas area that sort of enhanced your fandom?
Good question. At that time, Not to the short answer is not to my knowledge, not then. And so in between, so once I've sort of adopted Liverpool, we then moved to Austin, Texas, and we were in Austin, Texas for 11 years. Great town, a big soccer town. This is before Austin FC, right? They, this is before an MLS team has come that are no professional sports in Austin.
There is a very robust, well organized rabid fandom of an official Liverpool supporters club. That is sanctioned by Liverpool. There's a charter in place and there's some, you know, rules and general guidelines that you have to do to be awarded that designation from the club. But, you know, and there's support around that.
But the official Liverpool Supporters Club is, is a machine in Austin. Now I'm not exactly sure why that is in terms of, are these U. S. based fans? Are these overseas fans that live in Austin? Could be a combination of all that. No, I would credit it to the, let's say it's a fan club, supporters club organizational structure, right?
Because they're constantly managing that list of fans, creating events around games, pushing merchandise, I'm sure. But also to get a yearly, you know, annual sort of scarf range and stuff that they release, they also have built a great relationship with. It's a club in Austin at BD Riley's and that's the other kind of fulcrum point for fandom, right?
Like everybody goes to BD's for the games, you know, champions league, regular season games, cup games, that's where it all happens. And that's everybody's comes out in their kit and it's, it's good times. And you know, obviously there's camaraderie there and, and all that, especially if you're new to Austin, Texas, right?
You started to develop a community from being a Liverpool football club fan. And associating yourself to that organization, would you say that's accurate? Oh yeah, and they're, you know, welcoming bunch and good times and bads, wins, losses, all the, all the drama of it, right? It's uh, It's the emotion. It is.
Of the experience. Opera football is very It's very romantic, right? I mean, it's very, it's, it's very, it's a romantic enterprise to sort of watch and, and sort of the highest highs and the lowest lows. That's what makes it exciting. So you've developed a community. You are a loyal Liverpool football club fan.
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You know, everything about the team. You also, there was a story, right? You won some award or you, you did something in particular where you, you sent this to me, you remember what I'm talking about? You were on a TV show or a radio show. You submitted something. I, you remember? It had to do with Liverpool where they identified you as some type of fan was, were you betting on the game?
Was it? In Austin? Maybe it was. Oh, maybe it was this. It wasn't anything formal, but we, uh, the, the, the Premier League has started doing those fan fests here in the United States, picking cities. A few years ago, they had selected Austin. This is just as, uh, Austin FC has come online. I think they were there the six months, maybe before the season was going to start their, their inaugural premier season.
Maybe something along those lines, I think I had gotten a chance to talk to Rebecca Lowe and Robby Musto and Robby Earl and maybe something along those lines. But did you do, you were on a video or another, maybe another podcast or something like that where they were asking you questions about I did make a really funny, fun Men in Blazers.
You've seen like the Men in Blazers podcast? This is what I'm talking about. So let's made a I wrote and illustrated a Men in Blazers. Podcast, color ebook, just as a gag. It was a PDF that they have on their site, I'll send you the link, but it was just a good time. All that to say, too, soccer makes you do crazy things, right?
It does. It's not my fault. It's football's fault. Well, I mean, shout out to the Men in Blazers, obviously, right? And what is the Men in Blazers exactly? Uh, so they, they were initially a podcast run by Roger Bennett and Michael Davies. Michael Davies actually has a huge television career. I think he's an executive producer on big shows through Bravo.
I have a TV man, uh, Roger Bennett's a writer, a brilliant writer, and a long, lifelong Everton supporter, which is coincidentally Liverpool's crosstown rival. So they had gotten together and started doing a football podcast, kind of for an American audience, which is great. They also had and have, uh, an NBC television show, a half an hour sort of sports recap show of the previous weekend's games that's on terrestrial broadcast television.
Very funny, very entertaining, kind of hard not to get caught up in it with those guys. And their podcast is really funny, and so yeah, it's the Men in Blazers, and just had become a fan. And sort of as a result of that, just there's a lot of, like in any sort of, sort of like niche fandom, there's a lot of memes and inside jokes and just general camaraderie.
And, and that's why I'm putting you as a little bit more of a highlighted Liverpool fan because you did these type of things very passionate about. So in terms of you sitting in your living room with Shannon and saying, you know what, I want to go see a game in Liverpool. What was the, I guess. We're getting at is travel planning.
There's a couple of different stages to all of this. One, there's the initiation of it. Like I'm a fan. I want to do this. The first thing is how do I, how do I get there? Maybe from the U S perspective, but if you're in the UK, it's really about buying tickets. So as someone who's sitting in Austin, Texas and looking at creating a trip there, what was your thought process in terms of booking the trip?
There were several drivers here all at once. I don't want to get too, I don't want to back up too far. But so we went in 2018, Shannon was turning 40 that year. So we kind of wanted to celebrate that in a, in a big way or as big a way as we could. We wanted to travel to the UK. We had decided to go at Christmas time.
Just as see a Christmas in London, kind of a romantic notion and just what a great way to celebrate the birthday and Christmas and all of that good stuff, right? As we started to have that conversation, also at the same time, I was like, you know what, maybe we can catch a match while we're at it, while we're in London, maybe Liverpool away or something like that.
At that point, I probably would have watched. Even as a neutral, anybody. I would have watched Chelsea at home, it's damp for break, I would have watched anybody. How special would it have been to be able to pull off catching the Reds while we're on our holiday? And I, and I understand that, like when I, I, I saw Spurs against Sunderland because I was in, I was in London for meetings.
And I was like, you know what, I'm, I'm still awake and I, I made a quick purchase and had great seats and I saw Harry Kane, second row, midfield, got to experience how they section off Sunderland fans away from the Spurs joust. And this was in the original thing. White Hart Lane. Yeah, it's in White Hart Lane.
Versus I think it was like one of the last games before they were going to knock it down and build the new one. So I was like, wow, this is a, it's an amazing experience. But I was there because I was working and I made it part of the trip versus what you're doing. You're like, this is. Yes. Destination is London, but the intention was really to go to the city.
And it was in the sense that we're already going to be there. Let's parlay this. Because, you know, I'm a working class guy. Like we're not going to have a lot of bites at the Apple to go overseas conveniently. Right. So to be frank, we wanted to pack in as much as we could and really maximize our time. So that was kind of the calculus for adding Liverpool to what was a great trip already on its own.
We added this sort of game component to it that really took it up to 12. I mean, it really made it special and memorable. And we actually wound up going to the match on Boxing Day, December 26th, which, this is a true story, that is my wife's birthday. So, we were at the game, on Boxing Day, on her birthday.
Happy 40th to her, but also happy, I'm not telling you how old I am, to me, uh, that's none of your business, but it wound up being one of those human experiences. Yes. It's overstated, but unforgettable experience cannot be stated enough. And hence why we're sitting here, grab the tickets to travel podcast.
So that's, that's amazing. We will, we will talk more about that experience, but in terms of the planning of the trip, how did you book your travel and what was sort of the process? Was it, was it value? Was it ease of use? Was it, how did you arrive on getting yourself from Austin to London and then eventually to Liverpool?
I was thinking, there's a, there's an interesting post script about that or asterisks about traveling on Boxing Day in Europe. So we had initially just started doing this the hard, stupid way a la carte, looking directly at hotels or Google searches, Expedia, just kind of getting a lay of the land, right?
So once we kind of committed to the idea, Shannon found that our Costco membership also has the benefit of a huge travel arm and sort of an entire, an entire machine dedicated to travel through Costco. I was initially skeptical, like, that sounds kind of. Not going to be meaning you're typically going to Costco to get toilet paper and bottles of water in bulk.
Yeah. And now the concept of them selling you travel was a little foreign. It just felt a little not in their wheelhouse, right? Like just not a, not a competency of theirs. No disrespect, right? Sure. And also I was coming to that conclusion in ignorance. So Shannon pursued it and, and she quickly won me over and got me on board.
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They had had, they had a package that was. Taylor made for us, it was a trip to London and Paris, like a combination trip. They've set up the days, calendar wise, but also logistics wise, it was basically two trips. We did a large portion in London, we did a short portion in Paris, and then back to London, and then home.
So they kind of built the trip that way for us. So once, once we had gotten, arrived to this as our provider, it was, I cannot stress to you enough, like, what a comically laughably seamless process this was for us. Now was this mainly online or did, did you speak to somebody over the phone? To be honest, They are so buttoned up and squared away and their interface and their, their front end is so strong that we only really had to have one conversation through their 1 800 number once to just confirm some small, minute detail.
But it is effectively a fully online experience that is clear, robust. It, it offers options. Basically, they gave you a list of hotel partners that they work with and in contract with. And we made our selection based on where we wanted to be in London. Having never been there, it doesn't really matter because we don't know any better, but we were making some educated guesses and, and some of that stuff.
So we selected our hotel. So this included air hotel. This included the Eurostar Eurorail from London to Paris, the ticket, forth and back, the two nights in France, and then yeah, our outbound. Inbound to London Heathrow and outbound to London Heathrow back to Texas. So it was truly an all inclusive experience.
It was our air. Our hotel for our entire stay and the train to get us from London to Paris. Now, now, wait a second. Did Costco sell you the tickets to the Liverpool game? They didn't. Really? They did not. Elevate your travel business with Victory Live, the platform featuring six billion dollars in professional sports, concerts, festivals, and theater inventory, including Broadway hits, Las Vegas shows, and top events like Coachella.
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How did you upon your, this is the asterisks that I want to circle back to. So this is the. This is the sort of extra part that we had to build for ourselves, uh, which isn't a bad thing, but it was a thing that we had to do, mainly because, uh, in Europe, I mean, I knew this, but didn't know it, know it, the whole country shuts down in England for Boxing Day.
It is a bank, a high holiday. There is nothing open. It's very similar to Christmas, basically the 25th and the 26th in a good way. People are at home with their families and like. Doing things that make them happy, which I am in full support of all that to say trains don't run because normally you could take a train from London to Liverpool, probably 300 miles away, 250 miles away.
So not so that's what it that's like a four hour change, right? Well, probably less than on train, but like a four hour car ride. So if I got nothing, actually, the other thing I need to mention as well that Costco offered, which was great. They also gave us travel tour vouchers for a tour company on Christmas day, because the whole country's pretty much shut down.
We got to use a travel voucher to take a tour and we got to go all over England. They put us on a bus with other tours, right. We went through Greenwich and saw where the, where Greenwich mean time is set up at the, at the Naval Academy. Like, that's cool. Yeah. I just see the white cliffs of Dover, which was cool.
They took us to Canterbury, and we got to go to Christmas service, uh, with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Church of England church service, like, it was just cool to see the The cathedral, I mean, it's, it's quite impressive and we were getting all the, you know, in Canterbury is this old, you know, old, old city, you know, like it sounds, you know, exaggerated or hyperbolic.
It's not. I mean, these are old, old, ancient places. Amazing. You sound very American right now, by the way. Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah. We drove through Kent and they did all, they basically, they did a great tour. It was an all day affair for Christmas. So we weren't just sitting in the hotel cause there's nothing to do.
We really made the use of our time and Costco set that all that was included in our price. That was just great value, right? Like just as a customer, but also it wound up being this pretty significant part of the consumer. So let's talk about price for, for just a second. I mean, there's been a little bit of time and you know, we would think that that is a maybe somewhat shoulder high demand period maybe, or maybe it's coming off of a, of a low upper shoulder demand time for London in particular.
How did you view the price and if you remember what the price of the package was versus maybe individually shopping it, because obviously when they're packaging all of these components, they're getting, as you know, net pricing and such, and they're creating a margin there. But overall, if you were to book all of these separate pieces, it would probably be, I don't know, probably another 20 to 30 percent more.
Do you think that that was easily, I felt like we would have gotten, if we had tried to do this. And build at retail a la carte, I think we would have gotten killed. I think it would have been prohibitively expensive. And also, prohibitively expensive slash really hard to build the tim Cause a lot of this is timetable stuff.
Especially relative to the Paris trip because they booked the train, they gave us windows of times when we could leave. But I don't think I would have been confident enough to go to the train station website, buy the tickets and know that How long everything take. I just don't think I would have that confidence.
I didn't have that savvy. I still don't. I would still rely on a partner to sort of set this up for us. They did all the legwork in, in. All the best ways. Global transparency and convenience. And if you remember, it doesn't have to be exact, but what is the sort of range of price for the amount of times you were there?
Yeah, it was probably between like 8, 500 or something like that. Per person or for both of you? For the whole, for the whole show. For the whole, for the both of you to travel and you were there for seven nights? Yeah, give or take. We got there on the 24th and we left on the 1st. Yeah, that's fantastic.
That's amazing. It was not over 9, 000. I just don't remember that. Okay, so then, now you have to find tickets to the, mainly the, yes, it was Shannon's birthday, but let's, let's be real. So, how did you find your tickets and where did you sit? And give me give me those details because that's going to add on to that 7, let's call it 8, 000.
So this is, this is also a function of Anfield is the stadium that Liverpool plays at. I think a lot of stadiums are like this. They have a lot of seating, but only 50, 000, right? And it's also, you know, Liverpool live and work and play in the city of Liverpool. So there's fans there that just are. From Liverpool or in the, in the area and love the team and go every week.
There's a huge quantity of tickets that are already spoken for week in week out. So when you're buying tickets from America or possibly any foreign country, I'm saying this badly, but maybe this will further illustrate the point. It's a pain in the ass to do it. It's really hard and convoluted and is stressful.
(01:04):
That was. Honestly, buying the tickets to the match was the most difficult. thing about the trip so that, you know, it's particularly hard because of what you described. So you know, you have these club teams that have been in this stadium for X amount of years, literally they're selling seat licenses and a lot of it are just passed down from generation to generation.
So usually how we're used to buying a ticket here is maybe Stubhub versus there. It's really tough to aggregate that inventory. So, and then because the, the fans themselves are so loyal, they don't care, they don't care who they play. They're going to go, they're going to show up. So finding that inventory can be somewhat tough.
And so that's why I'm asking. So much so that we could not buy a straight pair of tickets just to the match. What I wound up having to do was purchase a package that included like a dinner, like near Liverpool at this beautiful facility, but it basically included dinner. A Liverpool fanny pack, I don't know, whatever, right?
Like some basic stuff. It's very close to the ground so you could, you could eat and then walk. But because it was Boxing Day and we had to drive from London for our trip, we didn't have time to get there before the dinner. Basically, I couldn't even use that part of the package. Like we just got. We just took an L on that and just got burnt on eating because we had to go straight to the game.
It's a 3 p. m. kickoff or, but we had to leave London like 8 in the morning just to, you know, it was, it was pretty hairy. Like we were barely getting there on time. We don't know where we're going. We're just trying to figure this out, right? Yeah. So I had to buy the tickets with this package, which we couldn't even use, uh, just to get to the game.
But I was like, well, In for a penny, in for a pound, we're doing this. So, Malcolm, you're hitting on some, uh, some interesting topics because most people don't realize this, but it's illegal, almost illegal. There's a lot of weird legislation there to resell. A ticket in the UK or in Europe. Oh, I did not know that.
Okay. Especially to someone who's international. So what you said tracks in a big way in terms of, I had an earlier episode, uh, episode 10 with, um, one of the guys who's kind of an old school reseller. And so he sees this as an emerging market for U. S. international people to purchase EPL tickets and so on and so forth.
Because of that reseller rule. And it's exactly that. It just has to be a dinner or it has to be a, a t shirt, but it has to hide the cost of the, of the base ticket price. Right? So my question to you is who'd you buy that through? So I bought it directly through Liverpool, liverpool. com or liverpoolfc. com or whatever, or co.
uk, you know, I'm identifying myself as an American or an overseas purchaser. And I felt like. It kind of put us into this separate web module that was To dib. And at liverpool. com, I mean that is clear, right? It felt like as a user that I was in a separate part of the site that was set up for our situation.
Tickets, we don't live there, etc, etc. There just wasn't real click. Like, even after I, I like, you know, triple check the times and the price and everything, there was a sense that even after I had put in the credit card information and pulled the trigger, I wasn't like totally confident that it actually worked, that I was actually going to get the ticket.
We did, and it's fine, but there was probably a few days where I was like, well, I either just got hustled through some weird scam site or we're going to a Liverpool game. It could go either way. 50 50. You'll see. Well, that's, that's the challenge, right? When you're buying a resale ticket is whether or not those tickets are valid.
If you have the ability to transfer the ticket, these are, these are big topics in the war of resale tickets versus what, what Ticketmaster does, right? So, and we can, I can give you that education later, but not really important for this. So when did you get the tickets delivered and how did that, how was that process?
I'm looking at the ticket. We did get a hard copy ticket. Okay, so physical ticket and what I don't, this is what I don't remember. Did they mail them to us through DHL and do they come to the house or did we pick them up there and like a will call situation? That's right. And now that I'm talking about it, this was stress, this was, this was stressful.
I remember. They didn't mail the tickets to us because like I said, we'd purchased this dinner package, right? So all I had was basically like our confirmation number and a letter saying you bought this thing. So I basically took the letter to the, to the facility that they were hosting the dinner at, and they had the tickets in an envelope that they gave to us.
Oh, wow. Okay. So the package, so you had to, so the restaurant served as will call to a certain degree. Yes. So when you show up, you show my dear, Hey, I'm this American guy. I need my tickets. And so it's quite possible that that Owner of that establishment had that you're buying their tickets, your AV. And at this point, I mean, we're so committed now, you know, well, this is the other thing I had to rent a car, right.
Which we could not do through Costco. I would have, but it just, I had to rent a car because we had to, we could not take a train or public transportation. We had a boxing day and, or, and I'm pretty sure you you're used to driving on the opposite side of the road. I am absolutely not accustomed to that.
And that is a very stressful thing, which it's fine. Once you're on the freeway, right. Bye. Getting out of London and getting back into London, that is a level of concentration that I do not want to employ anytime soon again. So you go to this pub restaurant, pick up your tickets. It's maybe a few blocks away from, from airfield.
That's exactly right. It's. Less than 10 blocks. And so what was the price of the tickets? I believe the package and everything. And again, I don't know the price of the ticket, right? Right. I want to say it was about 500 bucks for us to go for a pair. That's right. I'll give you a little bit more, but under 600, like we, I want to be in a couple hundred dollars a ticket in my brain.
And so in terms of accessing the stadium, what, what happened next? You had the hard ticket. They scanned it. We envelope with the, yep, here you go. It reminds me a lot of, um, Lambo Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin, which I've never been to, but like where there are residences adjacent to this. Oh, sure. Same thing.
It's in the city. Yeah, it's in a neighborhood. It's not like the Foxborough, yeah. Out in the middle, nowhere. Like in this parking lot, like out in this weird industrial area, like it's in the city. It's embedded. It's a part of the community. It's very cool. But we walk, you know, the 10 blocks we produce our, you know, and it's, again, we're partially, this is just, we're just very disoriented, right?
Never been there, et cetera, et cetera. So we're trying to find the right gate or sort of gantry to get onto and all that. But, you know, we turn in the tickets, we walk up a few flights. Our seat is we're sitting on the Anfield road. So there's two sides, right? Uh, The cop end, which is where all the supporters are, like the hardcore supporters with the flags and the singing.
(01:25):
Awesome. We're on the infield roadside. So we're looking at the cop, which is great because I want to see those guys singing and the scars and the whole thing. Right. So for us, that was better. So we're sitting on the infield roadside. We are up. We're almost directly. We're at the left hand corner of the goal up at up a level.
So there's one level below us and we're very, very close to the edge. Of the upper level. Okay. Dynamite seats is the short answer. On, on a, on a corner or midfield or? Uh, mid. We're almost behind the goal, like directly behind the goal, just to the left. Pretty cheap ass seat. So much so that we were playing Newcastle that day.
So Newcastle was facing us, uh, for the first half. But for the second half, Liverpool was coming towards us. So we got to see goals and like action up close. It was brilliant. It was amazing. Chills. Truly, you know, you're, you're fat, that the intention was fulfilled. Oh yeah. Like the fan travel mission was accomplished.
Yes. And then, you know, I was having, you know, we're watching the game and it's great. We won four zero that day, crushed them. Right. It was awesome. And it was just a perfect game. It was brilliant. It's cold, but it was great. The other interesting thing, this is also just, I've only been overseas once, but the food was pretty delicious in all phases of.
Well, I was going to ask you this in the stadium itself. So you, you, you get, I mean, there's nothing like having that feeling when you get to your seats and then you see it, you're like, okay, how are we going to plan this out? This is amazing. You stay here. I'm going to go get. Whatever. So if you remember, what did you get and what was about the pricing about it?
Because I'm just curious. I think people are curious about swag stuff. It, whatever, whatever kind of completed your experience. I remember the food being fairly priced, but it was so like, they did like a hot dog and a bun thing, like a bagel thing. It was just like, it was really well cooked. It was just good food, you know, and then they did a meat pie.
Super good, like, it felt like the carrots were real, the peach were real, the potato, like, it felt like real food and like a real baked crust, like it was a baked item. It was delicious, is all I'm saying, and it felt reasonably priced, nothing crazy. Of course, we went to the merch shop after the match to get some memorabilia, I mean, you have to, I mean, I'm not that cool or cynical to say, oh, you know what, I'm good, like, I'm, you know.
You also want to go back to Austin and flex, right? Like, you're like, I, I'm going back to the pub in Austin and oh, but where did I get this? I was in live. Have you heard of it? I was out there in the fields. The merch was fine. Some of it was laughably overpriced. Like I'm not going to give you, I'm not giving you 150 for a sweatshirt.
I'm just not, I love it. You know, I'm just not, I'm just not, I'm a jerk, whatever. I'm not doing that. I hear you. We've got a few things. Uh, some scarves and stuff like that was reasonable. I spent more than I wanted, but it also couldn't be avoided. It's an investment in the trip and it is kind of a declaration that we were there, right?
So seven nights, plus a game, an amazing fan experience? Yes. Under 10, 000? Yes. Around the holidays? Yeah. I mean, we got, you know, and Paris was its own. Wonderful. In some ways it wound up being like a, like a getaway weekend because we were only there for three days and two nights and really more like two and a half days.
Right? Like we got there in the late morning, early afternoon on the 27th. We stayed the night of the 27th, the night of the 28th, we come home back to London. I say home, London, it really, we wore London well, right? It was great. And when we came back, it was like, Oh, this is cool. We're back in like, like, yeah, we're back in London.
You know, I've done that myself. And the thing that's a little crazy, the first time I ever felt culture shock, like literal culture shock was getting off the Eurostar at Garda Nord. And getting off and looking at all the signs and listening to everything and being like, Whoa, whoa, whoa. I don't know any French.
I have, I have no idea where I'm going. So I, and then also that part of where Garden Nord is, isn't like the best spot, you know, it's kind of East Oakland ish over there. So anyway, then you, you know, you, you find some way to get to wherever your hotel is and then you're off and running. It was good because we, you know.
Maybe other people are used to this, but you know, we're living outta suitcases, obviously. Right. Like our whole, our whole world is in two bags or whatever, so. Right. It was kind of nice to be able to just get on the train with our bags, load our luggage. The other thing I'll add to, I know we're, I hope we're not jumping around too much for you, but No, what the other, the other important, again, this is just a quality of life cool thing that Costco did, they, when they booked the Eurostar for us on our behalf, it also included a meal.
You know, it's a two hour. Train ride, which sounded kind of lame and long, but honestly it was super pleasant, very clean, very almost quasi futuristic looking, but like the food again was delicious and the staff were, they were wonderful, just total pros. It was like a, like a yummy cold sandwich thing and Shannon got white wine and it was fancy.
It was really nice. I think that was the like top tier ticket, but it was. Just a matter of, it was just a matter of course for Costco. I think that's not all they offer, but yeah, no, no, they, but they did the extra mile, whether they went through in an operator or went to Eurostar directly and negotiated that.
You're getting that, I'm in Torrey, but it's just, it was such a nice quality of life, little extra thing there. And, you know, we got a snack and we weren't starving when we got to the hotel and it was just nice, it was just classy and it. It made us feel fancy, right? It was cool. So Malcolm, in terms of the experience itself and the booking experience, what are some, I guess, words of wisdom you could provide to anybody who's looking to do the same thing you did?
I mean, I'm sure there's a few Liverpool fans, or at least we'll tag them on a social media and you could, you could talk about your experience. Like, what would you tell them? What are the top things? That you would have done maybe differently or not. Oh, sure. That's a really good question. I'm trying to think if we had any real like regrets, right?
I think I would say part of this is just these are the unknowables. You don't know what you don't know. Um, I, you know, I'm not a, and I'll say that this is also my own personal bias. So take this with a grain of salt. I'm not a big tour guy. I don't really enjoy traveling like that. I tend to. You know, I'll do my research about things to check out online and go and do those things, but I don't love structured presentations of destinations.
I just don't, probably to my detriment, to be honest, I'm really happy what we took the tour because like the museums there, for example, are all free. You know, they're paid by public tax, right? So, there's no entry, like, we stayed very, very close to Trafalgar Square, and there's a national museum there. It's awesome.
And we went, and it was time well spent, but I wonder if we could have rung out a little bit more. Cultural interest. If we had done another walking tour, if I had sort of swallowed my pride and, you know, followed the person with a little flag, we get a little bit more. If you do some of that stuff, I don't know.
(01:46):
Not to say that Costco doesn't, we actually had had some credit left on our voucher sort of account because we weren't able to use everything partially because our three day, the 26th, we went to the game, right? So that was our sort of. special day, but for people trying to do this themselves, I, I think if you've never been, and even if you have, I think you're better off connecting with a partner, right?
Who just knows more and can give you options. The thing that I really liked was it's kind of building modules, right? Air travel, daytimes, windows, et cetera, et cetera. Logistics, you sort of check that section. Now, accommodation, proximity to things, price. Availability, et cetera, et cetera. So, you know, the, so you sort of check that box, right.
And then the train, same thing, windows, you know, the only thing that we were really like calling audibles on, it was like the cab from the Paris train station to the hotel, you know, we stayed at a Sofitel, which was very nice, right. And I, I knew that brand from having worked in hospitality before, top shelf brand, like just again, classy people, wonderful restaurant, just class, you know, great product, just professionals.
Yeah. I would say. Even if you're confident you might be missing out if you don't have a travel partner or someone's kind of driving your itinerary for you, it helps to have support. I would definitely do it again that way. It sounds like you had a great experience using Costco Travel. But it would have been, and I would put it, you're talking about an eight and a half, nine here, but to put it over to the 10 plus would be whether or not they just had a ticket package for the Liverpool.
And then, cause then it's game over. Like I, yeah, without any equivocation either. And at that point. We can't be the only international travelers going to the game, you know, if they had kind of put a shuttle together, like we'll get up at two or three hotels and run you guys up there in a, in a coach or a van or whatever, or, you know, airport shuttle or offer rental car, you know, people want to do it like that.
Now, again, that's the boxing day sort of.
I think it's really quick. I think it's like a two and a half hour, three hour trip. It's nothing. You're on a plane with people doing, living their lives. Don't, yeah. But I mean that, you know, everyone has their own experience and when they go, there's going to be, that was just one of those travel anomalies that, that you and Shannon had to experience just to overcome it.
Right. As like, yeah. And then partially, I'm not going to. Cause I kind of thought about design, maybe it's just not, don't push it, man, you know what I mean? I was like, Oh, we're here. Like we're four hours away. You can't like, we can do this. That's the, that's a trip from Las Vegas to LA in a car. Like I can do that.
Well, Hey man, thanks for your, uh, your experience. I mean, there are, uh, countless takeaways here for the travel and ticketing industry. I think that we will, we will summarize here shortly, but again, thanks for joining us on tickets to travel. We really appreciate your time. I love it, man. Alright then, thanks.
That wraps up Malcolm Hardiman's epic Boxing Day adventure. So what did we learn, guys? First, Costco travel isn't just for bulk paper towels and toilet paper. It's a surprisingly solid way to book a trip. But let's face it, the travel and ticketing world could step up its game quite a bit. How about a one stop shop package that bundles airfare, hotel, and maybe a behind the scenes tour of Anfield?
Fans would love it, and their wallets might actually survive the trip. Oh, and the ticket part? Seriously, we can stop the scavenger hunt, right? Teams and venues can partner with reputable resellers, so fans aren't left Googling. Is this guy in a parking lot legit? Malcolm made it work, but let's aim for fewer gray hairs in the process, right?
At the end of the day, fans like Malcolm remind us why this matters, because nothing beats the magic of being there. Until next time, keep dreaming, keep planning your travel trips and experiences, and keep rooting for your favorite team or artist. And hey, don't forget to subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts, because Tickets to Travel is just getting started, so we'll see you on the next Fan Travel Story.
Safe travels, attention, travel and ticketing innovators, whether you're a startup disrupting the industry or an established company ready to take your distribution strategy to the next level. Expo travel is your ultimate partner in online travel and ticketing distribution. We specialize in helping businesses of all sizes optimize their operations.
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Visit Expo Travel today, that's xpotravel. com. for a consultation. And let's transform the way the world travels one innovation at a time. Expo travel because the future of travel and ticketing starts with you.
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