If you’re hunting for tickets for an Arsenal match it pays to know all about Arsenal Membership. Read on for our complete guide to being a member at Arsenal.
All About Arsenal Membership
Welcome to our guide to Arsenal Membership. We’ll do a deep dive on the Gunners’ various membership levels, and exactly what each one gives you. We’ll also explain how the new General Admission ballot ticketing system works. This was introduced at the start of the 2023-24 season, and has turned purchasing Arsenal tickets into a lottery. We will also weigh up Arsenal membership prices vs purchasing tickets on the Secondary Market. All information is accurate for April 2024.
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Arsenal FC Membership Levels
Arsenal offers a range of membership levels. If you’re trying to secure tickets for a one-off General Admission game, the only one you need to worry about is Red Membership, which we’ll cover first.
Arsenal Red Membership
At £34 a season, this is the basic membership for all Arsenal fans hoping to secure tickets via the club’s exclusive official channels. As with all of the other membership categories, Arsenal Red Membership comes with a personal seven-digit number that you’ll receive in an email from the Arsenal Box Office email account.
As of 2023-24, Red Members can enter a ballot for tickets for Arsenal’s home Premier League, FA Cup and European games. We’ll talk about this system in more detail below.
Included in this Arsenal Membership price is a 10% discount at the official Arsenal shop, either online or in-store. Added to that is a My Arsenal Rewards programme. An Arsenal Member can earn points with ticket and shop purchases, and as they accumulate, these points can be traded for special prizes and experiences that can’t be bought. It might be an exclusive tour of Arsenal’s London Colney training ground, the chance to meet first team players, or receiving match-worn shirts and training gear.
Membership renews automatically at the end of each season, but can be cancelled at any time of the year, and will be valid up until the end of the season.
The rule is one ticket per member. This is unless a match sells so few tickets that it goes on General Sale, which almost never happens for men’s first team games. In this rare instance, members can purchase multiple tickets.
Finally, there’s an exclusive Member Sales Window, which is purely for members to secure General Admission tickets for home EFL Cup matches. There are rarely more than one or two of these games each season.
Arsenal Silver Membership
Costing £54 a season, this exclusive membership tier is for Arsenal’s most loyal members who want General Admission seats but don’t have a season ticket. On purchasing membership, every Red Member is automatically entered into a long-term waiting list to graduate to Silver Arsenal Membership.
However, if Red Members do not renew their membership for a single season they will drop out of the Arsenal Silver Membership waiting list, and will reenter at the back of the queue the next time they renew.
So you can see how it’s only extremely loyal fans who manage to become Arsenal Silver Members.
Indeed, Silver Membership is difficult to attain. It is limited to 30,000 members and new ones are only accepted when members drop out. As an estimate, it can take 15 years or more for an Arsenal Red Member to be offered Silver Membership.
Those who do become Silver Members are proud of this status, as it shows they have been loyal to Arsenal for many years.
Aside from bragging rights, the benefit is exclusive access to ticket ballots before they become available to Red Members. Something to note is that the match-day ticket allocation for Arsenal Silver Members has been reduced over time. When we wrote this article in April 2024 there were around 2,000 seats available to Silver Members in the ballot, down from more than 7,000 via the old queue system in the 2010s. We’ll talk about the queue and ballot later in this article.
Aside from this priority ticket access, Silver Membership offers no additional perks over Red Membership.
Arsenal Junior Membership
Several categories, mostly in Red Membership, come under the Junior Gunners umbrella, available for fans aged 0-18.
Welcome to Our World (WtOW) applies to children aged 0-3. Requiring a one-off payment of £30, WtOW automatically places children on the Silver Membership waiting list.
Then there’s Team JGS for children aged 4-11, and Young Guns for those aged 12-16, both of which require an annual fee of £15. People with Arsenal Junior Membership can apply for a limited number of discounted tickets via the ballot process in the Family Enclosure, during a special window. This area can be found in the Clock End, in the Lower Tier in Blocks 26-30 and the Upper Tier in Block 117.
If unsuccessful in the Family Enclosure window, those with Arsenal Junior Membership can enter the main Silver (if applicable) and Red Membership ballots for full-priced tickets.
Meanwhile, Cannon Membership is for young people aged 17-18 and costs £30 a season, offers access to discounted tickets via the ballot system. Cannon Members might be Silver or Red Members, depending on how long they have been registered. Up to 1,000 discounted tickets are available for Cannon Members across the stadium, outside the Family Enclosure.
Arsenal Gold Membership
This membership level is simply an Arsenal season ticket. If you’re wondering how to get Arsenal Gold Membership, well, if you want the privilege of a season ticket you can join the Arsenal season ticket waiting list.
You do need to be prepared to wait for a long time. At our estimate in spring 2024, there were as many as 100,000 people on the list. Things move slowly, and at the current rate you could end up waiting as long as 20 years.
For the fortunate few, the Gold Members season tickets include 22 matches. When we wrote this article this entailed 19 home Premier League matches and three Group Stage UEFA Champions League games. Season Ticket Holders can also enter a Cup Scheme for all European and FA Cup matches.
At the time of writing, the Arsenal season ticket price ranged from £1,073 (Goal Lower) to £2,050 (Centre Upper) for an adult.
Arsenal Platinum Membership
This is a Club Level season ticket, for Arsenal’s premium Club Level seats, offering the best views in the stadium. Arsenal platinum membership is most expensive on the halfway line, and the seats become cheaper behind the goals and on the corners.
As of 2023-24, the Arsenal platinum membership cost ranged from £2,865 to £5,665. Then if you factor in seasonal dining at The WM Table, the price rises to more than £10,000 and £12,000 respectively.
How to become an Arsenal Platinum Member? The good news is the waiting list for Arsenal FC Platinum Membership is significantly shorter than for Gold Membership. You enter by paying a non-refundable deposit of 25% on the Club Level seat. After that it will take up to two years. As a rule of thumb, due to the high turnover, a ticket should become available in the season after you apply.
A couple of perks of Arsenal Platinum Membership are access to the deluxe concourse and its various lounges, and a complimentary drink at half-tme. Unlike Gold Membership, Platinum Membership includes access to every competitive men's first team match.
The same 25% deposit applies for the even more exclusive Avenell Club, which is on Box Level, in the northeast corner of the North Stand. There’s a variety of perks for this high-end membership tier, including access to Club Level and General Admission tickets, depending on availability. Other benefits include luxury padded seats, personalised seat plaques, a parking space, inclusive drinks packages, and access to a members’ bar with a clear view of the game.
Other Kinds of Arsenal FC Membership
There are a couple more membership sub-categories that we haven’t yet covered.
People aged 65 or over at the start of a new season are eligible for Arsenal Senior Citizen Membership, which has the same annual rate as Red or Silver Membership. As with most Junior Gunners categories, Senior Citizen Members can access a very limited number of discounted tickets in the Family Enclosure.
Costing £50 for adults (£25 for Juniors), Disability Access Membership is available to all Arsenal FC members with disability access requirements. This is subject to completion of an Access Requirement Form, with supporting evidence, and a conversation with the Disability Liaison Team to help understand your particular requirements.
There’s also an Arsenal Women Season Ticket, from as little as £80. This offers access to all 11 home fixtures in the Barclays Women’s Super League. Five of these fixtures are played at Emirates Stadium, while the other six are at Meadow Park in Borehamwood.
Finally you’ve got Arsenal Digital Membership. This is a free service, which simply requires registration with the Arsenal FC website. It offers access to the club’s digital content, which sometimes includes academy and U21 matches, and pre-season friendlies. There’s also a monthly newsletter, published in a variety of languages.
How Many Members Does Arsenal Have?
As we’ve seen, the benefit of being an Arsenal FC member is mostly to do with ticket access. As opposed to, say, clubs in Germany, Arsenal membership doesn’t give you a say on the administration of the club. Still, every few years some information is released about the number of Arsenal members.
At the most recent count there were just over 200,000 people with Arsenal Red Membership. This is in addition to the 42,000 Arsenal Gold members and the 30,000 people with Arsenal Silver Membership.
As a global club, it is estimated that Arsenal has more than a million people with Arsenal Digital Membership.
Getting Hold of Arsenal Tickets with Membership
At the start of the 2024-25 season Arsenal introduced a ballot system for all Arsenal membership levels not holding season tickets. This was a dramatic change from what came before. Ever since the club moved into Emirates Stadium in 2006-07, a queue system had been in place.
The Old Queue System
So with that process, tickets would be sold on a first come, first served basis.
People with Arsenal Silver Membership, who we’ll talk about later, were given priority, and were usually able to secure the tickets they wanted. After that there would be a queue system that Red Members could join.
This came with benefits and drawbacks. For the most part it was relatively easy for Red Members to secure tickets for less popular matches. The trick was to keep an eye on when the tickets went on sale, and get in quickly.
Unfortunately, the system wasn’t foolproof and was eventually scrapped in 2023. One problem was that people would waste a lot of time in a queue and still come away without a ticket. But a benefit of this flawed system was that it was possible to choose between cheaper or more expensive seats. This is not the case with the new ballot system, as we’ll explain.
The New Ballot System
So now, instead of using a queue system that creates a sudden scramble for tickets, there’s a different way of doing things.
Approximately 4-6 weeks before a match, Silver then Red Members are given a window, typically 48 hours, to enter a randomised ballot. Time is not a factor; there is no rush to get to the head of the queue, so your chances of securing a ticket will be the same whether you join when the window opens or just before it closes.
In this process you authorise a payment card when you enter the ballot. At the end of the process you will be informed whether your entry was successful or unsuccessful. If your entry is successful, your card will be automatically charged and seats will be assigned to you.
Something to note is that you cannot specify where you will sit or the price you will pay. The club publishes a price range, and you have no control where your ticket will be within these criteria.
Typically, the most expensive adult General Admission seats are near the halfway line in the Upper Tier (Centre Upper), while the cheapest will be behind the goal in the Lower Tier (Goal Lower). There are also match price categories ranging from A for the most coveted tickets, like derbies and top-table rivals, to C for matches against teams further down the league.
The lack of option to choose specific tickets is a real drawback compared to the previous queue system, in which you had the opportunity to select a section according to how much you wanted to pay.
Naturally if you enter the ballot as a pair or group, this will be taken into account and you will get seats together, or not at all.
In many ways, the new system is fairer. Previously, for the most popular matches it was common for Arsenal members to spend an hour or two online in the frantic rush for a ticket, only to discover that they had missed out.
At the end of the window, there is now a draw, and members are allocated seats at random. This is a lottery. In some rare cases the number of tickets available may exceed the number of ballot entries. In which case, everyone gets a ticket. In practice, demand far outstrips supply, and your chances of securing a ticket for most matches via the ballot are slim.
Ballot System for Arsenal Silver Members
As mentioned above, people with Arsenal Silver Membership are given priority in the ballot. But the reduced allocation of around 2,000 tickets, and the random nature of the ballot system, has made it an unreliable way to secure tickets.
Typically, only one in three ballot entries is successful for Silver Members. This has come as a shock to many long-term members who were accustomed to securing tickets easily via the queue system until recent years.
For this reason the club has made a few tweaks. Starting after the Arsenal vs Brentford match in March 2024, Silver Members were finally permitted to enter the Red Membership ballot if they failed to secure tickets earlier. This had not been possible before that game, as the club looked for ways to make the ballot system fairer for its various members.
Ticket Exchange
If you are unsuccessful in the ballot, there is another official fallback. This is the Ticket Exchange (TX), which was introduced as a way for Arsenal members of all stripes to pass their match ticket on to other members, strictly at face value.
In an effort to get as many genuine supporters into the stadium, the Ticket Exchange is initially only available to members who weren’t able to secure a ticket in the ballot.
If there are still tickets available on the Ticket Exchange closer to the game, then other members who did not enter the ballot can attempt to get hold of tickets using this method. Naturally, availability will fluctuate greatly depending on the demand for a game.
Ballot Success Rates and Ticket Exchange Statistics
The new ballot system has caused a lot of debate. On the one hand, the random nature of the draw makes the allocation of tickets as fair as possible. Still, the reduced availability for Arsenal Silver Members means that some of Arsenal’s most loyal fans have been unable to attend matches as regularly as before.
To be as transparent as possible, and to mitigate any controversy, the club publishes a detailed breakdown of the success rates for ballot entries by game, by Family Enclosure (F/Enc), Silver and Red Membership, as well as the total sold on the Ticket Exchange (TX).
| F/Enc | Silver | Red | Member Purchase Via TX | |
| Nottingham Forest | 33% | 28% | 12% | 3920 |
| Fulham | 62% | 37% | 12% | 6332 |
| Manchester United | 64% | 35% | 11% | 2967 |
| PSV Eindhoven | 66% | 40% | 11% | 5397 |
| Tottenham | 51% | 22% | 7% | 1868 |
| Manchester City | 56% | 30% | 10% | 2727 |
| Sheffield United | 53% | 29% | 11% | 4327 |
| Sevilla | 63% | 34% | 12% | 5565 |
| Burnley | 56% | 34% | 12% | 4596 |
| RC Lens | 78% | 38% | 8% | 7286 |
| Wolves | 53% | 33% | 13% | 4978 |
| Brighton | 49% | 29% | 11% | 4393 |
| West Ham | 66% | 40% | 13% | 4983 |
| Liverpool FA Cup | 45% | 80% | 32% | 3859 |
| Crystal Palace | 51% | 30% | 12% | 4530 |
| Liverpool | 45% | 29% | 10% | 2849 |
| Newcastle | 55% | 34% | 11% | 4723 |
| Brentford | 44% | 28% | 9% | 4263 |
| FC Porto | 54% | 72% | 36% | 2340 |
| Chelsea | 50% | 35% | 10% | |
| Luton | 50% | 30% | 10% | |
| Aston Villa | 47% | 26% | 10% |
As you can see, it is difficult to secure tickets for high-demand matches via the ballot scheme or Ticket Exchange. Tickets for the Liverpool FA Cup were easier to obtain via the ballot, as they weren’t included in the General Admission Season Ticket.
Arsenal Membership vs the Secondary Market
The bottom line is that demand for Arsenal FC tickets has never been greater. There are a lot of factors involved in this. One is that the team is performing well under Mikel Arteta in the 2020s, in contrast to the end of Arsène Wenger’s long reign, when interest dwindled.
A big advantage of purchasing tickets on the secondary market is the guarantee of securing a ticket, and the freedom it gives you. The new ballot system makes it impossible to know if you’ve even obtained a ticket until the ballot closes. And while you may be aware of the general price range, you won’t be able to specify the exact price, which is a big inconvenience.
Flexibility is also something to take into account. With a ballot window up to six weeks before a fixture, attending an Arsenal game requires a lot of forward planning. Going to the match is no longer a spur-of-the-moment decision, unless you opt for secondary channels.
Along with derbies and historic rivalries, Arsenal are involved in more high-stakes games than ever. When it comes to these unmissable matches when everything is on the line, your only option may be to head for the secondary market.
Arsenal Tickets at Ticket Compare
For Arsenal tickets without membership you can browse football tickets at Ticket Compare for Arsenal tickets, as well as other big events across the world. We offer tickets for the biggest competitions including the Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Ligue 1 and Serie A.
Header image: Wonker from London, United Kingdom, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
