Halloween Family Ticket Offer for Latics v Bromley: A Cheap Wigan Day Out Worth Grabbing

If you are anything like me, keeping track of what is on for families in Wigan feels like a part-time job on top of the actual job. Half-term rolls round, the kids want to do something, and you end up scrolling for an hour trying to work out what is actually happening and what it costs. So when something simple and local lands, I like to flag it. This week that is Wigan Athletic, who have announced a Halloween family ticket offer for Latics v Bromley.

What the club has announced

The announcement went up on the Wigan Athletic site on Thursday 22 October and it does what it says on the tin: a Halloween-themed family ticket offer for the home game against Bromley. I am not going to copy the whole thing out here, and I am not going to quote prices or kick-off times that I have not checked myself. Go to the club's own page for the exact details, because that is where the up-to-date information lives and the last thing I want is to send you off with the wrong numbers.

What I will say is that a family ticket deal pegged to Halloween is exactly the sort of thing I want to see from a club in our town. It ties into the school holidays, it gives parents a reason to bring the kids along, and it puts a proper afternoon out on the table without having to drive to Manchester or Liverpool.

Why I think it matters for Wigan families

I bang on about this a lot, but supporting local is not just about shopping on the high street. It is about turning up to the things that make the town worth living in. Latics on a matchday is one of those things. My kids remember the noise, the pies, the walk to the ground, far more than they remember the score, and I would rather they built those memories in Wigan than in some out-of-town retail park.

Football can be an expensive habit for a family. Multiply an adult ticket by two, add a couple of kids, add food, and it adds up fast. That is why I pay attention when the club bundles things up for families. It lowers the barrier for a first visit, and first visits are how you end up with a seven-year-old who wants to go every week.

Making the most of it

A few things from my own experience taking the kids to a game, none of which are in the club's announcement, just a dad's two pence:

• Book early rather than on the day. Family offers tend to be the first thing to go, and I have been caught out before.
• If your kids are dressing up for Halloween anyway, a football match is a decent excuse to get the costumes out twice.
• Build in time either side. A bit of a wander around Wigan before kick-off turns a two-hour match into a proper day out.
• Set expectations with younger ones about the noise. Mine were a bit startled the first time the crowd went up.

My honest take

I cannot tell you whether this is the best value family ticket Latics have ever done, because I have not seen the small print and I am not going to pretend I have. What I can tell you is that a Halloween family offer for a home game is a good idea, it is the kind of thing that makes a football club feel like it belongs to the town, and it goes straight on my list of things to do with the kids this half-term.

If you go, let me know how you got on. I am trying to pull together everything that is on for families in and around Wigan, and the more of us sharing what we find, the easier it gets for all of us to keep on top of it.