Up until the early 80’s venues, promoters, and their distribution partners handled ticketing directly. Then in 1982 an analyst named Fred Rosen came up with the idea of offering cash strapped performance organizations bonuses and advances if they signed over their ticketing exclusively though his company. Rosen’s model paid off and Ticketmaster went on to dominate the ticketing industry. In 2010 the firm merged with concert promoter Live Nation to become the largest concert promotion company on the planet, selling an estimated 119 million tickets worldwide that year.
To this day, Ticketmaster continues to dwarf the market, but that doesn’t mean promoters and venues aren’t without options. Thanks to the proliferation of the Internet, new services have emerged that allow promoters the opportunity to control the sale, but perhaps more importantly, the marketing of their event.
Companies such as Ticketforce, Vendini, and Flavorus fill the voids of Ticketmaster in a few key ways. First, they allow the promoter to control every aspect of performance sales dates from any computer with online access. For those utilizing Ticketmaster, pre-sales, on sales, and ticket cut-offs must be coordinated through the ticketing giant and their system built on non-user friendly software. Managers do not have direct access to their own events. This makes it difficult for the promoter or venue to get tickets listed quickly, enact unique pre-sale campaigns, adjust ticket sales cut-offs, and release holds on their schedule. Second, these services do not place their own fees on top of the ticket price. Instead they bill the promoter or venue directly. This can create huge good will for consumers who are used to seeing their $45 ticket change to $55 plus after fees are tacked on.
Perhaps the most crucial thing these boutique-ticketing services offer is the venue’s ability to control every aspect of their marketing campaign for the performance. Managers can choose which supply channels they want to offer such as mobile, mail, phone, and in-person ticketing. Valuable customer data such as email addresses and demographic statistics can be integrated directly into the venue’s customer relationship management software. This allows managers to pro-actively manage and market future events, thus increasing ROI and consumer engagement and loyalty.
All of these services run on a whiteboard template. Working with the venue’s marketing and design teams, the ticketing processing companies integrate the ticketing service right into the venue’s website. This ensures that the consumer stays within the organization’s space and prevents them from having to click into a third party site, a process, which increases cart abandonment rates dramatically. Once established, the venue’s graphic designers can create custom click through banners for the ticketing portion of their site that can be used as ad space, or more effectively as a way to cross-promote events, sell parking, merchandise, restaurant reservations, or anything else to increase revenue for the property. Even the ticket stock can be pre-printed with the venue’s brand aesthetics, special promotions, or used as third-party space for ad sales revenue.
Despite these positives, not enough can be said about the power of having Ticketmaster in your corner. Due to the brand legacy it has become a first visit for most consumers seeking events to attend. Combine that brand recognition with the organization’s powerful search friendly infrastructure and any query with the word “ticket” attached results in a first place ranking on many of the top search engines. Sure many independent artists have seen success moving against the Ticketmaster grain. Comedian Louis C.K. sold a whopping $4.5 million in tickets in just 45 hours through his own website in 2012, but he still must issue tickets through Ticketmaster for venues with exclusive deals with the concert promoter, and when you are piecing together a large tour the Ticketmaster name offers you much better exposure than these boutique agencies can offer.
That doesn’t mean boutiques aren’t trying. The modern day ticket suppliers place a lot of clout in their power to enable your social community. All of these services make it extremely easy to sell tickets through spaces such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus with instant fan page and link creation. For venues such as casinos who see their client base come from a small local area or small theaters who see patrons from a small sect of the local population, this type of social campaign strength can actually enhance overall ticket sales for the venue.
All in all choosing a ticketing service can be a tough decision. It all depends on the venue, the acts you bring in and the type of client base. I would say that leaving Ticketmaster out of the loop is ill advised, their brand recognition is just too strong, but there is a lot to say about the personal attention and configurability of the new solutions popping up in the market.