Costa Mesa, CA - April 22, 2008 - Tickets.com, the leading provider of integrated ticketing solutions, and Cynergy Systems, Inc., the global leader in Rich Internet Application (RIA) design and development, have announced today the result of their collaboration and ongoing partnership to advance the ticketing experience by using the latest RIA technologies.
The joint effort has produced a sophisticated, interactive seat map RIA interface, a key feature of ProVenue®, the new full-service, enterprise ticketing software platform developed by Tickets.com launched in January 2008. As a result, Tickets.com has enhanced the ticketing process through greatly simplified transactions and better seat inventory management – all in a user-friendly, visually appealing environment.
Learn more
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Tickets.com Client Spotlight: Kansas Coliseum
Coliseum may offer cell phone ticketing
BY DION LEFLER
The Wichita Eagle
Come June, getting into the Kansas Coliseum could be as easy as waving your cell phone under a scanner.
The Coliseum is poised to become one of the first arenas in the country to adopt new technology that will allow ticket delivery via mobile phone.
The Coliseum is also getting ready to give patrons the option to buy insurance so they can get a refund on their tickets if personal circumstances prevent them from getting to a show.
The bids for both new services are on the agenda for the County Commission on Wednesday.
If the services succeed at the Coliseum, both will transfer to the new Intrust Bank Arena when it opens in 2010, said Jim Sachs, director of ticketing for the county's Select-a-Seat system.
The cell-phone ticket system would transmit users a message containing a bar code that could be read at the arena, to allow entry without ever touching a piece of paper.
"It's been used quite a bit in Europe," Sachs said.
In the United States, some baseball teams and theaters have experimented with mobile ticket delivery, said Sachs and Michael Martinez, vice president for marketing at Tickets.com, the company that provides software and back-office services to Select-a-Seat.
Both said they did not know of another multipurpose sports and entertainment arena that has implemented such a system.
Martinez said the younger you are, the more likely you are to warm up to cell-phone ticketing.
"The younger people tend to live on their cell phones, if you will," he said.
The service charge for cell-phone delivery would be at least $2 on each order, the minimum fee the county would have to pay Tickets.com for the service, county documents said.
The St. Paul Saints, a minor-league baseball team in Minnesota, implemented cell-phone ticketing late last season, said Sean Aronson, the team's director of media relations.
About 50 people have used it so far, but Aronson said he expects the traffic to pick up when the team starts its new season May 8.
He said online ticketing also started slowly but picked up steam once people realized it was a lot easier than standing in line for a ticket at the ballpark.
The ticket insurance planned for Select-a-Seat would allow customers to get a refund if they couldn't get to a show.
Sachs said insurance would be voluntary. It would likely cost about 5 percent of the face value of the tickets, with a maximum of 40 cents going to the county.
Commission Chairman Tom Winters said he doesn't see any major obstacles to commission approval for either service.
"It does look like these two features are more convenient for the customers," he said.
But he did say he wants to study the insurance package to make sure he knows when and how claims will be paid.
Martinez said the insurance will give a refund if the ticket buyer gets sick or has to care for a sick family member, or has an accident or car trouble on the way to the venue.
Other cases that would allow the buyer to claim a refund include:
• Loss of job, relocation or employer-required work
• Airline delay
• Jury or military duties
• Home or business issues such as flood, fire or vandalism
"It's a fairly comprehensive list," Martinez said.
BY DION LEFLER
The Wichita Eagle
Come June, getting into the Kansas Coliseum could be as easy as waving your cell phone under a scanner.
The Coliseum is poised to become one of the first arenas in the country to adopt new technology that will allow ticket delivery via mobile phone.
The Coliseum is also getting ready to give patrons the option to buy insurance so they can get a refund on their tickets if personal circumstances prevent them from getting to a show.
The bids for both new services are on the agenda for the County Commission on Wednesday.
If the services succeed at the Coliseum, both will transfer to the new Intrust Bank Arena when it opens in 2010, said Jim Sachs, director of ticketing for the county's Select-a-Seat system.
The cell-phone ticket system would transmit users a message containing a bar code that could be read at the arena, to allow entry without ever touching a piece of paper.
"It's been used quite a bit in Europe," Sachs said.
In the United States, some baseball teams and theaters have experimented with mobile ticket delivery, said Sachs and Michael Martinez, vice president for marketing at Tickets.com, the company that provides software and back-office services to Select-a-Seat.
Both said they did not know of another multipurpose sports and entertainment arena that has implemented such a system.
Martinez said the younger you are, the more likely you are to warm up to cell-phone ticketing.
"The younger people tend to live on their cell phones, if you will," he said.
The service charge for cell-phone delivery would be at least $2 on each order, the minimum fee the county would have to pay Tickets.com for the service, county documents said.
The St. Paul Saints, a minor-league baseball team in Minnesota, implemented cell-phone ticketing late last season, said Sean Aronson, the team's director of media relations.
About 50 people have used it so far, but Aronson said he expects the traffic to pick up when the team starts its new season May 8.
He said online ticketing also started slowly but picked up steam once people realized it was a lot easier than standing in line for a ticket at the ballpark.
The ticket insurance planned for Select-a-Seat would allow customers to get a refund if they couldn't get to a show.
Sachs said insurance would be voluntary. It would likely cost about 5 percent of the face value of the tickets, with a maximum of 40 cents going to the county.
Commission Chairman Tom Winters said he doesn't see any major obstacles to commission approval for either service.
"It does look like these two features are more convenient for the customers," he said.
But he did say he wants to study the insurance package to make sure he knows when and how claims will be paid.
Martinez said the insurance will give a refund if the ticket buyer gets sick or has to care for a sick family member, or has an accident or car trouble on the way to the venue.
Other cases that would allow the buyer to claim a refund include:
• Loss of job, relocation or employer-required work
• Airline delay
• Jury or military duties
• Home or business issues such as flood, fire or vandalism
"It's a fairly comprehensive list," Martinez said.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Larry Witherspoon, CEO of Tickets.com, discusses the company's growth plans
As featured in Venues Today, April 2008:
On the Horizon
Larry Witherspoon, CEO of Tickets.com, discusses the company’s growth plans
By Dave Brooks
CHICAGO – Venues Today caught up with Larry Witherspoon, CEO of Tickets.com at this year’s INTIX conference here to discuss the market direction of the world’s second largest ticketing company and discuss its new ProVenue platform. Below is an excerpt from that interview:
Venues Today: How long has ProVenue been in development?
Larry Witherspoon: We’ve spent two-and-a-half years building from scratch and redefining how we wanted to approach our business model, and ProVenue is the result of that effort.
VT: Are any venues using the software?
LW: We don’t have any venues live, but we have it installed in six places where they’re still doing beta testing. It’s a web-based system with a common look and feel throughout and very big, easy buttons to push. It’s very simple to use because people are used to a web browser, and this is just intuitive to them.
VT: How many new clients per year would it take for ProVenue to be considered financially successful?
LW: I would expect that we will continue to see growth at 10-to-15 percent a year.
VT: How does Ticketmaster’s acquisition of Paciolan effect the growth of Tickets.com’s market share?
LW: As it consolidates, we’re really just down to a couple of companies of significant size and scale. We’re much more about enabling technologies for the clients and integrating with third-parties that help those clients sell more tickets. The competition has a different approach. They have a buy-and-build approach to keep everything in house.
VT: But won’t the acquisition give Ticketmaster a resource to develop additional enablement models?
LW: I’m not really sure what the play is. There are no real (Customer Relationship Management) gains on that side. I would pretty much call (the deal) a customer acquisition.
VT: At what point do you find yourself marketable just by not being Ticketmaster?
LW: There are some people who talk to us just because they want to try something different. They want to partner with someone, or work with a sponsor in a unique way. I think we are more willing to engage in these discussions.
VT: You recently announced the signing of the Vancouver (B.C.) Winter Olympics (2010). Tell us what you have planned.
LW: We’re tremendously excited. Vancouver is a place where we don’t really have a presence, so it’s a good way for us to get a market penetration going. It’s a large-scale deal and it’s a lot of people and a lot of tickets. This will be the first Olympics where they do access control at every venue.
VT: And you plan to ticket the Chinese venues after the Olympics?
LW: Our partner there is CSII, which is a wholly-owned company of the China National Sports Group and is owned by the China Olympic Committee and the Sports Ministry. CSII was formed to help market advertising relationships and provide growth and properly manage these venues. We’ve been brought on to help them define and provide ticketing services for various buildings.
VT: How’s the regulatory environment?
LW: It’s been good for us. It’s taken a couple of years of being over there and getting face time with people. Walking through the contract took some time, but they’ve been great. Typically the ticketing company gets paid a percentage of the list price on the ticket. It’s not a culture that’s big on service fees and extra charges. That’s a model that we’re happy to work with.
VT: Let’s switch over to the StubHub deal with Major League Baseball. Why wasn’t Tickets.com more involved in bidding for a secondary role?
LW: (Major League Baseball Advanced Media) and specifically Bob Bowman are big believers in having technology choices for the clubs, not to mandate, but to go out and get the best deal for baseball. That’s exactly what he did. He struck a very good deal to bring on StubHub to integrate all the teams and consolidate the secondary market. I can’t fault him — it was a proper business decision that he made.
VT: Did you bid on the deal?
LW: No, it was a straight play. The plan was to find a straight secondary provider and go with that group so you’re not blurring the line between primary and secondary. We’re okay with partnering and we’ve already done an integration to enable the digital delivery of all tickets. If we have a client that wants to do a deal with StubHub, I’m actually okay with interfacing that technology to fit the platform.
VT: Who owns the data?
LW: Baseball. It’s their client, it’s their fan and it’s their data and they will share it with (StubHub). In the integration we’ve done with them, that data gets captured in the back office and it can be utilized for marketing purposes.
On the Horizon
Larry Witherspoon, CEO of Tickets.com, discusses the company’s growth plans
By Dave Brooks
CHICAGO – Venues Today caught up with Larry Witherspoon, CEO of Tickets.com at this year’s INTIX conference here to discuss the market direction of the world’s second largest ticketing company and discuss its new ProVenue platform. Below is an excerpt from that interview:
Venues Today: How long has ProVenue been in development?
Larry Witherspoon: We’ve spent two-and-a-half years building from scratch and redefining how we wanted to approach our business model, and ProVenue is the result of that effort.
VT: Are any venues using the software?
LW: We don’t have any venues live, but we have it installed in six places where they’re still doing beta testing. It’s a web-based system with a common look and feel throughout and very big, easy buttons to push. It’s very simple to use because people are used to a web browser, and this is just intuitive to them.
VT: How many new clients per year would it take for ProVenue to be considered financially successful?
LW: I would expect that we will continue to see growth at 10-to-15 percent a year.
VT: How does Ticketmaster’s acquisition of Paciolan effect the growth of Tickets.com’s market share?
LW: As it consolidates, we’re really just down to a couple of companies of significant size and scale. We’re much more about enabling technologies for the clients and integrating with third-parties that help those clients sell more tickets. The competition has a different approach. They have a buy-and-build approach to keep everything in house.
VT: But won’t the acquisition give Ticketmaster a resource to develop additional enablement models?
LW: I’m not really sure what the play is. There are no real (Customer Relationship Management) gains on that side. I would pretty much call (the deal) a customer acquisition.
VT: At what point do you find yourself marketable just by not being Ticketmaster?
LW: There are some people who talk to us just because they want to try something different. They want to partner with someone, or work with a sponsor in a unique way. I think we are more willing to engage in these discussions.
VT: You recently announced the signing of the Vancouver (B.C.) Winter Olympics (2010). Tell us what you have planned.
LW: We’re tremendously excited. Vancouver is a place where we don’t really have a presence, so it’s a good way for us to get a market penetration going. It’s a large-scale deal and it’s a lot of people and a lot of tickets. This will be the first Olympics where they do access control at every venue.
VT: And you plan to ticket the Chinese venues after the Olympics?
LW: Our partner there is CSII, which is a wholly-owned company of the China National Sports Group and is owned by the China Olympic Committee and the Sports Ministry. CSII was formed to help market advertising relationships and provide growth and properly manage these venues. We’ve been brought on to help them define and provide ticketing services for various buildings.
VT: How’s the regulatory environment?
LW: It’s been good for us. It’s taken a couple of years of being over there and getting face time with people. Walking through the contract took some time, but they’ve been great. Typically the ticketing company gets paid a percentage of the list price on the ticket. It’s not a culture that’s big on service fees and extra charges. That’s a model that we’re happy to work with.
VT: Let’s switch over to the StubHub deal with Major League Baseball. Why wasn’t Tickets.com more involved in bidding for a secondary role?
LW: (Major League Baseball Advanced Media) and specifically Bob Bowman are big believers in having technology choices for the clubs, not to mandate, but to go out and get the best deal for baseball. That’s exactly what he did. He struck a very good deal to bring on StubHub to integrate all the teams and consolidate the secondary market. I can’t fault him — it was a proper business decision that he made.
VT: Did you bid on the deal?
LW: No, it was a straight play. The plan was to find a straight secondary provider and go with that group so you’re not blurring the line between primary and secondary. We’re okay with partnering and we’ve already done an integration to enable the digital delivery of all tickets. If we have a client that wants to do a deal with StubHub, I’m actually okay with interfacing that technology to fit the platform.
VT: Who owns the data?
LW: Baseball. It’s their client, it’s their fan and it’s their data and they will share it with (StubHub). In the integration we’ve done with them, that data gets captured in the back office and it can be utilized for marketing purposes.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Tickets.com Announces Andy Beal as 2008 Summit Keynote Speaker
The 2008 ProVenue® Software Summit Docks in Long Beach, Ca
This year's ProVenue® Software Summit will be held at the Hyatt Regency in sunny Long Beach California, on June 16-19. We have much planned, and are extremely excited to share with you the latest in ticketing technology!
We are pleased to announce Andy Beal as this year's keynote speaker. Mr. Beal is a world-renowned Internet marketing expert, blogger, and author of the groundbreaking new book, Radically Transparent: Monitoring and Managing Reputations Online. Join us at Summit to hear him share both his knowledge of online trends as well as easy, insightful tips for your organization.
Session Highlights Include:
• Our newest, revolutionary web-based ticketing solution ProVenue®
• Innovative tools that meet business needs and strengthen customer relationships
• Digital ticketing features and online marketing strategies
• A wide array of reporting topics
By popular demand, this year we are also offering a one day "Executive Track" that highlights incremental revenue generating opportunities specifically designed for your management team.
Learn more
This year's ProVenue® Software Summit will be held at the Hyatt Regency in sunny Long Beach California, on June 16-19. We have much planned, and are extremely excited to share with you the latest in ticketing technology!
We are pleased to announce Andy Beal as this year's keynote speaker. Mr. Beal is a world-renowned Internet marketing expert, blogger, and author of the groundbreaking new book, Radically Transparent: Monitoring and Managing Reputations Online. Join us at Summit to hear him share both his knowledge of online trends as well as easy, insightful tips for your organization.
Session Highlights Include:
• Our newest, revolutionary web-based ticketing solution ProVenue®
• Innovative tools that meet business needs and strengthen customer relationships
• Digital ticketing features and online marketing strategies
• A wide array of reporting topics
By popular demand, this year we are also offering a one day "Executive Track" that highlights incremental revenue generating opportunities specifically designed for your management team.
Learn more
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Tickets.com Client Spotlight: Fresno Grizzlies
Fresno Grizzlies Set Attendance Record, Beat San Francisco Giants
The Fresno Grizzlies recently played an exhibition game with the San Francisco Giants on March 26, 2008. The Grizzlies won 4-3 and successfully shattered a stadium attendance record with over 14,000 fans. This was the largest crowd to ever watch a game in Fresno. Tickets.com congratulates the Grizzlies.
Watch the highlights video
The Fresno Grizzlies recently played an exhibition game with the San Francisco Giants on March 26, 2008. The Grizzlies won 4-3 and successfully shattered a stadium attendance record with over 14,000 fans. This was the largest crowd to ever watch a game in Fresno. Tickets.com congratulates the Grizzlies.
Watch the highlights video
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