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.