Boston Red Sox Go Live With ProVenue®

Tickets.com recently converted the Boston Red Sox to ProVenue, the industry’s most technologically advanced ticketing platform. The Red Sox upgraded to ProVenue for state-of-the-art features including the system’s ability to facilitate high-volume transactions with optimal speed and efficiency, and the technology platform’s flexible open architecture, allowing for additional applications, data management programs, and features from Tickets.com and other third parties—including a best-in-class virtual waiting room—to be easily integrated at any time.

“We are extremely pleased with the performance of ProVenue, and have great confidence that the system will meet all our consumer facing ticketing needs, as well as support our organization internally,” says Ron Bumgarner, Senior Vice President, Ticketing, the Boston Red Sox. “We have already received positive feedback from fans on the new and improved virtual waiting room, and are tremendously excited about our partnership with the Tickets.com team, and their outstanding attention to detail.”

A member of Major League Baseball’s American League Eastern Division, the Boston Red Sox went live with ProVenue on December 11th for the first public on-sale date for tickets for the upcoming 2011 season.

In the first hour of the onsale, ProVenue facilitated 32-percent more ticket transactions than during the time period last year. The day’s robust business was executed without incident.

An unprecedented number of fans passed through ProVenue’s “First In, First Out” (FIFO) virtual waiting room, the best in the industry. Customers are automatically filed in a queue in the order in which they entered, and have the extra advantage of being advised as to expected wait time. In addition to this equitable and orderly process, the virtual waiting room also allows ticket buyers to check inventory for alternate game dates while in queue.

“We couldn’t be more satisfied that the Boston Red Sox organization’s out-of-the-gate-experience with ProVenue was so successful for them,” says John Walker, President and CEO, Tickets.com. “It is a pleasure to be this outstanding club’s technology partner as we continue to expand the functionality and features of ProVenue in service of our clients.”

Select 2011 home games are still available for purchase in April, May, and September while supplies last by phone at (877) RED-SOX9 or online at www.redsox.com. The remainder of the 2011 regular season tickets for Red Sox home games will go on sale on a date to be announced after the first of the year.

Ed Gow Announced as VP of Sales & Marketing for Tickets.com

Tickets.com, a leading worldwide provider of integrated ticketing solutions, announced today the appointment of Ed Gow as its new vice president of sales & marketing. In this position, Mr. Gow will be responsible for developing and executing overall corporate sales strategy and managing the company’s national sales and marketing teams. He will be based in the Tickets.com world headquarters in Costa Mesa, California.

“We are pleased that Ed Gow has joined our executive team,” said Steve DeMots, senior vice president of business development. “His extensive ticketing background in various market segments is a perfect fit with our vision to advance the ticketing industry through leading-edge technologies.”

Mr. Gow has over 20 years in ticket operations and management and has worked with organizations such as University of Colorado, Denver Nuggets and Colorado Avalanche and Larry H. Miller Sports & Entertainment Group. Just prior to joining Tickets.com, he was with TicketsWest, a full service ticketing provider with over 100 clients and 7 million tickets sold annually.

“I’m very excited to be joining the Tickets.com team,” said Gow. “Tickets.com has a history of innovation and I see a real opportunity to build on here. The company is poised for significant growth in an industry that is evolving today more than ever and the ongoing development of the ProVenue ticketing solution puts us in a position to deliver dynamic solutions as the demands continue to change. I look forward to being a part of that success."

Mr. Gow spends his free time with his wife Andrea and his two sons, Eli and Jack. He is also a member of the National Eagle Scout Association and an active member of the International Ticketing Association. In 2007 he was the recipient of the Red Lion Hotels Corporation Esprit de Corps award acknowledging his dedication and company spirit.

Goldstar Announces Nationwide Expansion

SFGateTuesday, October 26, 2010

Goldstar, the leader in connecting people with live entertainment, announced today major market expansion for 2011. Goldstar, recently ranked third on Ticket News ticketing industry power ranking will be in the top 25 US markets in 2011 and will begin Q4 2010 by opening three new markets: Atlanta, Sacramento, and Portland, OR.

"We're responding to the demand of our members who are in these new markets and want more opportunities to have fun," explains Goldstar CEO Jim McCarthy. "We're also responding to our national venue partners who would like to use Goldstar's service in other cities. Everybody wins - the consumer, the venue, and ultimately the live entertainment industry as well."

Goldstar (www.goldstar.com) offers half-price tickets, generates ideas of fun things to do, and gives access to the world's largest source of user reviews for live entertainment, all online.

About Goldstar
A free no-hassle membership allows people to log on to www.goldstar.com and receive weekly e-mail summaries that feature the 900-1200 discounted events offered in ten major U.S. cities - Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Chicago, New York, Boston, Seattle, Minneapolis, Washington, D.C. and coming soon to Atlanta, Sacramento and Portland, OR.

Dynamic pricing pays off for San Francisco Giants tickets

The final weekend of the Major League Baseball season turned out to be more stressful than expected for San Francisco Giants players and their fans. But the unexpected suspense made it a perfect and quite profitable one for Giants ownership.

The Giants employ a dynamic ticket pricing system in which the price of tickets at AT&T Park fluctuates depending on demand. With the system, the team's bottom line got an impressive boost when the Giants—which needed to win only one game against the San Diego Padres to eliminate the Padres and win the NL West—lost the first two games of the series to set up a high-stakes finale (that wouldn’t have actually been a finale if the Padres won, but more on that in a moment) Sunday, October 3.

The Giants stopped their mini-skid in the nick of time by blanking the Padres, 3-0, to win the division and advance to the playoffs for the first time since 2003. The Giants’ clincher came in front of a sellout crowd of 42,822—the third SRO crowd of the weekend at the 41,915-seat facility. The Giants drew 42,409 to the opener Friday and 42,653 Saturday. The sellouts were the first for the Giants since they played to capacity crowds for each of the three games against those same Padres August 13-15—a span of 21 home dates.

Not bad for a series of games for which the Giants originally expected decent but by no means overwhelming crowds. Director of ticket sales Russ Stanley told Bloomberg News last week the Giants figured they would draw between 30,000 and 35,000 per game. Presumably, leading the NL West for the final week of the season also boosted interest in the Giants’ penultimate home series against the Arizona Diamondbacks: The Giants swept three games in front of an average crowd of 37,646.

The additional demand for the Padres series meant those who walked up to the gate over the weekend—or bought tickets on the resell market—certainly paid more than they would have in April, back when neither the Giants nor Padres were expected to contend and the cheapest seat to the October 1 game was a mere $5. By the middle of last week, that cheap seat reportedly was up to $20.

Bloomberg reported that a seat in the Field Club behind home plate was $68 at the beginning of the season but $175 by last week. At StubHub, meanwhile, the cheapest ticket Sunday to the afternoon’s game was $69.

The final weekend wasn’t the only time dynamic pricing paid off for the Giants. Stanley told Bloomberg the Giants’ revenue per seat increased by between 7 percent and 8 percent this season.

The Giants’ division championship gives them the home field advantage against the Atlanta Braves in the best-of-five NL Division Series beginning Thursday, October 7 and at least two more chances to maximize ticket revenue. That sure beats the alternative: Had the Giants lost Sunday, they would have been part of a historic three-team playoff for two spots with the Padres and Braves but would not have hosted either the NL West playoff against the Padres today, October 4, or, if they lost that game, the NL wild card playoff game against the Braves Tuesday, October 5.

Source: TicketNews: By Jerry Beach

Rugby Expo Confirms Tickets.com as Lead Sponsors

Release Date – 30 September 2010

Rugby Expo 2010 is delighted to announce that leading international ticketing and CRM technology specialist Tickets.com have confirmed their position as lead sponsor and official ticketing partner of the world’s only global rugby trade show and exhibition taking place on November 9-10 at the Lawrence Hall in Westminster, London.

As part of the agreement, Tickets.com will provide a fully integrated ticketing solution for the event which will deliver an anticipated audience of 1,000 attendees over the two days. This solution will include online registration and payments, distribution of e-tickets and a CRM system that will support the management of all delegates at the event.

Tickets.com is the leading provider of fully integrated event ticketing technologies, solutions, and services for thousands of top sports, entertainment, and arts organizations worldwide. Rugby clients in the United Kingdom include Northampton Saints, Gloucester Rugby, Ospreys, and Worcester Warriors. The company offers venues and organisations seamless, cost-effective ways to reach their customers with fully integrated ticketing and marketing services, backed by state-of-the-art technology, rock-solid stability, and expert training and support.

Rugby Expo Sales Director, Jason Brightman said, “We are delighted to welcome Tickets.com to Rugby Expo and look forward to working across the event and the ticketing solution for our delegates. Tickets.com is the world leader in the delivery of ticketing and CRM products and services and their ticketing solution will benefit the event as well as our delegates.”

“Tickets.com is very excited to be taking this major sponsorship role,” said David McClellan, Tickets.com’s Managing Director. “ We look forward to synchronising the implementation of new technologies with the continued growth of Rugby as a global sport, and developing true business-driven solutions with a demonstrable return on investment”

Rugby Expo 2010 brings together professional and grass roots clubs, leagues, national associations, international federations, major brands, broadcasters, player representatives and key suppliers over two days during the second week of the northern hemisphere autumn internationals.

The first Rugby Expo attracted more than 1,000 attendees, 45 exhibitors and assembled a world class list of speakers, all dedicated to debating the future of the game with key decision makers from the domestic and international rugby territories in attendance.

For more information about Rugby Expo 2010, the complete conference programme, exhibition opportunities and delegate details visit www.rugbyexpo.com or call +44 (0)845 0740752.

2010 National Arts Marketing and Development Conference

Thursday, October 21 - Sunday, October 24
Arts Reach at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel, Los Angeles.

“Empower Yourself and Your Team with the Most Successful, Cost-Effective Ways to Boost Audience & Donor Growth”

EARLY BIRD DEADLINE - GET 2 FOR THE PRICE OF 1 by October 8

Venue teams are encourage attend as both Marketing and Development topics will be addressed. If you register by October 8, not only will you get the lowest price, but you'll be able to bring a colleague for FREE. Plus, if your organization is a member of one of the many national and regional associations that are partnering with Arts Reach to make this important event as affordable as possible for their members to attend, you are entitled to up to $160 in registration discounts.

During the conference there will be two featured sessions related to ticketing:

• What to Look for in a Ticketing Technology Partner: Ticketing, Marketing, Fundraising, Patron/CRM Management and PCI Compliance

and

• What if You Spent 100% of Your Advertising Budget on Customer Service?

Conference details can be found here: http://www.artsreach.com/conference.html

Tickets.com Walks To Light The Night!

The Tickets.com Costa Mesa office has rallied together and formed Team Tickets.com in support of The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s 2010 Light The Night Walk.

This Sunday, September 19th the Tickets.com Team will gather at Angel Stadium of Anaheim and walk 2-miles in honor and in support of those that have been affected by the blood cancers.

About Light the Night:
In communities all across the United States and Canada teams of families, friends, co-workers and local and national corporations come together to raise funds for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's (LLS's) Light The Night Walk events and bring help and hope to people battling blood cancers.

Funds raised by teams and individual walkers provide:
Lifesaving blood cancer research
Free educational materials and events for patients and their families
Local programs such as Family Support Groups and First Connection,
a peer-to-peer counseling program
Comprehensive, personalized assistance through our Information Resource Center

Support Team Tickets.com and visit our team donation page:
http://pages.lightthenight.org/ocie/OrangeCo10/Ticketscom

Light The Night Walk events are evenings filled with inspiration. During this leisurely walk, walkers carry illuminated balloons - white for survivors, red for supporters and gold in memory of loved ones lost to cancer - thousands of walkers - men, women and children - form a community of caring, bringing light to the dark world of cancer.

Support Team Tickets.com and donate to cure cancer today! Funds raised through Light The Night Walk support the work of hundreds of the world’s best and brightest researchers in their search for better therapies and cures for leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma.

Tickets.com is Hiring!

Tickets.com has several open positions for immediate hire:

Product Marketing Manager – Costa Mesa, CA
Quality Assurance Engineer – Costa Mesa, CA
Service Delivery Project Manager – Costa Mesa, CA
Sr. Business Systems Analyst – Costa Mesa, CA
Sr. Database Administrator – Costa Mesa, CA
Sr. Quality Assurance Engineer – Costa Mesa, CA
Software Engineer – Costa Mesa, CA
Sr. Software Engineer – Costa Mesa, CA
Usability Experience Designer – Costa Mesa, CA
Unix Systems Engineer – Costa Mesa, CA/Ashburn, VA/Remote East Coast
Unix Sr. Systems Engineer – Ashburn, VA/Remote
Application Systems Analyst – Syracuse, NY
Systems Integration Analyst – Syracuse, NY
Systems Integration Technician – Syracuse, NY
Technical Writer – Syracuse, NY

For job descriptions and details on how to submit your resume please visit our website.

Digonex® Partners with Minnesota Twins For Ticket Revenue Analytics Services

Digonex Technologies, Inc., announced today that the Minnesota Twins will make use of its Sports and Entertainment Analytic Ticketing System (SEATS) for revenue analytic services this season.

Digonex's service is based upon econometric and behavioral principles, employs XML Team and a client customizable approach to give the most robust and flexible solution for analyzing the parameters most relevant to delivering valuable recommendations to the client.

"Sports franchises are facing many challenges including a tough economy, a very accessible secondary market, and competing forces for the entertainment dollar," said Jan Eglen, Ph.D, CEO for Digonex. "The main goal of our services is to provide our clients with greater information on the value of their fans, their tickets, and the opportunities for sustainable growth."

"As the Twins organization continues to adjust to our new home in Target Field, we remain committed to doing all that we can to field a competitive team and to delivering the best ballpark entertainment experience for our fans - now and in the years to come. Certainly, ensuring that we price our tickets appropriately is a key component to delivering on these commitments. The expertise and services Digonex provides have proven to be extremely valuable to their clients throughout the sports and entertainment industry and we hope to benefit from their analytic services as well," said Steve Smith, vice president of ticket sales and service for the Minnesota Twins.

Digonex is collaborating with Tickets.com, and Major League Baseball® to provide its analytics services to the Twins. The Twins utilize Tickets.com's flagship platform, ProVenue®, for ticket sales and inventory management.
Source: Forbes.com, August 26, 2010

Tickets.com's Mobile Partner Txtstation Signs Two-Year Deal with the Houston Texans

August 19, 2010

The National Football League's Houston Texans and Txtstation Mobile Marketing have announced a two-year partnership to bring real-time interactivity to fans while at Reliant Stadium. The promotions range from real-time SMS voting and text alerts to in-stadium video board games and contests.

“The Houston Texans were looking at several companies to help them use mobile for in-game entertainment, to activate some of their sponsorship deals and to build up an SMS database,” said Michael Falato, vice president of sales and business development at Txtstation, Austin, TX.

“The team chose us for in-stadium SMS poll, sending out score alerts and keeping people up to date with what’s going on with the Texans,” he said.

"The team is very much up to date with the social media and texting with their fans, with in-stadium calls-to-action and a Web site entry form to sign up for text alerts.”

The Houston Texans are a professional American football team based in Houston. The team is a member of the Southern Division of the NFL's American Football Conference (AFC).

Txtstation is a mobile marketing company specializing in sports and entertainment that helps broadcasters, event owners, sponsors and general media to communicate with viewers or fans directly through mobile phones.

Are you ready for SMS?
The Houston Texans will begin running mobile promotions during the preseason and will continue while fans are at the games.

The latest team news from the Texans include real-time in-game scoring updates, team transaction notices, injury notifications, player appearances and special offers on merchandise and tickets, delivered straight to fans' mobile phones.

The Texans are currently offering three separate text clubs for game-day score updates, team news and alerts, and special ticket and merchandise offers, respectively.

Fans can join by texting the keyword SCORES to the short code 88222, NEWS to 88222 or OFFERS to 88222.

The Texans are broadcasting graphics inside the stadium featuring branding from McDonald’s, MasterCard and Whataburger.

Mr. Falato said that the Houston Texans are a smart and creative organization, and that his company is looking forward to pushing the envelope with its texting tactics.

“The Texans asked ‘How do we figure out who is watching our games, listening to our games and at our games, and engage with them?” Mr. Falato said.

“Text messaging is a great way, and they can also have people text in to collect their phone numbers, email address, physical addresses and get them to Like the Texans’ Facebook page,” he said.

Source: Dan Butcher, Mobile Marketer Daily

Mobile Marketing - A New Dynasty

Another powerful article on mobile marketing and the opportunities it presents.

Have a read.

Over the past 10 years, multiple marketing channels have emerged – email, Internet and Social Media marketing have each ascended to the throne of marketing leadership at one point. While these avenues certainly are not declining in value, the world is changing. A new force is coming and it’s stronger and shows more potential than its predecessors. This force is mobile marketing. Here’s why:

Unlike television, Internet, email, social media and other sources of mass media, mobile phones are everywhere. Research from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) found that mobile has been the most rapidly adopted technology in history. Today, it is the most popular and widespread personal technology on the planet, with an estimated 4.6 billion subscriptions globally by the end of 2009.

Morgan Stanley predicts mobile will be bigger than desktop Internet in five years and mobile data traffic will increase by 39 times by 2014. Mongoose Metrics states in "Mobile Marketing for Business" that if marketers "… don’t start understanding and implementing mobile marketing now – ahead of the curve – you might lose out on the biggest opportunity since the invention of online marketing." Mobile marketing provides a new dynamic for marketers to use in their campaigns, and we here at Aprimo believe that mobile marketing will be a growing, driving force in the world of marketing, with the potential to become the king of communication.

"With so many consumers with mobile devices, there are many new opportunities to provide relevant and timely messages to improve a company’s wallet share." said Wes Moore, Vice President of B2C Solutions for Aprimo. "Now, imagine you are a retail store. Instead of send consumers random email alerts about special offers, you can send consumers the requested targeted and relevant messages when they are near or inside one of your locations. Now that is personalized marketing."

Tickets.com and Florida Marlins Execute Long-Term Ticketing Agreement

The Agreement Includes the Advanced ProVenue® Platform, ProVenueMobile, Tickets@Phone and Uptix Stored Value Technologies.

Tickets.com adds National League Major League Baseball team the Florida Marlins® to its client line-up with a long-term ticketing agreement anchored on ProVenue®, the industry’s most advanced ticketing platform. Among other technologies, the portfolio of features and services to be delivered to the Marlins includes ProVenueMobile, Tickets@Phone and Uptix stored value ticketing.

“When reviewing our options in choosing a ticketing partner, we saw that Tickets.com was by far the best technological fit,” says David Samson, Florida Marlins team president. “I know that our fans, as well as our organization, will benefit from the breakthrough technologies that Tickets.com is offering—and continuing to develop.”

The Florida Marlins’ adoption of the web-based ProVenue platform coincides with the kick-off of the team’s 2012 season in their new stadium. The 2012 season ticket-holder deposits are already being processed through the ProVenue system. The platform’s flexible open architecture allows for additional features, applications, and data management programs offered by Tickets.com or other third parties to be seamlessly integrated at any time.

“We’re confident that the ProVenue ticketing platform will meet all the consumer-facing and internal needs of the Florida Marlins organization,” says John Walker, president and CEO, Tickets.com. “The club shares our enthusiasm for technological innovation, so it is exciting to be their technology partner as they take up residence at the Marlins Ballpark.”

The Marlins will be extending their reach of ProVenue with the simultaneous deployment of ProVenueMobile, giving fans the capability to purchase their tickets with their mobile device. To give fans a 360 degree mobile – and green – ticket-buying experience, the Marlins are also incorporating Tickets.com’s Tickets@Phone feature, which allows purchasers to digitally receive their tickets, through the use of unique bar codes, directly on their mobile device.

The Marlins are also implementing a stored-value ticketing program using the versatile Uptix technology developed by Givex USA Corporation and offered through Tickets.com. The Uptix service—which can be customized and individually branded for each client—allows concessions and merchandise credits to be pre-loaded onto a ticket through the barcode. The value of credits is included into the ticket purchase price. The added value is scannable by vendors throughout the ballpark for the duration of the game.

The Uptix service can also be programmed to electronically award bonus dollars to ticket-holders at interactive, in-game promotions, enhancing the overall fan experience—another example of the industry-leading technology from Tickets.com that reeled in the Marlins.

Atlanta Hawks, Atlanta Thrashers, Houston Rockets and Utah Jazz Select Qcue to Power Dynamic Ticket Pricing

Qcue, the dynamic pricing engine for live entertainment events, today announced deals with National Basketball Association (NBA) franchises, the Atlanta Hawks, Houston Rockets and Utah Jazz as well as the Atlanta Thrashers of the National Hockey League (NHL). Already the chosen dynamic pricing solution for teams in MLB and the NHL, the Hawks, Rockets and Jazz mark Qcue's entry into the NBA.

As the only fully integrated software-based dynamic pricing solution on the market, Qcue reduces the time it takes to re-price tickets from several days to just a few minutes. Sophisticated algorithms take into account playoff implications, weather, opponents, day of the week, real-time sales and other market conditions to determine the optimal price for each ticket once a price adjustment is determined.

"We believe that Qcue's dynamic pricing system offers a versatile solution that is easy to use and flexible enough to meet the needs of both our NBA and NHL franchises," said Tracy White, Chief Sales Officer and Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing for the Atlanta Hawks and Atlanta Thrashers. "Sports market conditions are constantly changing and now we are able to quickly adapt to them while also providing greater value to our season ticket holders."

"Qcue's technology will ultimately allow our fans and consumer demand patterns to dictate single-game ticket prices," said Christopher Dacey, Vice President at the Houston Rockets.

With Qcue's dynamic pricing system, thousands of price changes take just a few minutes. The SaaS-based software solution helps teams analyze sales data and other external pricing variables, providing sales and revenue projections, as well as recommendations on setting the right price at the right time. Whether it's a surprise playoff run or an MVP coming to town, teams are looking for ways to stay flexible to match ticket prices with the value of the experience.

"We are excited to move in the direction of dynamic pricing with Qcue," said Jim Olson, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing for the Utah Jazz. "Dynamic pricing allows us to better price our tickets according to public demand. The Qcue system is a proven system that takes the guess work out of the process and provides us with the data to both service our fans and maximize our opportunities."

Tickets.com, Others Follow Google, Amazon in Opening Up

Opening up an internal resource to outside developers, a la Amazon Web Services and Force.com, isn't just for the big guys anymore.

Smaller organizations with systems that may be aimed at narrow markets are also deciding to open up their platforms to third-party developers. They may do so as a way to create a new revenue stream or to make their own offerings more attractive.

Tickets.com is one such company that has opened its platform to third parties. The company, a subsidiary of MLB.com, provides the back-end ticketing engine for some Major League Baseball teams.

About four years ago, Tickets.com set out to revamp its platform, which at the time was composed of incompatible legacy systems. It decided to build an entirely new platform with a service-oriented architecture and a Web-based front end, said John Rizzi, senior vice president of product management and strategy at Tickets.com.

The decision to open that platform up to third parties came about by chance. "Somewhat by accident, we came to this spot," he said.

As it began building the new platform, Tickets.com hired technology experts to help with the process. "It took us bringing in people from outside the ticketing industry who were much more technology-centric to understand that we had a lot more in this platform than just something more modern and cheaper," Rizzi said.

Tickets.com isn't making its APIs available to just anyone, though. "It's not like we're going to say, 'here's the API, go develop and have fun.' Our clients aren't asking for that," he said. "They are asking for more flexibility and options, and we want to give them that."

Some third-party companies have already started offering services to Tickets.com customers using the new platform, and others are in the works.

Ballena is offering a product, built on Tickets.com's system, that lets online shoppers see in 3D the view from the seat they are considering buying. StubHub, the official secondary ticketing provider of the MLB, is also using the new platform. Its offering is integrated with Tickets.com, which ensures the tickets offered on StubHub are valid.

Tickets.com is also working with Qcue and Digonex, which offer dynamic pricing tools. Qcue, for example, feeds data, including sales inventory provided by Tickets.com and other data about the team's record, the weather and the game's pitching matchup, into its algorithms to recommend that baseball teams adjust ticket prices.

Developers may pay for access to Tickets.com in different ways, depending on how they operate. "My intent is, yes, to profit from this," Rizzi said. Qcue pays a subscription to receive the data feed. Stubhub shares revenue.

Rizzi's advice to other companies thinking of opening up their offerings in a similar way is to carefully think about the revenue model. "That's huge, because in the end, we could wind up opening our system and having a great system and making all the third parties really wealthy, and not participating in that. We don't want to do that," Rizzi said. "We want them to prosper... but I think having a plan in terms of how to monetize it before you implement is pretty important."

He also suggested that it's important to think about how to support the third-party developers. "Supporting an ecosystem of third parties is a lot different from supporting a client who is the end user of the system," he noted. He recommends that other companies make sure to consider those kinds of structural and business components and factor them into their revenue models.

At a recent cloud computing conference, Rizzi said one central theme was making the cloud about more than cost savings.

That's what Tickets.com and some of the pioneers in offering infrastructure or platforms as a service have done. Amazon, Google and Salesforce.com are among companies that have opened up their internal resources so third parties can develop on them.

For complete article: http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.cfm?RSS&NewsID=3235305

Source: Nancy Gohring, PC Advisor

St. Louis Cardinals Celebrate “Whitey Herzog Day” with Interactive “Cards Cash” Promotions Using UpTix™ Stored Value Technology from Tickets.com

Tickets.com is facilitating the expansion of stored value ticketing throughout Major League Baseball via its versatile UpTix Stored Value service.

The innovative technology, which loads cash value above admission price onto single tickets, can be customized and individually branded for each client. The St. Louis Cardinals promote it under the name “Cards Cash,” and on July 31, it was part of a pre-game celebration—in front of a sold-out crowd at Busch Stadium—honoring the team’s legendary former manager Whitey Herzog. Missouri’s Governor deemed it “Whitey Herzog Day.”

At the end of the ceremony—which saluted his 1,281 wins as a manager and his 2010 induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame—Herzog’s No. 24 was retired. Thus, the evening’s interactive Cards Cash promotions were themed around the number. Ticket-holders for every seat number 24 throughout the entire ballpark received $5 in Cards Cash value to spend on food, beverages, or merchandise during the game.

Additionally, each person seated in section 240 received $5 Cards Cash per ticket. An add-on to the section 240 promotion granted every fan a $5 bonus per strike-out in the top of the 3rd inning—there was one, giving each ticket-holder a total of $10 in Cards Cash.

More than 75% of ticket holders that received “24”-themed Cards Cash dollars redeemed all or part of the windfall. The evening proved an overall success for the team with a worthy 11-1 victory over Pittsburgh.

“It was great to see UpTix working in real-time, generating excitement for fans with Cards Cash awards tied to an on-field event,” said John Rizzi, Senior Vice President Product Management and Strategy, Tickets.com. “We know that purchasing stored value tickets is a benefit to both the team and the fans. It was a great way to commemorate Whitey Herzog and connect with the fans. We look forward to more interactive programs of this type.”

UpTix technology works by allowing concessions and merchandise credits to be pre-loaded onto a ticket through its unique bar code, and folded into the initial purchase price of the ticket. The embedded value above the admission price is scannable by vendors throughout the ballpark for the duration of the game—and fans holding such tickets never have to reach for their wallets.

PMI Entertainment Group Converts Ticket Star To ProVenue®, Seamlessly and Ahead of Schedule

Tickets.com®—a leading global provider of integrated, high-performance ticketing solutions—recently converted PMI Entertainment Group to ProVenue, its most advanced ticketing solution. Green Bay, WI-based PMI, which operates multiple venues serving diverse tenants, selected Tickets.com as its ticketing technology provider earlier this year because of industry-leading products including ProVenue.
“This is the smoothest conversion I have ever been associated with. Not only was it flawless, it was completed two days ahead of schedule,” said Brendan Bruss, Chief Administrative Officer of PMI Entertainment Group. “The outstanding communication, teamwork, and professionalism of Tickets.com made the entire experience top-notch. We look forward to an ongoing collaboration, and to the advanced capabilities of ProVenue benefiting our clients, promoters, and Ticket Star, our ticket company. We’re confident that the consumer data that ProVenue enables us to access will help us best understand and serve our customer base at every touch point.”
Facilities in the PMI Entertainment Group using ProVenue from Tickets.com include the Brown County Veterans Memorial Complex—the Resch Center (home to the Green Bay Gamblers, 2010 Clark and Anderson Cup hockey champions), ShopKo Exhibition Hall, and Brown County Veterans Memorial Arena—the historic Meyer Theatre, and various regional ticketing outlets. The ProVenue platform is also being utilized in PMI’s administrative offices.
ProVenue has already been put to the test for major PMI Entertainment Group on-sales including the Resch Center’s Walking With Dinosaurs arena spectacular and Star Wars In Concert. In addition to new events initiated after PMI went online with ProVenue, more than 130 previously existing events were converted, glitch-free, and backed up with perfectly balanced reports. The ProVenue solution allowed PMI to preserve the bar codes from their legacy system, creating a seamless customer service experience as well as an optimally efficient internal transition.
PMI Entertainment Group will add ProVenueMobile™ to its suite of customer services from Tickets.com later this summer. The group also plans on boosting the functionality and expanding the reach of Ticket Star, its branded regional ticketing business, with ProVenue features.
“PMI Entertainment Group’s embrace of new technologies and commitment to customer and client service are values we share,” said John Walker, President and Chief Executive Officer, Tickets.com. “Going forward, it will be exciting to partner with them on building their business, and serving the multi-faceted needs of their range of venues and customers with ProVenue’s many capabilities.”

Farm Aid on the Mound

Dave Matthews, Willie Nelson, Neil Young and John Mellencamp are among the icons playing Farm Aid's 25th anniversary concert on Oct. 2 at Miller Park.


Tickets for "Farm Aid 25: Growing Hope for America" will go on sale at 9 a.m. Aug. 14, at the Brewers box office, by calling (414) 902-4000 or online at www.tickets.com. Ticket prices range from $39.50 to $97.50.

This is the first time Farm Aid, which supports family farms nationwide, will be held in Wisconsin, said Carolyn Mugar, the group's executive director.

"We feel extremely welcome there, especially by the Brewers," Mugar said, noting city and state officials have voiced warm support.

Farm Aid officials said they selected the Dairy State as the venue because it's an excellent example of the past and present of American agriculture, noting Wisconsin represents "the greatest successes of the good food movement."

The group defines that movement as the growing public interest in organic, humanely raised and family farm-identified food. One of Farm Aid's goals - in addition to throwing a rocking concert to raise funds for its efforts - is to educate the public about the issues challenging the country's food system.

"People are much more interested in local, fresh, family farmed foods," Mugar said. "The message is extremely important to get people recognizing how important family farms are, that they can demand food from family farms and get more transparency as far as where their food is coming from."

One driving force behind that good food movement - he prefers to call it the good food revolution - is Will Allen, the founder of Growing Power in Milwaukee. Growing Power, an urban farm, community food center and international training effort, was singled out by Farm Aid as an important reason why Milwaukee will host the concert.

"What he does is extraordinary," Mugar said. "He is such a shining example of genius in the field. We really feel lucky to be in a city where he is and talk about his efforts and successes."

Allen, who was recently named by Time magazine one of the world's 100 most influential people, said he is honored and elated Farm Aid's concert is coming to town.

"When they called and said they were going to have it in Milwaukee, I was completely taken off guard," Allen said. "To have Farm Aid come is just another example of how Milwaukee has taken a leadership role in making Wisconsin the small farm capital of the world because of what's going on here and the training we do."

Allen said Wisconsin is a leader in sustainable farming, noting the many thriving small farms around Madison that make the Dane County Farmer's Market the largest in the United States.

"To grow food where people live, . . . it's a way to be proactive," Allen said. "People can grow their food in their backyard, community garden, and we are giving them concrete examples it can be done."

Farm Aid began as a benefit concert in 1985 in Champaign, Ill., to raise money for family farmers. The concert was organized by Nelson, Mellencamp and Young, who were inspired by Bob Dylan's comments at Live Aid earlier in that year. Nelson and Mellencamp brought family farmers before Congress to testify about the state of family farming in America, eventually leading to the passing of the Agricultural Credit Act of 1987 to help save family farms from foreclosure. Farm Aid has raised more than $37 million to promote a strong and resilient family farm system of agriculture.

"This is a really big thing for us as a state and as an organization," Allen said.

By Stanley A. Miller II of the Journal Sentinel
Updated: Aug. 2, 2010 9:18 a.m.

Wolf Trap Awarded Venue of Excellence by International Association of Assembly Managers, Inc.

Filene Center Wins Performing Arts Center Category

Vienna, VA—The Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts announced today that it has been awarded the inaugural Venue of Excellence award by the International Association of Assembly Managers (IAAM). These prestigious awards recognize venues that demonstrate excellence in the management and operation of public assembly venues. Wolf Trap was selected in the performing arts category based on four criteria: service to community, team building/professional development, safety and security, and operational excellence. These criteria complement the IAAM Value Statements of integrity, service, safety, education, advocacy, and people first. IAAM is the world's largest professional association, dedicated to issues relevant to the management of public assembly venues.

“The criteria for this award are all directly aligned to Wolf Trap’s mission to bring excellent and innovative performing arts programs that enrich, educate and provide enjoyment to diverse audiences,” said Terrence Jones, president and CEO of Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts. “We are honored to be recognized by such an important association and to be in the company of these other excellent venues that have won.”

Wolf Trap was one of five Venue of Excellence award winners. Others include Comcast Arena at Everett, Everett, Washington in the Arenas category; Oregon Convention Center, Portland, Oregon in Convention Centers category; PETCO Park, San Diego, California in the Stadiums category; and Stephen C. O’Connell Center – University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida in the Education Venue category.

“An award committee created criteria that would fairly and objectively score the nominated venues,” said Kevin Duvall, Award Review Committee Chair. “A venue that excels not only within its internal development and operations but also in the local community is one worthy of receiving the Venue of Excellence Award. The competition was top of the line.”

“As we created this award category we wanted to recognize outstanding venues. These venues have demonstrated exceptional leadership, innovation, perseverance and unwavering commitment of the highest standards to our industry. They are without a doubt most deserving of this recognition. And I heartily thank them all for participating.” said IAAM Chairman of the Board, Shura Lindgren-Garnett, CFE. She and Past President Robyn Williams, CFE, created the awards.

Tickets.com's BOK Center Ranked #9 In The USA For Ticket Sales

Tulsa, OK – July 12, 2010

Pollstar Magazine, a leading industry publication, has just released their rankings of the top arena venues worldwide based on ticket sales for January 1 – June 30, 2010. The BOK Center ranked #9 in the United States and #24 in the World.

General Manager John Bolton commented on the success, “To be ranked in the Top 10 arenas on the eve of our second anniversary is a great credit to our fans who continue to support the BOK Center by purchasing tickets.”

Top 10 nationwide arenas (with ticket sales):
1. Madison Square Garden Arena – New York, NY – 336,482
2. Philips Arena – Atlanta, GA – 326,053
3. Sprint Center – Kansas City, MO – 312,569
4. St. Pete Times Forum – Tampa, FL – 231,868
5. The Palace of Auburn Hills – Auburn Hills, MI – 225,139
6. Staples Center – Los Angeles, CA – 206,207
7. American Airlines Center – Dallas, TX – 189,901
8. Bank Atlantic Center – Sunrise, FL – 188,908
9. BOK Center – Tulsa, OK – 180,280
10. Mohegan Sun Arena – Uncasville, CT – 168,462

The BOK Center has reached its #9 ranking by booking a wide array of acts that appeal to purchasers. The arena has hosted 9 out of 10 top North American tours.

Top nationwide tours in order:
1. Bon Jovi
2. James Taylor/Carole King
3. Taylor Swift
4. Paul McCartney
5. George Strait/Reba/Lee Ann Womack
6. The Black Eyed Peas
7. John Mayer
8. Tim McGraw
9. Nickelback
10. Michael Buble’

Dave Matthews Band Confirms Wrigley Concert Dates

Tickets Go On Sale July 17 For September Concerts

CBS Chicago

The Dave Matthews Band has confirmed two dates in September for concerts at Wrigley Field.

Concert promoter Live Nation announced Tuesday that the Dave Matthews Band will appear on Friday, Sept. 17, and Saturday, Sept. 18, at the ballpark, with Jason Mraz joining them as a special guest.

Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. on Saturday, July 17. They will be available through Tickets.com or by calling (800) THE-CUBS.

The Dave Matthews Band was supposed to play at the ballpark in 2007, but the date was called off. The band gained a dose of infamy in Chicago in 2004, when one of its tour bus drivers dumped 800 pounds of human waste onto a sightseeing boat in 2004. The band later agreed to pay $200,000 dollars to an environmental fund to settle a lawsuit in the incident.

Officials say they need council approval by next month to secure a place in the band's schedule. The concert precedent began in 2005 with a pair of Labor Day concerts by Jimmy Buffett.

The band agreed to pay $200,000 dollars to an environmental fund to settle a lawsuit filed after one of its tour bus drivers dumped 800 pounds of human waste onto a sightseeing boat in 2004.

The first time Wrigley was used for summer concerts was in 2005, when Jimmy Buffett played. The Police also played the ballpark in 2007, and Elton John and Billy Joel sat down at dueling pianos last year.

John and Joel were supposed to return to Wrigley Field this summer, but their concert was canceled.

MLB teams step up to the mobile ticketing plate

13 major league baseball teams let fans purchase seats using mobile devices.

Internet Retailer
Brian Rogal

With m-commerce picking up steam, concert halls and sports teams want in on the action (and sales). Thirteen major league baseball teams including the Chicago Cubs, the Boston Red Sox and the Oakland A’s, recently began allowing fans to purchase seats using such hand-held devices as the BlackBerry or iPhone.

The teams, which all operate mobile sites on technology provided by Tickets.com Inc., decided to begin offering ticket purchasing on their sites within the past year to take advantage of strong growth in traffic, says Sheri Fink, head of e-commerce and strategic alliances at Tickets.com.

Steve Fanelli, executive director of ticket sales for the Oakland A’s, says his team sends about 1,000 bar-coded tickets for each game to fans’ mobile phones, though so far only a few hundred of those tickets are also purchased on a phone, with most of the rest bought through a PC. When a fan arrives at the ballpark with a mobile phone ticket, a gate keeper scans the bar code on his mobile phone screen.

Fanelli adds that, even though he expects mobile commerce ticket sales to grow slowly, it holds a lot of long-term promise. “It’s not huge right now, and it’s certainly not taking over as the dominant channel to purchase tickets,” he says. “Most people still prefer to go to a regular PC or use cash.”

However, he believes it’s important to offer the option, pointing out that when baseball clubs first began selling tickets over the web it took several years before customers got comfortable with that method.

Before the A’s and the other teams began offering mobile ticket sales, Tickets.com had already been providing each team with its own mobile web site through the company’s branded mobile web site technology, ProVenueMobile, developed in partnership with Usablenet Inc., an m-commerce technology vendor. Usablenet translates the information sent to and from the mobile devices.

Several years ago, the teams began offering game schedules, player statistics and other bits of information on their mobile sites, and many eventually added the more advanced features offered by Tickets.com, such as streaming video. But in the past year, traffic on the teams’ mobile sites doubled. That’s when the teams decided to let fans purchase tickets via the mobile sites, Fink says.

Baseball fans do not need to download an app onto their mobile device to buy tickets, Fink adds. They just get on their team’s mobile site, even if it’s a few minutes before game time, register an account, select the seats they want and pay with a credit card. They then receive a ticket on the mobile device in the form of a bar code.

All major league teams already used bar code scanners for traditional paper tickets, and making them usable for mobile devices required only minor upgrades, Fanelli says. He declined to provide costs related to developing the mobile sites, noting that each team has different contractual terms with Tickets.com to provide a variety of services, with the mobile option being just a small part.

Fanelli says the A’s have pushed mobile technology harder than most teams, and began experimenting with sending bar-coded tickets to mobile devices as early as 2006, although it was not until this April that customers could complete a purchase.

He adds that he believes as mobile devices like Apple Inc.’s iPhones and those that run on Google Inc.’s Android operating system get less cumbersome and more powerful, purchasing tickets via a mobile device will eventually become as standard as web-ticketing is now.

Fenway Park to host soccer game July 21

Boston Globe Soccer Blog – Corner Kicks – Boston.com

The Boston Red Sox have announced that Fenway Park will host an exhibition soccer game between Celtic FC of the Scottish Premier League and Sporting Clube de Portugal, commonly called “Sporting,” on July 21.

The Fenway Football Challenge will be the 19th soccer game at Fenway, but the first since 1968. It will be broadcast live on NESN, with kickoff at 8 p.m.

Tickets ($20-$120) will go on sale at noon on June 22 at tickets.com.

Mobile commerce stats round up

Graham Charlton
eConsultancy

Mobile purchasing habits in the US (Compete)

• 37% of US Smartphone users have made a (non-mobile) purchase on their handsets in the last six months.
  
• 19% have purchased music on their phones, 14% have bought books, DVDs or games, while 12% have purchased movie tickets.
  
• The amount that mobile users are willing to spend varies between handsets, with 32% of Android and 29% of iPhone users willing to spend $100 or more from their handsets, compared with 14% of Blackberry users.

Mobile purchasing habits in the US (ATG)

• 27% of all consumers used their mobiles to browse and research products at least four times over a 12 month period. For the 18-34 age group, this figure is 41%.
  
• 20% of all consumers and 32% 0F 18-34 year olds are researching purchases via mobile at least monthly.
  
• 13% of all consumers and 23% of the 18-34 age group make purchases via their mobile four times a year.

Mobile payments (Juniper)

• The market for mobile payments market is expected to quadruple by 2014, reaching $630bn in value, which equates to 5% of total e-commerce sales.
  
• The mobile payments market is worth $170bn so far this year.

Mobile commerce market size (ABI Research)

• The research firm predicts that in 2015, $119bn worth of goods and services will be purchased via a mobile phone.
  
• By ABI Research's count, mobile commerce tripled in the United States in 2009, but still only constituted a $1.2bn market.
  
• In Japan, which has one of the most vibrant mobile markets, mobile commerce exceeded $10bn in 2009.

Mobile internet usage (Essential Research)

• 47% of daily mobile internet users live in urban areas, while 42% of mobile internet users earn over £40,000 a year (household income) compared to 31% of non users.
  
• These daily mobile internet users are also more likely to spend more on their monthly mobile bills, 55% pay over £30 a month, compared to 10% of non users.

Smartphone usage (comScore)

• In the three month period ending in February 2010, 45.4m people in the U.S. owned smartphones, a 21% jump over November 2009.
  
• The fastest gainer in that segment is Google, whose Android platform rose by an impressive 5.2% in only three months.

Wolf Trap Voted 'Best Outdoor Concert Venue'

Congratulations to Tickets.com client Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts for being voted BEST OUTDOOR CONCERT VENUE by Washingtonian magazine readers!

Tuff Trucks plus Monster Trucks

Zvents

Friday, July 16 7:30 p.m.
at Stanislaus County Fairgrounds: FoodMaxx Arena, Turlock, CA

It's a race against time for more than 50 "stump jumpers" on an obstacle course filled with bumps and jumps - with two rotations around the track! Three classes will compete for quickest time: (1) Local Tuff Trucks, (2) Pro-Arena Trucks and (3) Quads (four-wheel motorcycles).

Local Tuff Trucks often have the suspension system changed out to provide for longer travel, have bigger wheels and tires and have been stripped to lighten the weight of the vehicle. Pro-Arena Trucks have been highly modified for ultimate performance.

Special appearances by roaring monster trucks: Time Flys and Fired up.

Price: Reserved seats: $8, General admission - adult: $6, General admission - child (12 and under): $4 (+Fair admission)

Ticket info: Tickets may be purchased online at tickets.com, the fair's website www.stancofair.com, by phone at 1-800-225-2277 or at the Fair office at 900 N. Broadway, Turlock.

Dwight Yoakam to perform in Salinas during Rodeo Week

The Californian
Ria Megnin

The California Rodeo Association and David Drew Productions will present The Centennial Rodeo Music Stampede with Dwight Yoakam on July 17.

Yoakam will perform at Salinas Municipal Stadium/Rodeo Fairgrounds, 175 Maryal Drive, Salinas. Gates open at 6 p.m.; show starts at 7 p.m.

Cost is $22 plus box fees or $47 plus box fees for VIPs.

Tickets are available at the Salinas Sports Complex Box Office, 800-549-4989 or 831-722-6500 or www.tickets.com.

Zac Brown Band to play Oklahoma City’s Zoo Amphitheatre Sept. 16; tickets go on sale June 26

Brandy McDonnell
BAM's Blog

Country group Zac Brown Band will be bringing its increasingly acclaimed live show to Oklahoma City’s Zoo Amphitheatre on Sept. 16.

Tickets will go on sale at 10 a.m. Saturday, June 26, the venue announced today.

Tickets will be available at www.zooamp.com and Tickets.com. For more information, call 364-3700.

The Atlanta-based band has developed a reputation for an electrifying live show, particularly after playing a scorching cover of “The Devil Went Down To Georgia” during last year’s Country Music Association Awards.

“I was so thrilled with that performance,” Oklahoma-born superstar Reba McEntire recently told the Associated Press. “I thought it was very gutsy of them, too, not to do their single, but to do a live performance. It was a showstopper. They do go against the grain a lot. They’re kind of renegade in a way, but they back it up.”

The band is coming off a series of three high-profile performances in the last week: Wednesday at the CMT Music Awards, Saturday at the CMA Music Festival and Sunday at the Bonnaroo Music Festival.

In addition, Brown & Co. have the momentum of three No. 1 singles, a recent Grammy win and two albums in Billboard’s country top 10 on their side. Their most-recent album, “The Foundation,” continues its slow burn at No. 3 with 2 million copies sold, and the new two CD, one DVD live set, “Pass The Jar: Live” is No. 9 on the charts.

The group takes a blue-collar approach, Brown told the AP before playing CMA Music Fest and Bonnaroo over the weekend, and feeds off the energy of the crowd. They always know in minutes if the show’s going to go to another level.

“You feed off the crowd,” he said. “Whatever they give you, as much as they’ll give you, it comes back to us and it makes this big turbine of energy in the room. We’ll know stepping out how much they want to give us. It gives us that extra. Literally when we get done playing we’re exhausted. We’re covered in sweat and we’re soaked and we feel like we’ve given them their money’s worth.”

Tickets.com to Present at Internet Retailer's Mobile Commerce Conference

The American consumer's mindset is changing. Consumers are increasingly relying on mobile phones not only as phones but also as devices for obtaining information and conducting transactions—be that buying movie tickets, purchasing merchandise or checking flight times.

Internet Retailer's first annual Mobile Commerce Forum: Mobile Commerce Enters the Mainstream, will present a cross-industry view of how marketers are driving business results using the mobile channel. The conference agenda will bring together different industries so they can learn from each other and travel this fast-rising growth curve together. Featuring ticket sellers, travel and hospitality companies, retailers, and entertainment and digital service providers, it will present speakers who will share their experience in developing and executing successful mobile commerce initiatives.

Sheri Fink, eCommerce & Strategic Alliances, will be speaking on behalf of Tickets.com to share the experience of developing the Tickets.com mobile site and the unique challenges the team faced throughout the mobilization process. The conference will present a cross-industry view of how marketers are driving business results using the mobile channel.

Designing for mobile
9:30 AM - 10:15 AM Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Two schools exist when it comes to web page presentation on mobile—design a mobile site separate from the e-commerce site or let the mobile device reflect the e-commerce design. Whichever approach a marketer adopts, the m-commerce and e-commerce teams need to know the pluses and minuses of each. This session will explore the strategies of two mobile players who will explain why they made the choices they did, and help attendees know which approach is right for their own products and services. It also will feature a usability expert who will look at how to test to make sure the site is displaying properly and how to test navigability and usability of a mobile design and of e-commerce designs adapted for mobile.

Learn more >

Mobile Commerce Daily: Thirteen MLB teams launch mobile ticketing initiatives

Dan Butcher
Mobile Marketer

Major League Baseball Advanced Media’s Tickets.com has incorporated the ProVenueMobile ticketing service for all 13 of its Major League Baseball clients.

The 13 MLB clubs on the Tickets.com client roster using ProVenueMobile include the Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs, Cincinnati Reds, Detroit Tigers, Kansas City Royals, Milwaukee Brewers, Minnesota Twins, Oakland Athletics, Pittsburgh Pirates, St. Louis Cardinals, San Francisco Giants, Texas Rangers and Washington Nationals.

ProVenueMobile powers client-branded ticket transactions to be made 24/7 from select Internet-enabled mobile phones through each club’s mobile Web site, offering fans the option to digitally receive unique bar-coded tickets directly to their mobile phones.

Mobile Commerce Daily’s Dan Butcher interviewed Sheri Fink, head of ecommerce and strategic alliances at Tickets.com, Costa Mesa, CA. Here is what she had to say:

What is the strategy behind the partnership between Tickets.com and the 13 MLB clubs?
Tickets.com is at the vanguard of mobile technologies and Web site mobilization in the ticketing and admissions service industry.

The MLB clubs are very sophisticated and have games that appeal to a mobile-savvy audience.

We are excited to offer these innovative services to 13 MLB clubs as well as a wide variety of other clients.

What challenges does ProVenueMobile address for these teams?
ProVenueMobile enables the teams to sell tickets up to the last minute. Fans want convenience when they are purchasing tickets and arriving at events.

ProVenueMobile provides the ultimate convenience—the ability to purchase tickets anytime, anywhere. It enables fans to buy tickets on the way to the ballpark using their mobile phones.

With Tickets@Phone mobile ticket delivery, fans can also have the tickets delivered directly to their mobile phones without ever having to wait in line at the box office or will call.

ProVenueMobile is open to all mobile phones without requiring fans to download an application.

This allows anyone with an Internet-enabled mobile phone to purchase the teams’ tickets quickly and conveniently just by going to their Web sites.

What demographic is this targeting?
Mobile ticketing appeals to a broad audience. We are currently working with the baseball teams to build a strong mobile fan base.

We have clients in the concert and performing arts industries who are using ProVenueMobile as well.

We are seeing mobile ticketing become especially popular with smartphone users.

How do baseball fans complete a ticket purchase via their mobile device?
Baseball fans simply go to their favorite team’s Web site using their mobile device and select the game for which they would like to buy tickets.

Then, they log into their MLB.com account where their customer information is stored or enter their payment information if they’re a first-time customer.

Fans select their preferred delivery option, make their purchase and then receive a confirmation of their transaction.

If Tickets@Phone mobile ticket delivery is chosen, the ticket bar codes are sent directly to their mobile phone via SMS or MMS.

The ProVenueMobile product contains all of the security features and added functionality available on the teams’ private-label Web sites.

This seamless compatibility with mobile phones enables fans to purchase tickets using promo codes, if applicable, on the teams’ mobile sites.

Mobile transactions are conducted in real time via the ticketing system, so reporting and ticket inventory display up-to-date numbers.

Why is mobile bar code ticketing better for fans and the teams?
Mobile bar code ticketing offers an improved fan experience by providing the ultimate convenience for ticket purchase and delivery. It saves fans time by enabling them to enter the ballpark without waiting in box office or will call lines.

And, because most people carry their mobile phones all the time, the potential for lost or misplaced tickets is greatly reduced.

From the teams’ perspective, mobile bar code ticketing improves the fan experience, enables the teams to sell tickets up to the last minute, reduces operational costs—due to having fewer people in will call and box office lines—and increases revenue by enabling fans to enter the ballpark earlier where they can begin purchasing food, beverages, and merchandise instead of waiting in line outside.

It is also better for the environment because it saves paper and reduces printing.

How are Tickets.com and the 13 teams getting the word out about this mobile ticketing platform?
Several of the teams are already advertising this new technology via in-stadium announcements, signage, Yearbook ads and programs.

MLBAM is working closely with the teams on messaging the mobile ticket purchase capabilities within the teams’ mobile Web sites.

Tickets.com is promoting it via PR and social media marketing on our company blog, Facebook, and Twitter.

“Yo Gabba Gabba!” bringing first live tour to Tulsa Nov. 5

Brandy McDonnell
BAM's Blog

Children’s show “Yo Gabba Gabba!” is bringing its first live tour to Tulsa’s BOK Center, the venue has announced.

“Yo Gabba Gabba! Live: There’s a Party In My City” will sing and dance into the BOK Center Nov. 5.

Tickets will go on sale at 10 a.m. Saturday, June 26. Prices are set at $30.50 and $40.50.

Tickets will be available online at www.bokcenter.com, at Arby’s Box Office, at all Tickets.com outlets, or by calling (866) 7BOKCTR.

The “Yo Gabba Gabba!” tour is hitting cities across America just after the release of the show’s first CD, “Yo Gabba Gabba! Music is Awesome!,” which will be on shelves Oct. 20. W!ldbrain and S2BN Entertainment have collaborated to present “Yo Gabba Gabba! Live! There’s A Party In My City.” The show’s first live U.S. tour kicks off Nov. 14. The tour features music, animation, games, singing, dancing, and special musical guests.

The live touring show “Yo Gabba Gabba! Live!: There’s a Party in My City!” features DJ Lance Rock, and everyone’s favorite cast of characters: Muno (the red Cyclops), Foofa (the pink flower bubble), Brobee (the little green one), Plex (the magic robot), and Toodee (the blue cat-dragon). The one-of-a-kind live event offers audience members of all ages the opportunity to witness their favorite characters come to life with the magic words, “Yo Gabba Gabba!” Special guests will rock their favorite “Dancey Dance” moves and join the party on stage for the Super Music Friends Show. Legendary rapper Biz Markie will teach kids how to beat box with Biz’s Beat of the Day and surprise Super Music Friends and Dancey Dancers at every stop.

Tickets for Eminem, Jay-Z Concert at Comerica Park go on sale June 25

Detroit News
Adam Graham

Tickets for Eminem and Jay-Z's Sept. 2 mega-concert at Comerica Park go on sale at 10 a.m. June 25.

Tickets cost $49.50, $79.50 and $99.50 and will go on sale through Tickets.com, Livenation.com, the Comerica Park box office and select Meijer stores. Tickets will be available for purchase by phone at (866) 668-4437, and additional information is available at (313) 471-6611.

The Eminem and Jay-Z concert is part of a two-city tour in which the superstar rappers are playing each other's hometown baseball stadiums. The duo will perform at Yankee Stadium in New York on Sept. 13.

Tickets.com Integrates its ProVenueMobile™ Product with all 13 of its Major League Baseball Clients

Tickets.com, a leading global provider of integrated ticketing solutions, announced that it has incorporated the ProVenueMobile™ ticketing service for all 13 of its Major League Baseball clients. ProVenueMobile enables full-circle, client-branded ticket transactions to be made 24/7 from select Internet-enabled mobile phones through the club’s mobilized web site.

ProVenueMobile marks a milestone in the admission services industry as the first mobile ticketing technology allowing fans to browse listings and make real-time purchases from their mobile phones without the need to “click to call” to finalize the transaction. To maximize the potential of ProVenueMobile, the MLB clubs that utilize the proprietary Tickets@Phone® technology will offer fans the option to digitally receive unique barcoded tickets directly and securely to their mobile phones for a 100% mobile—and green—ticket-buying experience.

"We are proud to be at the vanguard of website mobilization for Major League Baseball clubs,” said Derek Palmer, Chief Commercial Officer, Tickets.com. "Being able to offer our sports clients a product that enables brand differentiation and secure mobile ticketing from start to finish is essential in today’s increasingly digital marketplace. We understand that our MLB partners want to be at the forefront of this exciting new era in ticketing.”

The 13 MLB clubs on the Tickets.com client roster using ProVenueMobile include: Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs, Cincinnati Reds, Detroit Tigers, Kansas City Royals, Milwaukee Brewers, Minnesota Twins, Oakland Athletics, Pittsburgh Pirates, St. Louis Cardinals, San Francisco Giants, Texas Rangers, and Washington Nationals.

“It was really important for our organization, and the other teams that I’ve talked with, to offer a mobile ticketing platform to fans,” said Carl Rice, Senior Director, Facility Management & Information Technology, Chicago Cubs. “In addition to purchasing tickets from their mobile phones, fans can opt-in for team updates and other features. Sports enthusiasts are early adopters of new technologies, and they’ll find that ProVenueMobile offers a valuable way to stay connected to the team.”

STG Announces Snoop Dogg & Ice Cube and Mark Kozelek

BroadwayWorld.com

Seattle Theatre Group (STG) announces the following concerts going on sale this week.

Snoop Dogg & Ice Cube
How The West Was One Tour
Date: July 14, 2010 @ 7:30pm
Venue: Paramount Theatre (All Ages)
Price: $45.00 not including applicable fees
Seating: General Admission (flat floor) & Reserved Seating (balcony)

Ticketing information: Online at Tickets.com, in person at the Paramount Theatre box office (M-F 10am-6pm), 24-hour kiosks located outside the Paramount & Moore Theatres, charge by phone at (877) 784-4849, or online at STGPresents.org.

Iconic in stature and in essence, Cordozar Calvin Broadus, Jr. has carved out a permanent place in musical history. Undeniably, the rapper, producer, actor, entrepreneur, coach, husband and father affectionately called Snoop Dogg, has performed the most unique balancing act that hip hop has ever witnessed. Never short on vision, drive or ambition, the sharp talking wordsworth has managed to redefine and reinvent himself over the course of his fifteen year career, each time revealing a distinctive cache from the depths within. His rhythmic cadences are classic in nature and his demeanor is as laid back and effortless as the brand extensions he has created for himself.

Known to be one of the Most Important figures in rap history, Ice Cube began his career with the Notorious West Coast Gangsta Rap Group N.W.A two decades ago. At the height of the group's success, Ice Cube broke away to start his own solo career. His initial release, "Amerikkka's Most Wanted" (Priority, 1990) sold over a million copies. His sophomore solo effort, "Death Certificate"(Priority, 1991), a concept album about the fall and rise of the black man, debuted at #1 on the R&B Album chart, #2 on the Top 200 album chart and went on to sell over two million copies. His impressive musical career also includes the multi-platinum success of both his double album "War and Peace," and hit albums "Lethal Injection," "Bootlegs & B-Sides," "The Predator," and the gold certified, independently released "Laugh Now, Cry Later." Ice Cube has sold over 10 million albums to date.

Mark Kozelek
of Sun Kil Moon & Red House Painters
Special Guest: Tiny Vipers
Date: September 7, 2010 @ 8:00pm
Venue: Town Hall (All Ages)
Price: $18.00 in advance, $20.00 day of show, not including applicable fees
Seating: General Admission

Ticketing information: Online at Tickets.com, in person at the Paramount Theatre box office (M-F 10am-6pm), 24-hour kiosks located outside the Paramount & Moore Theatres, charge by phone at (877) 784-4849, or online at STGPresents.org.

With a two-year-old Red House Painters record sitting on the shelf, unable to find release due to legal ramifications, Mark Kozelek broke four years of recorded silence with the Rock 'n' Roll Singer EP. Released in 2000 under his own name, the half-hour disc featured interpretations of three Bon Scott-era AC/DC covers, a John Denver cover, and a couple new songs of his own. The EP seemed to divide longtime fans and critics into two camps. Some felt that the long period of no new material shouldn't have resulted in a batch of covers, while others were impressed with Kozelek's straight-faced reinterpretations that revealed a surprising amount of depth at the heart of AC/DC's songs. Kozelek also spent a fair amount of time during 1999 and 2000 arranging Take Me Home: A Tribute to John Denver and two benefit compilations for the Shanti Project, a San Francisco-based AIDS relief organization. He was also cast in the role of a bass player with a predilection for high-school females in Cameron Crowe's critically acclaimed Almost Famous, which hit theaters in 2000.


ABOUT STG:
STG is the 501 (c)(3) non-profit arts organization that operates the historic Paramount and Moore Theatres in Seattle, Washington. Our mission is to make diverse performing arts and education an integral part of our region's cultural identity while keeping these two landmark venues alive and vibrant. STG presents a variety of shows from Broadway, off-Broadway, dance and Jazz or comedy, concerts of all genres, speakers and family shows - at both historic theatres in Seattle and at venues throughout Puget Sound and Portland, Oregon.

Ticket prices announced for Tom Petty’s Tulsa show; tickets go on sale Saturday morning

BAM's Blog
Brandy McDonnell

Prices for the BOK Center’s second anniversary concert featuring Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers have been confirmed by the Tulsa venue. Tickets go on sale to the public at 10 a.m. Saturday.

The second anniversary show, featuring special guest ZZ Top, is set for Sept. 23.

Ticket prices are set at $39.75, $59.75, $79.75 and $119.75.

Tickets will be available online at www.tickets.com, www.livenation.com and www.bokcenter.com, at Arby’s Box Office, at all Tickets.com outlets, or by calling (866) 7BOKCTR.

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers are touring to support the band’s first album in eight years, “Mojo,” which was released this week.

Dynamic Ticket Pricing: Coming Soon to a Stadium Near You

Authority Tickets: Secondary Ticket News
Kelly

San Francisco is always a little bit ahead of the curve, in everything from haute cuisine to public policy. Now, according to Tickets.com, the hometown Giants are setting a trend when it comes to ticket pricing by employing a dynamic system that moves up and down depending on a variety of criteria such as dates, times, and opponents.

It’s a practice commonly found in the secondary ticket market that is making headway in the primary arena thanks to the Giants and other early adopters. And it’s only going to gain more traction in the coming years as consumers get more accustomed to a model that is also standard fare for hotels and airlines.

As Russ Stanley, managing vice president of ticketing sales and services for the Giants, sees it, “This is coming on very, very quickly. Within five years, I think everybody’s going to be doing this. Everybody in the industry is looking at it closely and evaluating it. I’m getting at least a call a week about this [from other teams], probably two.”

The Giants teamed up with Texas-based startup Qcue Inc. to begin testing the dynamic model last season and chalked up an additional $500,000 in revenues earned on a limited number of games. This season, they are looking to bring in seven figures worth as they expand the program to every game at AT&T Park.

The Houston Astros, Dallas Stars, Florida Panthers, and Cleveland Cavaliers are all testing the waters for themselves either this year or next.

What remains to be seen is how fans will react. For many, their hometown teams are their lifeblood and have been for generations. Getting a calendar and buying tickets ahead of time is part of the annual ritual. If prices can’t be determined in advance or fluctuate too much, some fans may push back against their favorite franchises.

The highest risk demographic is that of season ticket holders. If a dynamic system drives the face value of tickets to a price point below what they paid, then the incentive for buying a package up front is eliminated. So far, that problem has been avoided by keep a watchful eye not to let prices drift that low and by offering additional value to the packages such as access to the team.

“I simply wouldn’t be doing this if it meant putting our season-ticket holders at risk,” Stanley said. “At least half of what we’ll sell all year will be through season tickets, so we absolutely have to protect that.”

Chris Hutson, co-chief executive for Turnstyles Ticketing, has his doubts: “I don’t begrudge anybody trying this, but not at the expense of traditional, blood-and-guts ticket selling. I’ve seen every gimmick in this business and we, as an industry, tend to rely on things like this too much instead of good old-fashioned elbow grease. There are so many variables in [dynamic pricing], and I’m not sure we’ve thought through them all. What happens, for example, if [Tim] Lincecum doesn’t pitch in a particular game after somebody’s paid an accelerated price to see that game?”

Filling the stadium and filling the coffers are two goals that can sometimes be at odds. Teams are now looking to dynamic pricing as an answer to both.

As technology – particularly computer modeling – has advanced over the years, some teams have used it to determine audience analysis by inputting factors like when the game will be played, who will be playing, and what the weather will likely be. A true dynamic system takes that another step further by implementing the system season-wide, year-on-year.

The Qcue algorithm uses similar criteria, while also taking the secondary ticket market’s prices into account, to recommend price shifts. The client team can go with that recommendation or consider other factors and set their own price. The Qcue system feeds into the team’s existing ticketing system, as it does for the Stars and Giants through Tickets.com.

Qcue’s chief executive Barry Kahn boasts,“What we’ve done is create a software platform that performs very high-end demand and sales forecasting. Obviously, we’re huge believers in dynamic pricing, but with or without that, that information is still very valuable. That’s the foundation, and from there, we’re proving value and revenue upside.”

Their main rival, Digonex Technologies Inc., is working with the Cavaliers and will soon announce another NBA partnership. The company sees a bright future for the dynamic model.

“Consumer acceptance of dynamic pricing has definitely changed,” said Rex Fisher, Digonex vice president of business development. “We all have greater access to information, and we’ve simply been conditioned that many products are priced subject to change.”

The Cavaliers added six figures to their revenue line last season, too.

Mike Tomon, the Cavs’ vice president of sales, believes that there’s more to it than just money: “Even more than the additional revenue, dynamic pricing has helped us engage the fan and be relevant by offering them the right product at the right price at the right time. That helps with building fan engagement and loyalty.”

Consumer education is one part of the two-pronged approach to respectability for the new model. Surveys and explanations are being offered, along with the tried-and-true ideal of locking in your price now so you save money.

As more fans latch on to the idea, so will more teams. Tomon continued, “It simply makes all the sense in the world to have a true value-based offering that’s derived from fan behavior. This is coming to a head in sports, and with good reason.”

Tickets.com attacking Ticketmaster dominance with open cloud systems

Companies believes that partnerships will lead to industry innovation

By Jon Brodkin, Network World

There are few monopolies as total as the one enjoyed by Ticketmaster. When's the last time you purchased a ticket online without paying Ticketmaster's $10-plus "convenience fees"?

Ticketmaster has beat back every competitor's attempt to displace it from the top of the online ticketing industry, but John Rizzi, vice president of product management and strategy at Tickets.com, is hopeful that a partner ecosystem based on new cloud computing technologies can eat away at Ticketmaster's dominant market share.

Tech arguments: Public vs. Private cloud

In a speech at the Cloud Leadership Forum, a conference hosted by IDC and IDG Enterprise, Rizzi took a few shots at Ticketmaster while acknowledging his own company's struggles to compete.

Tickets.com began with the idea of connecting to many different ticketing systems, like an aggregator site, but the approach failed because it lacked a critical mass of tickets to sell.

"The dominant player in the industry far and away is Ticketmaster and they had no intention of letting us sell tickets online for them," Rizzi said. "They wanted to do it themselves."

With Ticketmaster, "anybody who's bought tickets online knows how ridiculous the fees are. You pay a convenience fee. You pay an order fee, you pay a fee to print the tickets at home. This is a very hard model to compete with and we've tried to compete with it, other companies have tried to compete with it, and it's not working."

Tickets.com went on an acquisition spree in the early 2000s, buying four or five other ticketing companies. Tickets.com now sells tickets for half of the teams in Major League Baseball, and is a subsidiary of MLB.com.

Rather than focusing mostly on customer-facing technology, Tickets.com is now trying to make headway by selling ticketing systems to sports teams and other organizations. Ticketmaster still controls ticket sales of the other baseball teams Tickets.com doesn't sell for, as well as many other professional sports teams. But Rizzi believes his company's approach of partnering with a variety of cloud vendors, using APIs to connect one service to another, will drive innovation in the industry.

For example, Tickets.com partners with Qcue to provide a dynamic pricing engine to teams such as the San Francisco Giants. With dynamic pricing, an algorithm takes into account pitching matchups, weather, the opponent, day of the week and market conditions to determine the optimal price for an event. While a team like the Boston Red Sox needs little help selling tickets, and can charge whatever it wants, this dynamic pricing model has helped the Giants increase sales, according to Rizzi.

In addition to Qcue, Tickets.com is embracing a variety of partners, including Salesforce.com, StubHub, Givex and FanSnap. Rizzi believes partnerships will help differentiate Tickets.com from Ticketmaster.

"We really believe the ecosystem is what's going to drive innovation and the adoption of our ticketing platform," Rizzi said. "We're not going to be able to out-Ticketmaster Ticketmaster [alone]. Ticketmaster's systems are closed. So are the other competitors in our marketplace."

Rizzi pledged to improve the ticket-buying experience for customers, which he said has evolved slowly. He acknowledged that Ticketmaster is starting to improve in certain areas, such as allowing limited ability to choose specific seats, but in general he claimed the Ticketmaster technology is antiquated.

"Ticketmaster has conditioned this market to ignore technology," Rizzi said. "Buying tickets online, the experience is awful. It's really antiquated, it's very old, it's not very flexible. We are coming at a time where the teams are starting to realize that they want to change, they don't want to be beholden to Ticketmaster anymore."

IDC/IDG Enterprise Cloud Leadership Forum Finalizes Agenda With Cloud Industry's Most Influential Vendor Executives and Senior IT Executives

Extending Your Business Into the Cloud
John Rizzi, Vice President of Product Management and Strategy, Tickets.com

Tickets.com isn't just considering how the cloud can augment its infrastructure - the company is becoming a cloud provider itself! By extending its rich ticket service capabilities into the cloud and creating an ecosystem for enhancement by a world of developers, Tickets.com is not only enriching its services and deepening customer ties, but attempting to move its business faster than traditional competitors. This eye-opening case study shows that the cloud isn't just about a new style of computing, but a whole new way to do business.

John Rizzi will be speaking at the conference on June 15.

One in Five U.S. Adult Consumers Now Using Mobile Commerce

Fierce Mobile Content
By Jason Ankeny

One in five U.S. adult wireless subscribers utilized mobile commerce services in the past month according to a new consumer study conducted by non-profit industry trade group the Mobile Marketing Association in partnership with Luth Research. Among 1,000 adult subscribers surveyed in mid-April, 17 percent of respondents purchased mobile applications, ringtones and related digital content, 6 percent used their phones to receive coupons or discounts and another 6 percent bought physical goods or non-mobile content and services.

The MMA notes that more than half of iPhone owners and 34 percent of BlackBerry users have purchased content for their smartphones, more than subscribers across rival platforms. Fifty-six percent of mobile content purchases were made through the subscriber's carrier, and 43 percent paid for the transaction via bank or credit card account. Regardless of transaction type, adults between the ages of 25 and 34 used their phones more than other age groups--the MMA adds that most respondents consider m-commerce to be "secure and trustworthy."

Read more on the MMA m-commerce study >

Tickets.com Client Spotlight: Kansas City Royals

Ted Nugent Unloads His Latest Tour On Hartman Arena August 8

Hartman Arena is excited to welcome Ted Nugent August 8 for one monstrous stop on his “Trample The Weak, Hurdle The Dead 2010” tour.

The incomparable guitar genius & firebreathing intensity of TED NUGENT have carved him a permanent place among the legends of rock. Hailing from Detroit, the guitarist's prodigious talents, earshattering volume & over-the-top onstage antics quickly earned Young Ted the moniker of "Motor City Madman," along with international acclaim.

Recognized as the world's leading guitar showman, NUGENT'S no-holds-barred career spans five decades of multi-platinum hits. From the ground breaking Amboy Dukes' "Journey to the Center of the Mind," to classics like "Stranglehold" & "Cat Scratch Fever," Damn Yankees chartbusters like "High Enough," cult classic "Fred Bear," and now “Love Grenade,” TED NUGENT'S rapidfire sonic assaults continue to sell out venues around the globe.

The sounds he wrings from his almighty Gibson Byrdland leave audiences gasping for breath & begging for more. To millions of guitar lovers everywhere, TED NUGENT is rock & roll and with Hartman Arena’s uniquely intimate seating layout, everyone in attendance will have a close-up view of this rock spectacle!

Tickets start at just $24.75 and go on-sale beginning at 10:00 on June 5 at stage1tickets.com, all Stage1 Ticket Outlets, the Hartman Arena Box Office or by calling 316-927-3999.

Dynamic pricing has the potential to grow ticket revenue, but will consumers balk?

Ticketing’s changeup

Sports Business Journal
By Eric Fisher

Saturday, May 15, was a rather typical day of what so far has been a somewhat resurgent season for the San Francisco Giants. Star pitcher Tim Lincecum, the reigning two-time National League Cy Young Award winner, pitched eight brilliant innings in a 2-1 win over the Houston Astros at AT&T Park, pushing his record at the time to 5-0.

But the star power of Lincecum also created a noticeable spike in the club’s single-game ticket prices. Lincecum’s dominant presence helped turn a left-field view reserved seat that sold for $15 the night before into a $20 ticket on game day, a $42 lower box seat into a $50 ticket, a $105 field club ticket into a $130 one, and so on through the club’s 20 different seating categories.

Such fluid market dynamics have been the norm on the secondary ticket market for years, particularly over the last decade as that segment of the industry has experienced a historic and meteoric rise in prominence, stature and overall consumer acceptance. On the primary ticket market, many teams over the same time have embraced variable-pricing structures in which more games on popular months or days of the week and against better opponents carry higher ticket prices, though still on a preplanned, static basis.

But the Giants are among a fast-growing collection of teams engaging in dynamic pricing on their primary ticket markets, in which prices more freely move up and down each day based on a wide range of supply and demand factors.

Dynamic pricing, long a benchmark of the hotel, airline and other commodity industries, holds the potential to alter sports ticketing even more dramatically than the advent of officially sanctioned secondary ticketing, many executives and advocates say.

“This is coming on very, very quickly. Within five years, I think everybody’s going to be doing this,” said Russ Stanley, managing vice president of ticketing sales and services for the Giants.

The club, working with Texas-based startup Qcue Inc., made $500,000 in incremental revenue last season testing a small portion of AT&T Park on dynamic pricing. At least a low- to mid-seven-figure sum in additional money is anticipated this season, as the club has expanded the dynamic-pricing program to the entire ballpark for every game for single-game tickets.

“Everybody in the industry is looking at it closely and evaluating it. I’m getting at least a call a week about this [from other teams], probably two,” Stanley said.

Other teams either already active in dynamic pricing or confirmed to start next season include the Astros, Dallas Stars, Florida Panthers and Cleveland Cavaliers.

The rise of dynamic pricing, however, is not so cut and dried, and its accelerating emergence arrives with lots of uncertainty and mixed feelings.

Unlike hotel rooms, airline tickets and other similar products, consumers hold deep, often multigenerational emotional attachments to their sports teams. Those teams, which often play in facilities built at least in part with public funds, have for years also printed their price lists months in advance, creating a general expectation that those prices are set for the coming season. Each ticket price increase, as any team knows, also creates public relations issues and marketplace pushback.

And as sports fans and investors understand all too well, past performance is never a guarantee of future results. Even Lincecum lost his next start after that sparkling win over the Astros.

“I don’t begrudge anybody trying this, but not at the expense of traditional, blood-and-guts ticket selling,” said Chris Hutson, co-chief executive for Turnstyles Ticketing, a New Jersey-based ticketing services company that works with numerous pro teams and universities.

“I’ve seen every gimmick in this business,” Hutson said, “and we as an industry tend to rely on things like this too much instead of good old-fashioned elbow grease. There are so many variables in [dynamic pricing], and I’m not sure we’ve thought through them all. What happens, for example, if Lincecum doesn’t pitch in a particular game after somebody’s paid an accelerated price to see that game?”

Old problem, new solution

Dynamic pricing represents the latest attempt to answer one of the most fundamental set of questions in the sports industry: how best to fill an arena or stadium and generate the highest amount of revenue from those fans in the building.

Much of the dynamic pricing answer is not necessarily new.

Market-based pricing on the primary ticket market borrows heavily from several areas: the acceptance of secondary ticketing and its market-driven forces; a rapid embrace of computer-based analytics and research into ticketing and ticket sales; and consumers’ extensive use of the Internet to track prices in real-time for thousands of other products.

Dozens of teams, such as the Cavaliers and the Atlanta Braves, for the past several years have used various computer models that take inputs such as team opponent, day of the week, month of the year, win-loss record, weather and other factors to perform attendance modeling, representing something of an early step toward dynamic pricing.

But dynamic pricing differs from those other, related approaches on two primary points. Making the move requires a willingness to step over that emotionally charged chasm and agreeing to alter prices that historically have not changed within a given season, and then implementing the infrastructure to do so on a continuous basis.

To that end, much of what Qcue has done is reduce sports ticketing to something of a math problem. The company’s software feeds extensively on a complex algorithm that, similar to an airline or hotel model, takes in all the various pricing factors, including going rates on the secondary market, and spits back out recommended prices.

The team retains the option to agree to those recommendations, or alter them based on additional human factors the program may not have considered.

The Qcue pricing engine is designed to integrate directly into a club’s ticketing system, as the company has done with the Stars and Giants in partnership with Tickets.com. Qcue earns money on a two-pronged approach in which an upfront software fee is supplemented by a revenue-sharing component on ticket sales above a certain level deriving from the dynamic-pricing model.

“What we’ve done is create a software platform that performs very high-end demand and sales forecasting,” said Barry Kahn, Qcue chief executive. “Obviously, we’re huge believers in dynamic pricing, but with or without that, that information is still very valuable. That’s the foundation, and from there, we’re proving value and revenue upside.”

Digonex Technologies Inc., perhaps Qcue’s most direct competitor, has taken a similar approach. Seeking to leverage an existing background in dynamic pricing for e-commerce, including digital music, Digonex last fall launched a sports and entertainment ticketing division. Early this year, it began working with the Cavaliers, with another deal pending with an undisclosed NBA team.

“Consumer acceptance of dynamic pricing has definitely changed,” said Rex Fisher, Digonex vice president of business development. “We all have greater access to information, and we’ve simply been conditioned that many products are priced subject to change.”

The Cavaliers also generated an undisclosed six-figure sum in incremental revenue this past season through dynamic pricing. But for team officials, there is an even bigger prize.

“Even more than the additional revenue, dynamic pricing has helped us engage the fan and be relevant by offering them the right product at the right price at the right time. That helps with building fan engagement and loyalty,” said Mike Tomon, Cavaliers vice president of sales. “It simply makes all the sense in the world to have a true value-based offering that derived from fan behavior. This is coming to a head in sports, and with good reason.”

Protecting season-ticket holders

The top concern surrounding dynamic pricing, not surprisingly, is the potential impact on season-ticket holders, still the lifeblood of all sports ticketing. While prices do move up in high-demand situations — generating predictable complaints of teams being exploitative — it’s the downward price movements for lower-demand games that actually create the bigger business threat.

If prices drift down to points at or near what season-ticket holders paid, what then are the advantages of paying for an entire package of games? Fans have already begun for several years to cherry-pick desired games on the secondary market.

“Price integrity without a doubt has been the No. 1 discussion point or concern on this topic,” said Derek Palmer, Tickets.com chief commercial officer.

The general response from teams on that bigger question is to show additional, unable-to-duplicate value to season-ticket holders through amenities such as access to players and coaches. With regard specifically to dynamic pricing, the early adopters have generally avoided going below their season-ticket pricing.

The insertion of artificial price floors means that teams such as the Giants, Stars and Cavaliers are not practicing dynamic pricing in the truest and fullest sense. But preserving that core base of the most-loyal ticket buyers remains critical, even as dynamic pricing advances and more data and analytics become available.

“I simply wouldn’t be doing this if it meant putting our season-ticket holders at risk,” Stanley said. The Giants’ season-ticket base of 21,000 full-season equivalents, though down in recent years, remains among the largest in baseball. “At least half of what we’ll sell all year will be through season tickets, so we absolutely have to protect that.”

Even with safeguards such as that in place, plenty of skeptics remain for dynamic pricing, in large part because for many teams, low-demand games easily outnumber high-demand ones.

“For a majority of teams, you have to be very careful, and this probably isn’t a space you want to play in. And if you’re still dictating [price] floors, it’s not really dynamic pricing,” said Lou DePaoli, Pittsburgh Pirates executive vice president and chief marketing officer. DePaoli has approached the issue from several angles during prior stops with the NBA, Florida Marlins and Atlanta Spirit ownership group. “But in baseball particularly, there are more weekdays than weekends, and more bad teams than good teams. So without a really super premium on your best series, you probably aren’t going to be able to make up the [lost] revenue.”

The push going forward for dynamic pricing will largely be on two fronts: a consumer education and awareness process to enlighten the public on what dynamic pricing is and how it works, and continued improvement in ticket analytics.

On the first point, many teams have conducted extensive surveys with fans, and each of the teams active in dynamic pricing offers some type of detailed explanation as to how its system works. The general sales credo has been to “lock in and save,” in which fans waiting until the last minute run the risk of paying more for their ticket.

On the latter point, ticketing analytics continue to improve as computing power, algorithms and teams’ understanding of how best to use that research grow and develop. That maturation will manifest itself in part through more precise dynamic pricing.

“Everybody’s experimenting to understand the science and figure out the algorithms, as nobody wants to damage their pricing models with haphazard processes,” said Sam Gerace, chief executive for Veritix, a sister company to the Cavaliers and the team’s ticketing provider.

“The challenge has been getting real information as there’s no official ‘trading desk’ for tickets,” Gerace said. “But I think we’re getting smarter and ultimately getting to a situation where the traditional concept of ‘face value’ begins to fade out.”