By Derek Palmer, Managing Director, Executive Vice President, International
Well, most people know that I have been with Tickets.com for a long time, but not many know how I got into the business. I stood out all night at a ticket outlet in Tyson’s Corner, Virginia trying to get Pink Floyd tickets. It rained… it snowed… it was cold. At about 3am the mall security told the small group of us that we couldn’t stay there any longer but if we came back at 8am we could line up again and they gave us little carnival tickets to hold our place in line. I happily scampered to my car to grab a little shut eye.
At 10 minutes to 8 I emerged and went back to the now fairly long line. Feeling smug, I walked to the front where I was to take my previous spot (I was third in line as I recall) only to find that nobody knew what I was talking about and the security guards manning the line refused to honor the red carnival ticket that I was frantically waving in his face. I and about 10 other people ended up at the back of the line. We eventually got our tickets but not nearly the quality we would have.
The night of the concert we had a sort of mini reunion in the upper deck of RFK stadium- still a great show. I remember thinking “there has got to be a better way to get tickets".
A few years later a friend of mine asked if I would drive him to a job interview with a company called ProTix in Fairfax, Virginia. While we were there I was asked if I wanted to interview for a phone center position as well. Immediately my mind raced back to my Pink Floyd experience and I agreed to an interview. Interestingly, I got the job and my friend didn’t - and I have been here ever since.
I have always loved live entertainment and feel truly lucky to participate in a way that helps people experience their favourite team, artist or event. No television show or video game can touch seeing an event live.
Showing posts with label derek palmer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label derek palmer. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Monday, June 7, 2010
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.”
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.”
Monday, April 5, 2010
Venues Today: Dynamic Prices
Understanding the difference between today’s biggest firms
By Dave Brooks
Venues Today - April Issue
REPORTING FROM LONG BEACH, CALIF. — It was the perfect puzzle for the 100 or so ticketing experts who had gathered at Tickets.com’s Executive Summary last February.
After five stellar, mostly sell-out seasons, the perennial Phoenix Suns found themselves in a bit a slump in the National Basketball Association. As John Walker, team VP of Business Development, explained, 2009 was the year the team traded away star Shaquille O’Neal and missed the playoffs. Renewal rates dipped from the high 90s to 60 percent at the beginning of the 2010/2011 season, and Walker realized he had a problem on his hands.
“Suddenly, I’m looking at 3,000 to 5,000 tickets per night that I had to sell, and some of these games were going to be difficult at their current price,” Walker said before the audience gathered for the presentation on Market Ticket Pricing he had been commissioned to moderate.
“I really don’t want to piss off season ticket holders by lowering prices on low demand tickets, but I will still have the high demand games as well. Whenever the Lakers come to town, the price of the tickets double and even triple, and there are plenty of people who will still pay for it.”
Walker said he will dynamically price his tickets for next season under a few simple principals. Low demand games will be priced cheaper — this will give the season ticket holder a little breathing space on resale. For more expensive seats, he will raise the value of the ticket.
For season ticket holders, the cost of season tickets won’t change much, since the lower priced tickets will offset the cost of the higher priced tickets in the package.
Had he just engaged in dynamic pricing? Perhaps, in its simplest form. The practice was a hot topic at this year’s International Ticketing Association (INTIX) conference and set the stage for a healthy discussion at Executive Summit.
But just what exactly does it mean to dynamically price one’s tickets? Is it simply a matter of more correctly pricing tickets for high and low demand games, or does it mean bringing on a software provider like Qcue to crunch the numbers to constantly find the most up-to-date prices?
Or does it mean bringing on a firm with industry staples like Harry Sandler of Digonex, a former Frontline Management executive, who helped bands like The Eagles make huge gains on their ticketing software?
In the next 12 to 24 months, ticketing professionals will continue to have new options for dynamically pricing their tickets: either on their own, or with a technology partner. Venues Today sat down with some of the industry’s top professionals to discuss their options.
WORKING WITH YOUR TICKETING PROVIDER
A dynamic pricing system is only as good as your ticketing company allows it to be.
“Our approach is really about partnering and technology enablement for all of our customers,” said Chief Commercial Officer Derek Palmer of Tickets.com “We’ve been involved with Qcue for several years and have worked with the San Francisco Giants and the Dallas Stars to find a way to add data to the algorithms that Qcue uses, which then provides pricing statistics and pricing recommendations that get placed back into the ticketing system,” Palmer said. “Our company could do the exact same integration with Digonex, although we’re not currently doing it.”
Palmer said the model for Tickets.com is to leave the dynamic pricing question to the client and integrate with the system the client chooses — some systems work better for concerts, while other’s are optimized for sports.
“The main thing as an organization is that you have to make a philosophical decision that this is something you want to implement,” Palmer said. “There will be serious changes, and once you’ve philosophically readied yourself, you bring in the folks who can help you in what you are trying to achieve.”
Palmer said technology should not be a buy-before-you-try proposition, especially when that technology affects serious revenue generators like ticket sales. There are a lot of incentives for early adopters to try out dynamic pricing solutions. Digonex said it offered several free trials of its system during its early phases.
“Organizations gain better intelligence to price their tickets more accurately the first time. This data that Digonex and Qcue bring to bear certainly helps any organization do that. Prior to these two organizations, teams had to mostly rely on historical data, in a more trial and error process,” Palmer said.
Using a dynamic pricing system allows you “to get a lot more elasticity from the ticket price and get closer to what true demand will actually pay,” he said.
QCUE CONTINUES FORWARD
Created by Barry Kahn and a team of economics grad students at the University of Texas, Qcue has gone from being a business contest winner to a major player in the dynamic ticketing space.
At 29, Kahn has helped his company usher in a number of venture capital infusions and state grants. He counts among his clients the San Francisco Giants and the Dallas Stars, along with a number of baseball teams which have yet to publicize their relationship with Qcue.
“There are certain teams out there who don’t want to make a big deal of the fact that they need help better pricing their tickets,” he said.
In his first year with the Giants, Qcue helped the team accurately price about five percent of the seats in the stadium, a move that led to an increase of $500,000 in year-over-year revenue for that same section. In 2010, Qcue will price the entire ballpark, all 41,503 seats, and Kahn said he expects an incremental uptick in team revenue.
“When you realize that season ticket holders occupy half of their stadium, it becomes apparent that we’re working with 10 times the inventory this year. I don’t think it’s unrealistic to expect a proportional increase of incremental revenue,” he said. “This is a multi-million dollar proposition to teams. Whether that is $1 million-$2 million or $5 million-$10 millions depends a lot on the team.”
Kahn charges subscription fees and a revenue sharing model for Qcue software, which is delivered to the customer via a web-application. After logging in, users are given access to a pricing dashboard, which provides real-time pricing recommendations for upcoming games, broken out by seating section. A ticketing professional can simply click to accept Qcue’s recommendations, or adjust one of the systems many pricing variables to bring prices up or down. Maybe the starting pitcher will draw more fans than the system recognizes. Maybe a once lousy opponent has heated up with a new trade or talent signing, and demand for the ticket could spike at any minute. The system gives box office professionals the ability to tweak Qcue’s algorithm and boost revenues.
“We created a map that allows teams to get more out of their ticketing systems,” Kahn said.
DIGONEX MAKES AN ENTRANCE
The Digonex team, led by Sandler and CEO Jim Eglen, made a splash in February when the Cleveland-based firm signed the Cleveland Cavaliers as the first team in the National Basketball Association to bring in an outside variable pricing consultant to help set their prices for the second half of the 2009/2010 season.
“In some reality, what the Cavs have within their Flash Seats component and the Veritix system is ideal for dynamic pricing and it seems like the logical place to start,” said Handler.
Elgen describes Digonex as a market-driven system that doesn’t use forecasting or predictive analytics as the primary driving force of their core technology, but instead looks at market conditions. The company has its own software platform, but works with venue clients in more of a consulting role, helping teams set prices in advance and on the fly.
“We’ve got a smart pricing solution and it learns as it goes,” Eglen said.
Digonex comes to the table stacked with big names. Eglen’s brother Jeff is a former partner at global management giant Accenture. Mike Wanchic, music director and band leader for John Mellencamp, will serve as VP of Digital.
“We’ve got about 25 people and everyone does what they have to to get the job done,” Eglen said.
By Dave Brooks
Venues Today - April Issue
REPORTING FROM LONG BEACH, CALIF. — It was the perfect puzzle for the 100 or so ticketing experts who had gathered at Tickets.com’s Executive Summary last February.
After five stellar, mostly sell-out seasons, the perennial Phoenix Suns found themselves in a bit a slump in the National Basketball Association. As John Walker, team VP of Business Development, explained, 2009 was the year the team traded away star Shaquille O’Neal and missed the playoffs. Renewal rates dipped from the high 90s to 60 percent at the beginning of the 2010/2011 season, and Walker realized he had a problem on his hands.
“Suddenly, I’m looking at 3,000 to 5,000 tickets per night that I had to sell, and some of these games were going to be difficult at their current price,” Walker said before the audience gathered for the presentation on Market Ticket Pricing he had been commissioned to moderate.
“I really don’t want to piss off season ticket holders by lowering prices on low demand tickets, but I will still have the high demand games as well. Whenever the Lakers come to town, the price of the tickets double and even triple, and there are plenty of people who will still pay for it.”
Walker said he will dynamically price his tickets for next season under a few simple principals. Low demand games will be priced cheaper — this will give the season ticket holder a little breathing space on resale. For more expensive seats, he will raise the value of the ticket.
For season ticket holders, the cost of season tickets won’t change much, since the lower priced tickets will offset the cost of the higher priced tickets in the package.
Had he just engaged in dynamic pricing? Perhaps, in its simplest form. The practice was a hot topic at this year’s International Ticketing Association (INTIX) conference and set the stage for a healthy discussion at Executive Summit.
But just what exactly does it mean to dynamically price one’s tickets? Is it simply a matter of more correctly pricing tickets for high and low demand games, or does it mean bringing on a software provider like Qcue to crunch the numbers to constantly find the most up-to-date prices?
Or does it mean bringing on a firm with industry staples like Harry Sandler of Digonex, a former Frontline Management executive, who helped bands like The Eagles make huge gains on their ticketing software?
In the next 12 to 24 months, ticketing professionals will continue to have new options for dynamically pricing their tickets: either on their own, or with a technology partner. Venues Today sat down with some of the industry’s top professionals to discuss their options.
WORKING WITH YOUR TICKETING PROVIDER
A dynamic pricing system is only as good as your ticketing company allows it to be.
“Our approach is really about partnering and technology enablement for all of our customers,” said Chief Commercial Officer Derek Palmer of Tickets.com “We’ve been involved with Qcue for several years and have worked with the San Francisco Giants and the Dallas Stars to find a way to add data to the algorithms that Qcue uses, which then provides pricing statistics and pricing recommendations that get placed back into the ticketing system,” Palmer said. “Our company could do the exact same integration with Digonex, although we’re not currently doing it.”
Palmer said the model for Tickets.com is to leave the dynamic pricing question to the client and integrate with the system the client chooses — some systems work better for concerts, while other’s are optimized for sports.
“The main thing as an organization is that you have to make a philosophical decision that this is something you want to implement,” Palmer said. “There will be serious changes, and once you’ve philosophically readied yourself, you bring in the folks who can help you in what you are trying to achieve.”
Palmer said technology should not be a buy-before-you-try proposition, especially when that technology affects serious revenue generators like ticket sales. There are a lot of incentives for early adopters to try out dynamic pricing solutions. Digonex said it offered several free trials of its system during its early phases.
“Organizations gain better intelligence to price their tickets more accurately the first time. This data that Digonex and Qcue bring to bear certainly helps any organization do that. Prior to these two organizations, teams had to mostly rely on historical data, in a more trial and error process,” Palmer said.
Using a dynamic pricing system allows you “to get a lot more elasticity from the ticket price and get closer to what true demand will actually pay,” he said.
QCUE CONTINUES FORWARD
Created by Barry Kahn and a team of economics grad students at the University of Texas, Qcue has gone from being a business contest winner to a major player in the dynamic ticketing space.
At 29, Kahn has helped his company usher in a number of venture capital infusions and state grants. He counts among his clients the San Francisco Giants and the Dallas Stars, along with a number of baseball teams which have yet to publicize their relationship with Qcue.
“There are certain teams out there who don’t want to make a big deal of the fact that they need help better pricing their tickets,” he said.
In his first year with the Giants, Qcue helped the team accurately price about five percent of the seats in the stadium, a move that led to an increase of $500,000 in year-over-year revenue for that same section. In 2010, Qcue will price the entire ballpark, all 41,503 seats, and Kahn said he expects an incremental uptick in team revenue.
“When you realize that season ticket holders occupy half of their stadium, it becomes apparent that we’re working with 10 times the inventory this year. I don’t think it’s unrealistic to expect a proportional increase of incremental revenue,” he said. “This is a multi-million dollar proposition to teams. Whether that is $1 million-$2 million or $5 million-$10 millions depends a lot on the team.”
Kahn charges subscription fees and a revenue sharing model for Qcue software, which is delivered to the customer via a web-application. After logging in, users are given access to a pricing dashboard, which provides real-time pricing recommendations for upcoming games, broken out by seating section. A ticketing professional can simply click to accept Qcue’s recommendations, or adjust one of the systems many pricing variables to bring prices up or down. Maybe the starting pitcher will draw more fans than the system recognizes. Maybe a once lousy opponent has heated up with a new trade or talent signing, and demand for the ticket could spike at any minute. The system gives box office professionals the ability to tweak Qcue’s algorithm and boost revenues.
“We created a map that allows teams to get more out of their ticketing systems,” Kahn said.
DIGONEX MAKES AN ENTRANCE
The Digonex team, led by Sandler and CEO Jim Eglen, made a splash in February when the Cleveland-based firm signed the Cleveland Cavaliers as the first team in the National Basketball Association to bring in an outside variable pricing consultant to help set their prices for the second half of the 2009/2010 season.
“In some reality, what the Cavs have within their Flash Seats component and the Veritix system is ideal for dynamic pricing and it seems like the logical place to start,” said Handler.
Elgen describes Digonex as a market-driven system that doesn’t use forecasting or predictive analytics as the primary driving force of their core technology, but instead looks at market conditions. The company has its own software platform, but works with venue clients in more of a consulting role, helping teams set prices in advance and on the fly.
“We’ve got a smart pricing solution and it learns as it goes,” Eglen said.
Digonex comes to the table stacked with big names. Eglen’s brother Jeff is a former partner at global management giant Accenture. Mike Wanchic, music director and band leader for John Mellencamp, will serve as VP of Digital.
“We’ve got about 25 people and everyone does what they have to to get the job done,” Eglen said.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Tickets.com partner Usablenet makes inroads into the mobile ticketing arena
TicketNews
Kelly McWilliams
Usablenet's mobile platform, a tool long familiar to travelers and commuters, is beginning to make its mark in the mobile ticketing world.
Launched in 2000, Usablenet sought to translate web material into a mobile-friendly product for consumers. The company, with offices in both New York City and Udine, Italy, worked first with Amtrak to offer passengers cutting edge web-to-mobile service. Initially, it remained in the service of the traveling population, soon starting accounts with air travel providers such as Jet Blue and hotel chains such as Hilton Hotels. Next was a foray into the world of commuters, translating the Web sites of transit companies into mobile for their daily riders.
Most recently the company has been working with retailers such as CVS, Staples, Victoria’s Secret and American Eagle, and in the past year, it has added two major ticketers, Telecharge and Tickets.com, to its list of clients.
As Jason Taylor, Usablenet’s VP of Mobile Products, explained: “What Usablenet mobile allows our clients to do is to…identify anything on their Web site that they want to offer to their mobile users. Usablenet then goes about extending that and becoming the client’s mobile partner.” Much of the company’s technology has come from its earlier efforts to provide web-to-mobile service for the disabled, which the company now markets as a separate package entitled Usablenet Assistive.
Taylor highlighted four qualities of Usablenet’s platform that defines it as unique in today’s mobile and ticketing markets. “First, it requires no IT development or backend coding, so all [the client has] to have is a website. Second, it supports all mobile phones worldwide, as long as a phone is web-enabled. Third, we have a very fast delivery mechanism of 6-8 weeks. And fourth, there is no functionality (of a website) that we can’t make mobile.”
Discussing the relatively new relationship that Usablenet enjoys with Tickets.com and Telecharge, Taylor said, “The general idea is that, especially with Tickets.com, [we are] a vehicle for two specific things. One is last minute tickets, to take advantage of deals when you are not near a computer. Also, if you are on the road or visiting a town, you can buy tickets for that town. Moments when you’re not near your computer make mobile a powerful solution.”
When asked about the transferability of tickets from Tickets.com and Telecharge through Usablenet mobile services, Taylor noted that Usablenet provides the technology only and has no control over the nature of services offered by the web client: “The way that our platform works is it extends the business features of our clients. Whatever those sites offer in terms of benefits or transfer options, then those are available to the mobile customer.”
Derek Palmer, Chief Commercial Officer for Tickets.com, notes that Usablenet has been providing web-to-mobile services for the company since November of 2008, and that Tickets.com has been pleased with the relationship.
“What they offer is not just a generic flow but also a customized look and feel, the same look and feel as the website. It’s a real advantage from a branding perspective. [It leaves the] consumer feeling comfortable that they are dealing with the organization’s site,” Palmer said.
As for transferability of tickets, that is still a work in progress. “Nobody’s doing that currently,” Palmer added, “though there’s nothing from a technology standpoint that would prevent someone from doing that, as long as there was an integration with a reseller and the primary ticketing provider. We have an integration with StubHub [in their relationship with] Major League Baseball, but we have not gone down the path of doing mobile with them.”
After starting discussions with Usablenet a year and a half ago, Telecharge came on board this past summer. Jennifer Tattenbaum, Interactive Services Director for Telecharge, has also seen the benefits of going mobile.
“I had been focused on [use of] the mobile site for customer service, to check the address of your venue, to get info about an event. I thought that people would be hesitant to input their credit card number into a mobile device, so I didn’t picture it as something that would generate ticket sales. A lot has changed in a year and a half, and it’s turned into a sales channel.” As for transferability, mobile tickets from Telecharge are bound by the same restrictions as those purchased on the Telecharge Web site, and so are non-transferable. Tattenbaum declined to comment on the reasons why Telecharge does not offer a transferable product at this time.
Kelly McWilliams
Usablenet's mobile platform, a tool long familiar to travelers and commuters, is beginning to make its mark in the mobile ticketing world.
Launched in 2000, Usablenet sought to translate web material into a mobile-friendly product for consumers. The company, with offices in both New York City and Udine, Italy, worked first with Amtrak to offer passengers cutting edge web-to-mobile service. Initially, it remained in the service of the traveling population, soon starting accounts with air travel providers such as Jet Blue and hotel chains such as Hilton Hotels. Next was a foray into the world of commuters, translating the Web sites of transit companies into mobile for their daily riders.
Most recently the company has been working with retailers such as CVS, Staples, Victoria’s Secret and American Eagle, and in the past year, it has added two major ticketers, Telecharge and Tickets.com, to its list of clients.
As Jason Taylor, Usablenet’s VP of Mobile Products, explained: “What Usablenet mobile allows our clients to do is to…identify anything on their Web site that they want to offer to their mobile users. Usablenet then goes about extending that and becoming the client’s mobile partner.” Much of the company’s technology has come from its earlier efforts to provide web-to-mobile service for the disabled, which the company now markets as a separate package entitled Usablenet Assistive.
Taylor highlighted four qualities of Usablenet’s platform that defines it as unique in today’s mobile and ticketing markets. “First, it requires no IT development or backend coding, so all [the client has] to have is a website. Second, it supports all mobile phones worldwide, as long as a phone is web-enabled. Third, we have a very fast delivery mechanism of 6-8 weeks. And fourth, there is no functionality (of a website) that we can’t make mobile.”
Discussing the relatively new relationship that Usablenet enjoys with Tickets.com and Telecharge, Taylor said, “The general idea is that, especially with Tickets.com, [we are] a vehicle for two specific things. One is last minute tickets, to take advantage of deals when you are not near a computer. Also, if you are on the road or visiting a town, you can buy tickets for that town. Moments when you’re not near your computer make mobile a powerful solution.”
When asked about the transferability of tickets from Tickets.com and Telecharge through Usablenet mobile services, Taylor noted that Usablenet provides the technology only and has no control over the nature of services offered by the web client: “The way that our platform works is it extends the business features of our clients. Whatever those sites offer in terms of benefits or transfer options, then those are available to the mobile customer.”
Derek Palmer, Chief Commercial Officer for Tickets.com, notes that Usablenet has been providing web-to-mobile services for the company since November of 2008, and that Tickets.com has been pleased with the relationship.
“What they offer is not just a generic flow but also a customized look and feel, the same look and feel as the website. It’s a real advantage from a branding perspective. [It leaves the] consumer feeling comfortable that they are dealing with the organization’s site,” Palmer said.
As for transferability of tickets, that is still a work in progress. “Nobody’s doing that currently,” Palmer added, “though there’s nothing from a technology standpoint that would prevent someone from doing that, as long as there was an integration with a reseller and the primary ticketing provider. We have an integration with StubHub [in their relationship with] Major League Baseball, but we have not gone down the path of doing mobile with them.”
After starting discussions with Usablenet a year and a half ago, Telecharge came on board this past summer. Jennifer Tattenbaum, Interactive Services Director for Telecharge, has also seen the benefits of going mobile.
“I had been focused on [use of] the mobile site for customer service, to check the address of your venue, to get info about an event. I thought that people would be hesitant to input their credit card number into a mobile device, so I didn’t picture it as something that would generate ticket sales. A lot has changed in a year and a half, and it’s turned into a sales channel.” As for transferability, mobile tickets from Telecharge are bound by the same restrictions as those purchased on the Telecharge Web site, and so are non-transferable. Tattenbaum declined to comment on the reasons why Telecharge does not offer a transferable product at this time.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Monday, February 9, 2009
Ticketing Industry News: Room for More?
Room For More?
AudienceView makes a case to end exclusive deals
Venues Today
By Dave Brooks
Is neutrality an option in 2009?
Live Nation is close to launching its new ticketing platform, a much-anticipated move that has it severing ties with Ticketmaster. Using a system powered by German-based CTS Eventim, the new platform is being rolled out this month and has already gained headlines following a major deal with venue operator SMG.
The Live Nation ticketing formula seems simple. The world’s largest concert promoter can now tie its ticketing system to its concert series, giving it leverage over buildings in highly competitive markets which rely on Live Nation content. Want a concert for your building? Then agree to use the ticketing platform, at least for individual Live Nation concerts seems to be the theory.
It’s a proposition that is both simple and terrifying to primary ticketing giant Ticketmaster, which has staked its decades old business model on signing long-term exclusive contracts with venues. Well aware that Ticketmaster is entrenching itself to fight against per-event Live Nation ticketing contracts, one Canadian company is touting its long-established policy to not require contract exclusivity. Kevin Kimsa, CEO of Toronto-based AudienceView, said his venues are free to use whatever ticketing system they like when they sign an AudienceView contract.
“It’s become attractive because Live Nation and Ticketmaster are no longer working in partnership,” said Kimsa, whose six-year-old company represents 120 venues and 80 clients including the Toronto Blue Jays and Churchill Downs, Louisville, Ky.
“Venues are asking themselves, ‘If I go with Ticketmaster, am I limiting myself with regards to what Live Nation content exists for me in my future?’” Kimsa said. “We’re just taking advantage of the fact that we don’t hurt anybody in the middle. We’re a neutral play for organizations.”
Is this the death of the exclusive ticketing contract? Not likely. Ticketmaster’s Mike McGee said non-exclusive contracts are akin to “telling your girlfriend that you want to take someone else on a date,” during a panel at the Sport, Entertainment and Venues Tomorrow Conference in Columbia, S.C. Fred Maglione of the New Era Tickets told an audience at the Arena Managers Conference in Kansas City that “ticketing companies need to stand up against these type of contracts because they threaten the millions of dollars we invest to enable a venue.”
Not to be outdone, Ticketmaster has its own ace in the hole — Irving Azoff. The artist management megastar recently sold a $123-million stake in his Front Line Management firm to Ticketmaster prompting a name change to Ticketmaster Entertainment and the installation of Azoff as CEO. Now both Ticketmaster and Live Nation have tickets, software and performers. Is AudienceView’s strategy going to be essential for smaller ticketing firms hoping compete?
“You wonder if building managers are going to come together and say, “We have a promoter who wants to do our tickets. They have all the functionality that you currently have and there’s nothing you can do they can’t do, so we’re going to have them handle the tickets for this current event,” said Jack Lucas of Spokane, Wash.-based TicketsWest, powered by Ticketmaster. “Or, are the building managers going to come to me and say, “You know Jack, we don’t want to lose the show; you’re going have to work with these guys.”
So while Kimsa’s business model allows for non-exclusivity for new ticketing contracts, many are wondering how building managers are going to make exceptions for Live Nation concerts using existing Ticketmaster contracts.
“It really depends on what position you’re into to negotiate,” said John Fuhrmann of the Neal Blaisdell Center in Honolulu. Top buildings in must-play markets will be less susceptible to pressure from Live Nation or Ticketmaster, “but if you’re in the situation to fight hard for a concert — which the majority of buildings are — then there’s a good chance you’ll be calling your ticketing company and trying to find a way to make the two work together.”
And when venues’ ticketing contracts do come up for renewal, will they be rushing to sign non-exclusive deals with companies like AudienceView?
“I think many are going to resist going in that direction because they all know that, in the case of TicketsWest, we bring some stability and fiduciary responsibility,” said Lucas. “That’s especially important to municipally-owned facilities.”
Lucas said cancelled shows are a major concern for publicly-owned facilities. If a 10,000-ticket concert gets cancelled, it’s the fiduciary duty of the contracted ticketing company to have the available capital on hand to issue refunds.
“When you have non-exclusive deals, typically a lot of that fiduciary responsibility flies out the door and there’s real potential to get people in a lot of trouble,” Lucas said.
And without an exclusive ticketing agreement, facilities should not expect a lot of upfront cash or investment, said Derek Palmer, chief commercial officer at Tickets.com
“It’s very contrary to what traditional ticketing relationships are right now. Ticketing companies pay a lot of money for that exclusivity, whether it’s signing bonuses, hardware or investing in suites and tickets,” Palmer said. “An organization would have to be interested in walking away from a lot of upfront capital from a ticketing company to be able to do that.”
But Kimsa questions how much infrastructure investment is really required to get a ticketing system running.
“To be honest with you, the cost of infrastructure isn’t that much,” Kimsa said. “Ticketmaster may lead you to believe that’s the case because it is opportunistic. An exclusive five-or-seven year term deal was necessary back in the 80s or early 90s when it did require a lot of hardware, a lot of infrastructure, and a lot of call center technology but, in today’s world, the need for infrastructure isn’t really that great.”
It’s an assertion that is not agreed upon by a majority of Kimsa’s ticketing contemporaries, many of whom contend that the high cost of infrastructure, upfront capital and implementation make ticketing a very low-margin business. At the end of the day, Palmer said few ticketing companies will allow their ticketing contracts to be ignored but there is always one incentive that will get any businessperson’s attention — cold hard cash.
“If an organization came to us wanting to use another ticketing system and we could work out a deal where we could still make a fair margin, then they could have the freedom to sell tickets to whomever they want,” Palmer said. “Ultimately it is about the money.”
Kimsa said his firm wouldn’t require a quid pro quo — in fact part of his formula is tied to a trend nearly all other ticketing companies have tackled: Venue-branded ticketing services. As Tickets.com, New Era and other ticketing companies allow their venue clients to sell tickets on private label platforms, venues will be hesitant to exercise their non-exclusive options for Live Nation shows as they invest more and more marketing capital into their own ticketing platforms.
“And if they choose not to use their AudienceView-based system, they’ll also forgo control over their marketing, service fees and data collection,” Kimsa said. “So even if we offer our clients the option to use the Live Nation platform, many will want to keep as many events as possible on their own ticketing brand.”
Interviewed for this article: Kevin Kimsa, (416) 356-4121; Jack Lucas, (509) 459-6100; Derek Palmer, (714) 327-5400
AudienceView makes a case to end exclusive deals
Venues Today
By Dave Brooks
Is neutrality an option in 2009?
Live Nation is close to launching its new ticketing platform, a much-anticipated move that has it severing ties with Ticketmaster. Using a system powered by German-based CTS Eventim, the new platform is being rolled out this month and has already gained headlines following a major deal with venue operator SMG.
The Live Nation ticketing formula seems simple. The world’s largest concert promoter can now tie its ticketing system to its concert series, giving it leverage over buildings in highly competitive markets which rely on Live Nation content. Want a concert for your building? Then agree to use the ticketing platform, at least for individual Live Nation concerts seems to be the theory.
It’s a proposition that is both simple and terrifying to primary ticketing giant Ticketmaster, which has staked its decades old business model on signing long-term exclusive contracts with venues. Well aware that Ticketmaster is entrenching itself to fight against per-event Live Nation ticketing contracts, one Canadian company is touting its long-established policy to not require contract exclusivity. Kevin Kimsa, CEO of Toronto-based AudienceView, said his venues are free to use whatever ticketing system they like when they sign an AudienceView contract.
“It’s become attractive because Live Nation and Ticketmaster are no longer working in partnership,” said Kimsa, whose six-year-old company represents 120 venues and 80 clients including the Toronto Blue Jays and Churchill Downs, Louisville, Ky.
“Venues are asking themselves, ‘If I go with Ticketmaster, am I limiting myself with regards to what Live Nation content exists for me in my future?’” Kimsa said. “We’re just taking advantage of the fact that we don’t hurt anybody in the middle. We’re a neutral play for organizations.”
Is this the death of the exclusive ticketing contract? Not likely. Ticketmaster’s Mike McGee said non-exclusive contracts are akin to “telling your girlfriend that you want to take someone else on a date,” during a panel at the Sport, Entertainment and Venues Tomorrow Conference in Columbia, S.C. Fred Maglione of the New Era Tickets told an audience at the Arena Managers Conference in Kansas City that “ticketing companies need to stand up against these type of contracts because they threaten the millions of dollars we invest to enable a venue.”
Not to be outdone, Ticketmaster has its own ace in the hole — Irving Azoff. The artist management megastar recently sold a $123-million stake in his Front Line Management firm to Ticketmaster prompting a name change to Ticketmaster Entertainment and the installation of Azoff as CEO. Now both Ticketmaster and Live Nation have tickets, software and performers. Is AudienceView’s strategy going to be essential for smaller ticketing firms hoping compete?
“You wonder if building managers are going to come together and say, “We have a promoter who wants to do our tickets. They have all the functionality that you currently have and there’s nothing you can do they can’t do, so we’re going to have them handle the tickets for this current event,” said Jack Lucas of Spokane, Wash.-based TicketsWest, powered by Ticketmaster. “Or, are the building managers going to come to me and say, “You know Jack, we don’t want to lose the show; you’re going have to work with these guys.”
So while Kimsa’s business model allows for non-exclusivity for new ticketing contracts, many are wondering how building managers are going to make exceptions for Live Nation concerts using existing Ticketmaster contracts.
“It really depends on what position you’re into to negotiate,” said John Fuhrmann of the Neal Blaisdell Center in Honolulu. Top buildings in must-play markets will be less susceptible to pressure from Live Nation or Ticketmaster, “but if you’re in the situation to fight hard for a concert — which the majority of buildings are — then there’s a good chance you’ll be calling your ticketing company and trying to find a way to make the two work together.”
And when venues’ ticketing contracts do come up for renewal, will they be rushing to sign non-exclusive deals with companies like AudienceView?
“I think many are going to resist going in that direction because they all know that, in the case of TicketsWest, we bring some stability and fiduciary responsibility,” said Lucas. “That’s especially important to municipally-owned facilities.”
Lucas said cancelled shows are a major concern for publicly-owned facilities. If a 10,000-ticket concert gets cancelled, it’s the fiduciary duty of the contracted ticketing company to have the available capital on hand to issue refunds.
“When you have non-exclusive deals, typically a lot of that fiduciary responsibility flies out the door and there’s real potential to get people in a lot of trouble,” Lucas said.
And without an exclusive ticketing agreement, facilities should not expect a lot of upfront cash or investment, said Derek Palmer, chief commercial officer at Tickets.com
“It’s very contrary to what traditional ticketing relationships are right now. Ticketing companies pay a lot of money for that exclusivity, whether it’s signing bonuses, hardware or investing in suites and tickets,” Palmer said. “An organization would have to be interested in walking away from a lot of upfront capital from a ticketing company to be able to do that.”
But Kimsa questions how much infrastructure investment is really required to get a ticketing system running.
“To be honest with you, the cost of infrastructure isn’t that much,” Kimsa said. “Ticketmaster may lead you to believe that’s the case because it is opportunistic. An exclusive five-or-seven year term deal was necessary back in the 80s or early 90s when it did require a lot of hardware, a lot of infrastructure, and a lot of call center technology but, in today’s world, the need for infrastructure isn’t really that great.”
It’s an assertion that is not agreed upon by a majority of Kimsa’s ticketing contemporaries, many of whom contend that the high cost of infrastructure, upfront capital and implementation make ticketing a very low-margin business. At the end of the day, Palmer said few ticketing companies will allow their ticketing contracts to be ignored but there is always one incentive that will get any businessperson’s attention — cold hard cash.
“If an organization came to us wanting to use another ticketing system and we could work out a deal where we could still make a fair margin, then they could have the freedom to sell tickets to whomever they want,” Palmer said. “Ultimately it is about the money.”
Kimsa said his firm wouldn’t require a quid pro quo — in fact part of his formula is tied to a trend nearly all other ticketing companies have tackled: Venue-branded ticketing services. As Tickets.com, New Era and other ticketing companies allow their venue clients to sell tickets on private label platforms, venues will be hesitant to exercise their non-exclusive options for Live Nation shows as they invest more and more marketing capital into their own ticketing platforms.
“And if they choose not to use their AudienceView-based system, they’ll also forgo control over their marketing, service fees and data collection,” Kimsa said. “So even if we offer our clients the option to use the Live Nation platform, many will want to keep as many events as possible on their own ticketing brand.”
Interviewed for this article: Kevin Kimsa, (416) 356-4121; Jack Lucas, (509) 459-6100; Derek Palmer, (714) 327-5400
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Two Tickets to Paradise: Tickets.com on Billboard Touring Conference Panel
On November 19 from 1:45pm - 3:00pm, Derek Palmer, Chief Commercial Officer of Tickets.com, will be speaking on the "Two Tickets to Paradise" panel at the 2008 Billboard Touring Conference.
TWO TICKETS TO PARADISE
There is no hotter or more controversial topic in the touring industry today than ticketing, and the wild west of the secondary market is the flashpoint issue in this space. We’ll break down trends in this market, as well as examine other topics of interest in the world of ticketing, including auctions, presales, data control and box office trends.
Moderator:
Carla Varriale, Partner, Havkins Rosenfeld Ritzert & Varriale
Speakers:
Charlotte Allison, Director of Sales, Veritix
Nathan Hubbard, CEO, Live Nation Ticketing
Eric Korman, EVP, Business Development, Ticketmaster
Chuck Lavallee, Director of Music Relations, StubHub
Don Vacaro, CEO, TicketNetwork
Derek Palmer, CCO, Tickets.com
Learn more about Tickets.com >
TWO TICKETS TO PARADISE
There is no hotter or more controversial topic in the touring industry today than ticketing, and the wild west of the secondary market is the flashpoint issue in this space. We’ll break down trends in this market, as well as examine other topics of interest in the world of ticketing, including auctions, presales, data control and box office trends.
Moderator:
Carla Varriale, Partner, Havkins Rosenfeld Ritzert & Varriale
Speakers:
Charlotte Allison, Director of Sales, Veritix
Nathan Hubbard, CEO, Live Nation Ticketing
Eric Korman, EVP, Business Development, Ticketmaster
Chuck Lavallee, Director of Music Relations, StubHub
Don Vacaro, CEO, TicketNetwork
Derek Palmer, CCO, Tickets.com
Learn more about Tickets.com >
Monday, October 6, 2008
Goldman Sachs, Live Nation and Tickets.com to Address Ticket Industry at Ticket Summit 2009 in New York City
Industry's Must-Attend Event Targets Global Ticket Professionals, Theater/Concert/Venue/Sports Teams Promoters and Investors
VERNON, CT -- (Marketwire) -- 10/03/08 -- TicketNetwork.com, the leading source for the ticket industry's most comprehensive inventory, today announced that the industry's most influential experts will address Ticket Summit 2009 at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City, January 6-8th. The three-day event will include a list of marquis speakers as well as dynamic panel sessions and many vendor exhibits. High-profile attendees include representatives from Google, the NHL and the NCAA, in addition to companies representing the hospitality, ticket, entertainment and technology industries.
Mark Wienkes, financial analyst from The Goldman Sachs Group, Greg Bettinelli, executive vice president, business development and strategy at Live Nation, and Derek Palmer, chief commercial officer of Tickets.com, will address the overlap between the primary and secondary ticket markets in a panel titled "The New Paradigm." This session is scheduled for Wednesdsay, January 7th, and is designed to educate Ticket Summit 2009 attendees on how the blurring line separating two ticket markets will affect a range of professionals in both sectors.
At Live Nation, Bettinelli is responsible for the strategic direction and partnerships for Live Nation's ticket business. Prior to Live Nation, Bettinelli was Sr. Director of Business Development at StubHub where he spearheaded the company's partnership with Major League Baseball. Before transitioning to StubHub, he led eBay.com's Event Tickets and Media businesses and was a catalyst in eBay's acquisition of StubHub in 2007.
Derek Palmer is the fueling force behind Tickets.com's operational and sales organizations. Over the course of his 15-year tenure with Tickets.com, Palmer has launched clients such as Times Union Center, formerly known as Pepsi Arena, 9:30 Club, Washington Nationals, Pittsburgh Pirates, and The Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts. Additionally, he has major event experience working as ticketing manager for the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia and the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, GA. Palmer holds a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from George Mason University.
"Ticket Summit 2009 provides a unique platform for leading professionals whose business involves ticket sales to come together and share the latest developments and advancements in the secondary market," said Don Vaccaro, CEO of TicketNetwork. "The evolving nature of the secondary ticket business and the high demand for a forum addressing current industry issues compelled us to launch a New York conference targeting theater, sports and entertainment professionals based on the east coast and Europe. We are pleased to host an elite gathering of key ticket industry decision makers at Ticket Summit 2009," said Vaccaro.
Ticket Summit 2009 is the premier conference in the secondary ticket industry. A must-attend event, it presents a tremendous opportunity for an enhanced education on the ticket industry, and provides numerous networking opportunities for professionals aiming to expand or meet partners for the expansion of their ticket operations.
VERNON, CT -- (Marketwire) -- 10/03/08 -- TicketNetwork.com, the leading source for the ticket industry's most comprehensive inventory, today announced that the industry's most influential experts will address Ticket Summit 2009 at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City, January 6-8th. The three-day event will include a list of marquis speakers as well as dynamic panel sessions and many vendor exhibits. High-profile attendees include representatives from Google, the NHL and the NCAA, in addition to companies representing the hospitality, ticket, entertainment and technology industries.
Mark Wienkes, financial analyst from The Goldman Sachs Group, Greg Bettinelli, executive vice president, business development and strategy at Live Nation, and Derek Palmer, chief commercial officer of Tickets.com, will address the overlap between the primary and secondary ticket markets in a panel titled "The New Paradigm." This session is scheduled for Wednesdsay, January 7th, and is designed to educate Ticket Summit 2009 attendees on how the blurring line separating two ticket markets will affect a range of professionals in both sectors.
At Live Nation, Bettinelli is responsible for the strategic direction and partnerships for Live Nation's ticket business. Prior to Live Nation, Bettinelli was Sr. Director of Business Development at StubHub where he spearheaded the company's partnership with Major League Baseball. Before transitioning to StubHub, he led eBay.com's Event Tickets and Media businesses and was a catalyst in eBay's acquisition of StubHub in 2007.
Derek Palmer is the fueling force behind Tickets.com's operational and sales organizations. Over the course of his 15-year tenure with Tickets.com, Palmer has launched clients such as Times Union Center, formerly known as Pepsi Arena, 9:30 Club, Washington Nationals, Pittsburgh Pirates, and The Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts. Additionally, he has major event experience working as ticketing manager for the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia and the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, GA. Palmer holds a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from George Mason University.
"Ticket Summit 2009 provides a unique platform for leading professionals whose business involves ticket sales to come together and share the latest developments and advancements in the secondary market," said Don Vaccaro, CEO of TicketNetwork. "The evolving nature of the secondary ticket business and the high demand for a forum addressing current industry issues compelled us to launch a New York conference targeting theater, sports and entertainment professionals based on the east coast and Europe. We are pleased to host an elite gathering of key ticket industry decision makers at Ticket Summit 2009," said Vaccaro.
Ticket Summit 2009 is the premier conference in the secondary ticket industry. A must-attend event, it presents a tremendous opportunity for an enhanced education on the ticket industry, and provides numerous networking opportunities for professionals aiming to expand or meet partners for the expansion of their ticket operations.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Ticket industry News: Ticket Summit Wraps Up Conference with Justice on Their Side
by Dave Brooks
August 2008 issue of Venues Today
LAS VEGAS - Ticket Summit wrapped up its third annual conference in the desert, bringing together its broadest mix of primary and secondary ticket providers to date. TicketNetwork CEO and President Don Vaccaro said he plans to expand the event to twice per year and will be holding the winter session in New York City on Jan. 6-8, 2009.
"We're continuing to see the blending of the primary and secondary in many segments of the marketplace and we're seeing a continued demand for this type of dialogue," said Vaccaro. "It's also an opportunity for our partners on the East Coast to participate in Ticket Summit."
Vaccaro estimated that over 450 registrants and 22 exhibitors participated in this year's conference, which included a keynote address from Avery Gardiner, counsel to the Assistant Attorney General in the Justice Department's Anti-Trust division. Gardiner told the audience that she would not be able to comment on specific cases, but that didn't stop the audience from getting a pulse on Ticketmaster's recent acquisition of TicketsNow.
"What alternatives do customers have if prices suddenly increased because of the acquisition? Our job is to predict how consumers will act in the future," she told the audience, offering a tacit pact to watch the acquisition deal years after it is complete.
"Just because something doesn't seem to harm competition today doesn't mean we can't revisit it five years from now and take up the issue again," she said.
And as it had been just one week prior at the National Association of Ticket Brokers annual conference, Ticketmaster's acquisition of TicketsNow remained a hot topic of discussion, surfacting in almost all 12 panel discussions.
"Ticketmaster thinks that if they can eliminate brokers, they can capture all the revenue," said Eric Baker from resale site Viagogo. He believes Ticketmaster's recent attempts to control ticket transferability are an example of their malaise for brokers.
"Tickets will always be transferable because that's what people want," he said. "If you tell me I need to show my passport, blood type and eyeball scan, I'm not going to want to go."
Derek Palmer of Tickets.com said most primaries aren't trying to squeeze out brokers, but they do want a piece of the action.
"The cost to participate in this market is going up while our revenues are going down," he said. "I assure you that we have the lowest margins in this room."
Palmer said primaries are beginning to change the way they look at ticket value, scrutinizing "the final price the ticket is sold for."
"We have the key differentiator - we have the data about the customer and the remaining inventory," he said. "The data can be worth more than the individual ticket sold."
August 2008 issue of Venues Today
LAS VEGAS - Ticket Summit wrapped up its third annual conference in the desert, bringing together its broadest mix of primary and secondary ticket providers to date. TicketNetwork CEO and President Don Vaccaro said he plans to expand the event to twice per year and will be holding the winter session in New York City on Jan. 6-8, 2009.
"We're continuing to see the blending of the primary and secondary in many segments of the marketplace and we're seeing a continued demand for this type of dialogue," said Vaccaro. "It's also an opportunity for our partners on the East Coast to participate in Ticket Summit."
Vaccaro estimated that over 450 registrants and 22 exhibitors participated in this year's conference, which included a keynote address from Avery Gardiner, counsel to the Assistant Attorney General in the Justice Department's Anti-Trust division. Gardiner told the audience that she would not be able to comment on specific cases, but that didn't stop the audience from getting a pulse on Ticketmaster's recent acquisition of TicketsNow.
"What alternatives do customers have if prices suddenly increased because of the acquisition? Our job is to predict how consumers will act in the future," she told the audience, offering a tacit pact to watch the acquisition deal years after it is complete.
"Just because something doesn't seem to harm competition today doesn't mean we can't revisit it five years from now and take up the issue again," she said.
And as it had been just one week prior at the National Association of Ticket Brokers annual conference, Ticketmaster's acquisition of TicketsNow remained a hot topic of discussion, surfacting in almost all 12 panel discussions.
"Ticketmaster thinks that if they can eliminate brokers, they can capture all the revenue," said Eric Baker from resale site Viagogo. He believes Ticketmaster's recent attempts to control ticket transferability are an example of their malaise for brokers.
"Tickets will always be transferable because that's what people want," he said. "If you tell me I need to show my passport, blood type and eyeball scan, I'm not going to want to go."
Derek Palmer of Tickets.com said most primaries aren't trying to squeeze out brokers, but they do want a piece of the action.
"The cost to participate in this market is going up while our revenues are going down," he said. "I assure you that we have the lowest margins in this room."
Palmer said primaries are beginning to change the way they look at ticket value, scrutinizing "the final price the ticket is sold for."
"We have the key differentiator - we have the data about the customer and the remaining inventory," he said. "The data can be worth more than the individual ticket sold."
Friday, September 5, 2008
Ticket Industry News: Ahead of the Curve
Venue managers keep pace with technology, but there's room for improvement
by Dave Brooks
Venues Today
Venue managers are continuing to adopt new technologies, although most find themselves catching up with current trends instead of leading the pack, a Venues Today survey in conjunction with Turnkey Sports and Entertainment found.
Venues Today surveyed 91 facility operators at arenas, amphitheatres, convention centers, fairgrounds, performing arts centers and stadiums and found that 86 percent believed the industry as a whole is keeping up with innovations, or leading the way. But when asked how they thought their own facility was keeping pace, only 64 percent answered in the affirmative.
"That's the thing about technology, there's always a sense that you're behind someone else," said Mark Petracca of Vtech Communication's Network Division, which helps install networking platforms for large-scale consumer business. "We tell our clients that technology tends to dramatically evolve every 18 months and becomes obsolete every 30-36 months. With a pace like that, it's no wonder that a lot of our clientele feel it's pointless to buy into new systems because it could be useless in three years."
But in the same breath, Petracca notes that not evolving technological touch points, especially in the communications sector, is perilous.
"You have to upgrade your system in smart ways, one that does its best to foresee future technological improvements and can adapt to those changes," he said.
Petracca is overseeing the company's installation of wireless internet systems for large commercial facilities. Wireless Internet upgrades were the top technological improvement identified by venue managers in the survey, with 27 percent saying they have installed wireless platforms at their facilities.
"It's not just about creating a space where people can get on the web and check their MySpace accounts," said Felix Hernandez, director of communications for the Los Angeles Convention Center. "Wireless capabilities are central to almost every aspect of the meeting planning industry and our clients are demanding we provide this service."
Hernandez said the Los Angeles Convention Center's network can be subdivided between users, each getting their own secured server to share information. Broadcast media have increasingly used a specially secured "media server" that allows them to send feeds to their newsrooms without running cables to their news vans, while planners tap into the network with wireless control devices that keep an accurate head-count of attendees.
Tickets were the next advancement in technology, with 35 percent of respondents estimating that their box offices would lead the venue's technological revolution. Approximately 21 percent said their facilities used some type of wireless ticket device to control access to their facilities, while five percent said they even had success with mobile phone technology.
The Arizona State Fair, Phoenix, is taking its tickets wireless after a successful two-year run with a wireless midway powered by Ray Cammack Shows, said Kristen Walsh, the fair's marketing director.
"The goal was to eliminate counterfeit tickets and get real time attendance updates," she said of the system powered by Ticketmaster. "We've also had some success using it for our concert series."
Derek Palmer of Tickets.com said he wasn't surprised that mobile phone ticketing was identified as the largest technological growth area behind advanced LED displays.
"There's a lot of curiosity out there about this product," Palmer said. "Essentially it delivers the ticket to the user's mobile phone via SMS text messaging, which in turn can be read from a barcode scanner."
Like "ticket-less" credit card tickets being developed by Ticketmaster, Palmer said the cell phone tickets prevent scalping because they're nearly impossible to exchange.
And while ticketing took the lead for most likely to introduce change, concessions was voted most unlikely to adapt to new technological trends wit 50 percent of respondents reporting that they were doubtful they would see any long term technological changes from their food providers.
"That doesn't surprise me because kitchens are developed for long term use," said concessions consultant Chris Bigelow of Bigelow Industries. "Kitchens are a major part of the design phase and we're getting much better at making the right decisions early on. If you ask venues if they felt their concessionaires were adjusting to today's tastes, a majority of them would respond yes."
In terms of budgeting, two-thirds of respondents said they spend between zero-to-10 percent on technological innovations, while 19 percent said they spend between 11-20 percent of their budgets on technological improvements. While an overwhelming majority of respondents reported that their technology budgets hadn't changed in the last two years, 58 percent reported that their budgets have increased over the past five years.
Learn more about mobile phone tickets >
by Dave Brooks
Venues Today
Venue managers are continuing to adopt new technologies, although most find themselves catching up with current trends instead of leading the pack, a Venues Today survey in conjunction with Turnkey Sports and Entertainment found.
Venues Today surveyed 91 facility operators at arenas, amphitheatres, convention centers, fairgrounds, performing arts centers and stadiums and found that 86 percent believed the industry as a whole is keeping up with innovations, or leading the way. But when asked how they thought their own facility was keeping pace, only 64 percent answered in the affirmative.
"That's the thing about technology, there's always a sense that you're behind someone else," said Mark Petracca of Vtech Communication's Network Division, which helps install networking platforms for large-scale consumer business. "We tell our clients that technology tends to dramatically evolve every 18 months and becomes obsolete every 30-36 months. With a pace like that, it's no wonder that a lot of our clientele feel it's pointless to buy into new systems because it could be useless in three years."
But in the same breath, Petracca notes that not evolving technological touch points, especially in the communications sector, is perilous.
"You have to upgrade your system in smart ways, one that does its best to foresee future technological improvements and can adapt to those changes," he said.
Petracca is overseeing the company's installation of wireless internet systems for large commercial facilities. Wireless Internet upgrades were the top technological improvement identified by venue managers in the survey, with 27 percent saying they have installed wireless platforms at their facilities.
"It's not just about creating a space where people can get on the web and check their MySpace accounts," said Felix Hernandez, director of communications for the Los Angeles Convention Center. "Wireless capabilities are central to almost every aspect of the meeting planning industry and our clients are demanding we provide this service."
Hernandez said the Los Angeles Convention Center's network can be subdivided between users, each getting their own secured server to share information. Broadcast media have increasingly used a specially secured "media server" that allows them to send feeds to their newsrooms without running cables to their news vans, while planners tap into the network with wireless control devices that keep an accurate head-count of attendees.
Tickets were the next advancement in technology, with 35 percent of respondents estimating that their box offices would lead the venue's technological revolution. Approximately 21 percent said their facilities used some type of wireless ticket device to control access to their facilities, while five percent said they even had success with mobile phone technology.
The Arizona State Fair, Phoenix, is taking its tickets wireless after a successful two-year run with a wireless midway powered by Ray Cammack Shows, said Kristen Walsh, the fair's marketing director.
"The goal was to eliminate counterfeit tickets and get real time attendance updates," she said of the system powered by Ticketmaster. "We've also had some success using it for our concert series."
Derek Palmer of Tickets.com said he wasn't surprised that mobile phone ticketing was identified as the largest technological growth area behind advanced LED displays.
"There's a lot of curiosity out there about this product," Palmer said. "Essentially it delivers the ticket to the user's mobile phone via SMS text messaging, which in turn can be read from a barcode scanner."
Like "ticket-less" credit card tickets being developed by Ticketmaster, Palmer said the cell phone tickets prevent scalping because they're nearly impossible to exchange.
And while ticketing took the lead for most likely to introduce change, concessions was voted most unlikely to adapt to new technological trends wit 50 percent of respondents reporting that they were doubtful they would see any long term technological changes from their food providers.
"That doesn't surprise me because kitchens are developed for long term use," said concessions consultant Chris Bigelow of Bigelow Industries. "Kitchens are a major part of the design phase and we're getting much better at making the right decisions early on. If you ask venues if they felt their concessionaires were adjusting to today's tastes, a majority of them would respond yes."
In terms of budgeting, two-thirds of respondents said they spend between zero-to-10 percent on technological innovations, while 19 percent said they spend between 11-20 percent of their budgets on technological improvements. While an overwhelming majority of respondents reported that their technology budgets hadn't changed in the last two years, 58 percent reported that their budgets have increased over the past five years.
Learn more about mobile phone tickets >
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Venues Today: Blending of Primary and Secondary Still Causing a Stir Between Ticket Pros
ANAHEIM, Calif. & LAS VEGAS — There’s little doubt that the merging of the primary and secondary ticket markets is underway, but just how close are the two sides to coming together as a single industry? Two recent panels at industry conventions — one for ticket brokers, the other for venue managers — show that both sides are far apart on many issues.
Ticket brokers who gathered in Las Vegas July 24-26 for Ticket Summit said they were still frustrated with major ticket companies over what they considered to be roadblocks to the buying and selling of tickets. Just days later, facility managers and box office professionals gathered at the International Association of Assembly Managers conference in Anaheim, Calif., July 25-29 and told a panel of ticketing professionals that they still didn’t believe they were getting their fair share of secondary revenue.
Ticket brokers who gathered in Las Vegas July 24-26 for Ticket Summit said they were still frustrated with major ticket companies over what they considered to be roadblocks to the buying and selling of tickets. Just days later, facility managers and box office professionals gathered at the International Association of Assembly Managers conference in Anaheim, Calif., July 25-29 and told a panel of ticketing professionals that they still didn’t believe they were getting their fair share of secondary revenue.
Ticket Summit was a mix of the primary and the secondary, hosting a panel that featured Eric Baker from Viagogo, Greg Bettinelli of StubHub, Jeff Lapin from Razorgator, Derek Palmer from Tickets.com, Jeff Scheman from TicketNetwork and Chris Tsakalakis from eBay.
“There continues to be this sense of unfairness by the consumer, the promoter and in many cases, the venue manager, that tickets for concerts in taxpayer-funded facilities are inaccessible to most people,” said Rod Pilbeam, executive director of AEG Ogden in Brisbane, Australia.
Pilbeam’s comment reflected a larger sentiment that still prevails among many facility managers — that buildings and box offices take large risks on concerts, often face excruciatingly tight margins and usually only see the negative side of brokers; namely counterfeit or misleading tickets.
“I’m getting squeezed by promoters who want a piece of every revenue stream,” said Michael Combs of the Tacoma (Wash.) Dome. “Our margins are shrinking all the time, but we log onto sites like StubHub and see tickets going for two to three times their face value, and we’re not seeing any of that income.”
The sense of inequity is coupled with a growing frustration towards aggressive ticket acquisition, where brokers use automated and non-automated means to purchase and resell tickets, along with an increase in secondary ticket listings that aren’t yet available to the public.
“We’re seeing a lot of this frustration communicated to the primary ticket companies because there are very few avenues for direct dialogue between the box office and those reselling tickets,” said Alan Rakov of Ticketmaster’s TicketExchange.
Primary ticketing companies were also the focus of frustration during Ticket Summit, with many brokers complaining that primary forays into secondary tickets could shrink overall market share for brokers.
Broker Russ Altman said he considered paperless tickets, like the ones used on the recent Tom Waits tour to block resale, to be an act of hostility toward the broker community.
“Why don’t the ticket companies stand up to the venues and refuse to develop technology that limits the ability of the buyer to control the ticket,” he said. “It’s our ticket, we paid for it and the ticket companies shouldn’t assist the venues in blocking us out.”
The paperless system Altman spoke of was developed by primary giant Ticketmaster, who recently purchased secondary marketplace TicketsNow.
“The big question is going to be how Ticketmaster balances out the needs of its primary clients while also continuing to rely on brokers to provide the inventory of secondary sites,” said broker Harris Rosner. “There have been some signs that Ticketmaster can move some inventory directly onto the secondary, but in our conversations with (Ticketmaster CEO) Sean Moriarty, he’s made it very clear that Ticketmaster will continue to work with brokers to supply the site.”
The other big disagreement between the two sides will likely center around customer data, said Jeff Lapin of RazorGator.
“Owning your customer is going to become more important than ever,” Lapin told the audience at Ticket Summit. — Dave Brooks
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Suspicions Run High at Ticket Broker Confab
Participating in a primary ticketing panel were Joe Freeman from Ticketmaster, Josh Logan from the Houston Rockets, Greg Bettinelli from Live Nation, Gary Adler of the NATB, Derek Palmer of Tickets.com, Dan DeMato from FutureTix and Jeffrey Larris from INTIX
As published in the July 23, 2008 • VOL. VII, Number 23 issue of VT Pulse
LAS VEGAS — Is it a marriage of love or convenience? That was the question of the day at the National Association of Ticket Brokers conference at the Wynn Hotel.
At the close of the Friday meeting, Ticketmaster officials had put their best foot forward to convince brokers that they would continue to play an important role at the recently acquired TicketsNow, although it could be a changing, evolving role. For their part, many of the brokers were as intrigued by the offer as they were skeptical.
“Ticketmaster is going to need us in the short term,” said broker Barry Rudin of Barry’s Ticket Services in Los Angeles. “They can’t buy every ticket, so there will be a role for those of us who choose to adapt to the new market. We know there will still be a market, we just don’t know what type of inventory is left over for the brokers.”
Ticketmaster CEO Sean Moriarty said his company would not squeeze brokers out of the fold, embracing what he described as a “partnership” where brokers continue to supply much of the inventory, while Ticketmaster brings its marketing savvy and internet reach to more eyeballs.
“Consumers are learning that tickets are always available at a price,” Moriarty said, later adding that before the TicketsNow acquisition “we knew that people would come to Ticketmaster looking for inventory and we knew we wouldn’t have what they were looking for.”
Moriarty said merging the Ticketmaster and TicketsNow platforms created a new tool “that would be very important to the consumer” where he can tell consumers “there’s always a ticket for a price. We want to give the consumers a relatively complete picture of their options.”
Transparency, explained Moriarty, would be critical for the two platforms to work together, a comment that elicited a few chuckles from those in attendance. During an earlier panel on the primary market, several brokers expressed frustration at Ticketmaster’s policy of not publicizing how many tickets are released during an on sale.
“That would be virtually impossible,” said Joe Freeman, senior vice president assistant general counsel for Ticketmaster, explaining that the company’s often contractually obligated to stay mum on ticketing inventory for its venue clients.
“One of our key advantages is our direct tie to the primary inventory,” said Derek Palmer of Tickets.com. Secondary ticketing companies that have the ability to reissue tickets through the primary provider — often through electronic delivery methods like email — will have a clear advantage over brokers who must mail their tickets.
“The way the system currently works, the only people making money from the secondary market are FedEx and Google,” said Greg Bettinelli who is overseeing Live Nation’s ticketing initiative. Bettinelli hinted that the new Live Nation platform will likely feature electronic deliverability for secondary tickets, while Tickets.com is currently working with StubHub to reissue baseball tickets sold on the platform.
TicketsNow CEO Cheryl Rosner said she expected Ticketmaster to eventually develop the means to reissue and electronically deliver tickets sold on the TicketsNow platform, but added the company is currently weighing all its options.
Freeman said the other advantage Ticketmaster will have over small brokerage firms is Internet credibility, adding that “every time a fan comes upon a questionable site, it’s an unsatisfying experience and we all lose.”
It was those calls for change that brought an air of tension over the group, who raised their grievances against a number of primary ticketing issues that made resale harder. One audience member complained that the recent Tom Waits tour’s plan to go ticketless and essentially ban resale was bad for the brokerage community. Freeman replied that Ticketmaster was purely an agent of the artist and had to meet their wishes. Another broker said it was unfair for a team to yank a broker’s season tickets if they sold them to a fan who misbehaved during a game.
At one point during a panel, TicketNetwork CEO and President John Vaccaro said he believed Ticketmaster was attempting to shut brokers out of the business. Freeman called the comment “bass ackwards” and added “we didn’t just make an investment into TicketsNow to hurt brokers.” — Dave Brooks of Venues Today
As published in the July 23, 2008 • VOL. VII, Number 23 issue of VT Pulse
LAS VEGAS — Is it a marriage of love or convenience? That was the question of the day at the National Association of Ticket Brokers conference at the Wynn Hotel.
At the close of the Friday meeting, Ticketmaster officials had put their best foot forward to convince brokers that they would continue to play an important role at the recently acquired TicketsNow, although it could be a changing, evolving role. For their part, many of the brokers were as intrigued by the offer as they were skeptical.
“Ticketmaster is going to need us in the short term,” said broker Barry Rudin of Barry’s Ticket Services in Los Angeles. “They can’t buy every ticket, so there will be a role for those of us who choose to adapt to the new market. We know there will still be a market, we just don’t know what type of inventory is left over for the brokers.”
Ticketmaster CEO Sean Moriarty said his company would not squeeze brokers out of the fold, embracing what he described as a “partnership” where brokers continue to supply much of the inventory, while Ticketmaster brings its marketing savvy and internet reach to more eyeballs.
“Consumers are learning that tickets are always available at a price,” Moriarty said, later adding that before the TicketsNow acquisition “we knew that people would come to Ticketmaster looking for inventory and we knew we wouldn’t have what they were looking for.”
Moriarty said merging the Ticketmaster and TicketsNow platforms created a new tool “that would be very important to the consumer” where he can tell consumers “there’s always a ticket for a price. We want to give the consumers a relatively complete picture of their options.”
Transparency, explained Moriarty, would be critical for the two platforms to work together, a comment that elicited a few chuckles from those in attendance. During an earlier panel on the primary market, several brokers expressed frustration at Ticketmaster’s policy of not publicizing how many tickets are released during an on sale.
“That would be virtually impossible,” said Joe Freeman, senior vice president assistant general counsel for Ticketmaster, explaining that the company’s often contractually obligated to stay mum on ticketing inventory for its venue clients.
“One of our key advantages is our direct tie to the primary inventory,” said Derek Palmer of Tickets.com. Secondary ticketing companies that have the ability to reissue tickets through the primary provider — often through electronic delivery methods like email — will have a clear advantage over brokers who must mail their tickets.
“The way the system currently works, the only people making money from the secondary market are FedEx and Google,” said Greg Bettinelli who is overseeing Live Nation’s ticketing initiative. Bettinelli hinted that the new Live Nation platform will likely feature electronic deliverability for secondary tickets, while Tickets.com is currently working with StubHub to reissue baseball tickets sold on the platform.
TicketsNow CEO Cheryl Rosner said she expected Ticketmaster to eventually develop the means to reissue and electronically deliver tickets sold on the TicketsNow platform, but added the company is currently weighing all its options.
Freeman said the other advantage Ticketmaster will have over small brokerage firms is Internet credibility, adding that “every time a fan comes upon a questionable site, it’s an unsatisfying experience and we all lose.”
It was those calls for change that brought an air of tension over the group, who raised their grievances against a number of primary ticketing issues that made resale harder. One audience member complained that the recent Tom Waits tour’s plan to go ticketless and essentially ban resale was bad for the brokerage community. Freeman replied that Ticketmaster was purely an agent of the artist and had to meet their wishes. Another broker said it was unfair for a team to yank a broker’s season tickets if they sold them to a fan who misbehaved during a game.
At one point during a panel, TicketNetwork CEO and President John Vaccaro said he believed Ticketmaster was attempting to shut brokers out of the business. Freeman called the comment “bass ackwards” and added “we didn’t just make an investment into TicketsNow to hurt brokers.” — Dave Brooks of Venues Today
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Power to the People: New Sites Let Fans Set Prices, Level Playing Field?
Tickets.com Chief Commercial Officer, Derek Palmer, was recently interviewed for the "Power to the People" article featured in the July 2008 Venues Today magazine. He commented on the evolution of the ticketing industry:
Derek Palmer, chief commercial officer for Tickets.com, thinks anything that sells more tickets is good for venues, whether it's his company, StubHub or fan-to-fan sites. But he sees a potential downside with some of the new non-integrated sites that are not tied to a ticketing application. "The venue loses out on being able to market and build a relationship with the customer and make sure the ticket is valid," he said. "From a customer service standpoint, it's better to use an integrated product, like ours, for instance."
Long term, Palmer thinks that ticketing companies will figure out how to integrated more dynamic pricing and it will benefit everyone involved. "The artist might get people into their performance that might not pay full price or might pay a bit more without having a premium on the top and the venue will have more people in the house buying concessions," he said. "What Barry (Kahn, CEO of Fanprice, and others) have done a good job of is challenging the primary market to truly be more nimble and right pricing tickets."
Giving as an example Major League Baseball, Palmer said companies like his need to figure out how to make pricing changes in real time. "In baseball, teams go out with season ticket prices and they put $2 extra when the Yankees come to town and they think that's dynamic pricing," he said. "The dynamism is how is your team doing going into a home stand with the Yankees? What's the weather like and there's no ticketing application we have now that can look forward enough to when that ticket is actually sold. We have to provide value to teams in shrinking that gap and making those changes in a near real time environment."
Monday, July 21, 2008
The Blurring Line: State of the Primary & Secondary Markets
Ticket Summit is the leading trade show and conference in the secondary ticket industry. This annual event brings together hundreds of experts and leaders within the ticket community, offering them a chance to establish and foster relationships valuable to their business. This year's Ticket Summit takes place July 23-25 in Las Vegas at The Venetian.
Derek Palmer, Tickets.com Chief Commercial Officer, will be speaking on a panel called "The Blurring Line: State of the Primary & Secondary Markets" on Thursday, July 24. The panel discussion will enable attendees to learn about the different ways the primary and secondary ticket markets are coming together and the potential shifts on the horizon. Hear about the ways the primary market is attempting to extract more revenue from consumers, how the secondary market continues to provide value, ways the two markets are already working together, and how the line between them is expected to blur even more in the coming year.
Ticket Summit features expert panels on various topics pertaining to the secondary ticketing industry. The sessions are designed to provide brokers and other affiliates with the latest innovations and information regarding the ticketing industry.
Learn more about Tickets.com >
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Tickets.com CCO Speaking at NATB Convention
Derek Palmer, Chief Commercial Officer of Tickets.com, will be speaking at the The National Association of Ticket Brokers (NATB) 2008 Trade Show and Convention. Taking place July 17-19 at the Wynn Las Vegas Hotel, the event consists of three days and two nights of informative industry seminars and workshops, as well as networking events.
The NATB is a trade association of professional, full-time ticket resellers. It was formed in 1994 by a group of leading ticket brokers, involved in the sale of sports, concerts and theater admission tickets, for the purpose of establishing an industry-wide standard of conduct and to create ethical rules and procedures to educate the public concerning ticket-brokering services and to serve the primary goal of the NATB, promoting consumer protection. All members of the NATB are dedicated to the principle of assuring the public that dealings with NATB members are conducted with integrity, reliability and convenience.
Learn more >
The NATB is a trade association of professional, full-time ticket resellers. It was formed in 1994 by a group of leading ticket brokers, involved in the sale of sports, concerts and theater admission tickets, for the purpose of establishing an industry-wide standard of conduct and to create ethical rules and procedures to educate the public concerning ticket-brokering services and to serve the primary goal of the NATB, promoting consumer protection. All members of the NATB are dedicated to the principle of assuring the public that dealings with NATB members are conducted with integrity, reliability and convenience.
Learn more >
Monday, June 30, 2008
That's the Ticket!
Excerpts from an article by Melody Kramer from the June/July 2008 Issue of Facility Manager, ticketing industry publication, featuring Tickets.com ticketing technology
Facilities are discovering that the ticket to a better - and more profitable - attendee experience is right in their customers' hands
The Tickets@Phone technology from Tickets.com allows event attendees to get tickets from their cell phones.
1. Tickets are delivered to a wireless phone via mms or text message.
2. The information received is similar to that of a paper ticket, with the event date, time and seat location.
3. At the event, the mobile ticket is scanned using an access control device.
4. The ticket taker prints out a receipt for proof of entry.
View a demo of mobile ticketing technology >
"Companies are realizing that it's less about the ticket you just sold," says Derek Palmer, COO of Tickets.com. "It's about helping your partners sell the next ticket. Data availability and mobility are critical pieces to managing the relationship with your patrons."
Read more >
Facilities are discovering that the ticket to a better - and more profitable - attendee experience is right in their customers' hands
The Tickets@Phone technology from Tickets.com allows event attendees to get tickets from their cell phones.
1. Tickets are delivered to a wireless phone via mms or text message.
2. The information received is similar to that of a paper ticket, with the event date, time and seat location.
3. At the event, the mobile ticket is scanned using an access control device.
4. The ticket taker prints out a receipt for proof of entry.
View a demo of mobile ticketing technology >
"Companies are realizing that it's less about the ticket you just sold," says Derek Palmer, COO of Tickets.com. "It's about helping your partners sell the next ticket. Data availability and mobility are critical pieces to managing the relationship with your patrons."
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Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Steve DeMots Announced as Senior Vice President of Business Development for Tickets.com
Costa Mesa, Calif. – June 16, 2008 – Tickets.com, a leading worldwide provider of integrated ticketing solutions, announced the appointment of Steve DeMots as its Senior Vice President of Business Development today. In his new position, Mr. DeMots will be responsible for identifying and developing new business sectors for Tickets.com. He will also manage strategic partnerships for the company and reinforce the critical importance of cutting-edge technology in today’s forward-thinking organizations.
“We couldn’t be more excited about Steve DeMots joining our executive team,” said Tickets.com Chief Commercial Officer Derek Palmer. “His integrity is respected industry-wide, and his business vision fits well with our philosophy of giving venues and organizations control over their ticketing operations, data, and customer relationships. The success that Steve has already achieved in the industry represents just the kind of expertise Tickets.com needs to experience exponential future growth. This is especially important as we continue to invest in our technology and expand our portfolio of products and services, as well as increase our client base.”
Mr. DeMots is an eleven year veteran of the ticketing solutions industry. Just prior to joining Tickets.com, he was with Paciolan, the Irvine-based provider of automated ticketing services, for five years, exiting as VP of Sales. During this tenure at Paciolan, he was extensively involved in the development of new market segments including professional sports teams and arenas that perform ticketing in-house, as well as several regional ticketing companies.
“I’m extremely proud to be on board at Tickets.com,” said DeMots. “I am a firm believer that more and more venues and organizations will place leading-edge technology at the top of their criteria when selecting a business partner for ticketing systems. I’m equally certain that Tickets.com, with its advanced ProVenue® software platform and full suite of groundbreaking digital ticketing solutions, is well positioned at the technological forefront of the ticketing industry.”
“We couldn’t be more excited about Steve DeMots joining our executive team,” said Tickets.com Chief Commercial Officer Derek Palmer. “His integrity is respected industry-wide, and his business vision fits well with our philosophy of giving venues and organizations control over their ticketing operations, data, and customer relationships. The success that Steve has already achieved in the industry represents just the kind of expertise Tickets.com needs to experience exponential future growth. This is especially important as we continue to invest in our technology and expand our portfolio of products and services, as well as increase our client base.”
Mr. DeMots is an eleven year veteran of the ticketing solutions industry. Just prior to joining Tickets.com, he was with Paciolan, the Irvine-based provider of automated ticketing services, for five years, exiting as VP of Sales. During this tenure at Paciolan, he was extensively involved in the development of new market segments including professional sports teams and arenas that perform ticketing in-house, as well as several regional ticketing companies.
“I’m extremely proud to be on board at Tickets.com,” said DeMots. “I am a firm believer that more and more venues and organizations will place leading-edge technology at the top of their criteria when selecting a business partner for ticketing systems. I’m equally certain that Tickets.com, with its advanced ProVenue® software platform and full suite of groundbreaking digital ticketing solutions, is well positioned at the technological forefront of the ticketing industry.”
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