By Steve DeMots, SVP Business Development, Tickets.com
Where were you September 11, 2001?
I was at the Doral Golf Resort & Spa outside of Miami, where the IAAM Arena Managers Conference was being held that year. I remember that it was a Tuesday morning, and it looked like it was going to be a decent day- which was good because the conference golf tournament was that day. We were going to play the Blue Monster, the famed golf course at Doral, and it had been raining for days. I remember getting ready and turning on the news, which I never do, and Katie Couric was talking about a small plane that had mistakenly hit one of the Twin Towers. Then all of a sudden, while I was standing there, another plane hit the other tower.
Stunned, but still thinking these were accidents because that is all that Katie could come up with, I gathered my things and went to join the rest of my industry friends and acquaintances on the driving range. You have to remember that we lived in the dark ages before smart phones and wireless Internet, so we all stood around, talking about what was going on- and getting updates from latecomers. It was all speculation at the time, but the reality of what was going on was starting to set in. Amazingly, after what must have been a discussion, someone made the decision that the golf tournament was still going to be held. We started playing, oblivious to what was really going on- until the phone calls started coming in. A worried spouse, a frantic venue operations manager, and in some cases someone who was actually in one of the buildings. Someone in my foursome was truly talking to someone who was running down the stairs of one of the towers. I didn’t know it at the time, but my cousin was in the Pentagon, fortunately on the other side of the building. I don’t know if anyone finished 18 holes that day, my group didn’t. We headed back to the club house with sick feelings in our stomach and joined others around the TV- and didn’t move for hours.
There we were, about a hundred entertainment industry veterans, all down in Miami- far away from everything. It took a while for the reality to sink in- then the warnings were being issued, flights were being canceled indefinitely, trains were stopped, cell phone traffic was jammed- and we realized this was something that was going to affect us all. The ones who were on top of things started reserving rental cars, or planning to use the cars they had already to get home. It wasn’t long before there were no more cars to rent. You can imagine the stories- of folks from Atlanta sharing a rental car with someone from Cleveland, because it was “on the way”. Five people piling in a compact for a drive to California. For me, single and without any place I really needed to be, there were far worse places to be than at the Doral Golf Resort & Spa. Everyone was trying to leave, and no one was coming in. My room was upgraded to a suite with a view of the 18th green of the Blue Monster. Three of the four courses were wide open to us- we just grabbed golf carts and played as much as we felt like, which wasn’t that much. But most of the time we sat in the area outside of the restaurant, where there were a number of TVs’- just watching it all and soaking it in.
After a few days, some flights began to open up, and the rest of us started leaving. I was on one of the first flights out of Miami, a Continental flight that had about 10 people on it. As I looked down as the plane lifted off the ground, I knew I would always remember this particular Arena Managers Conference, and those that I shared the experience with.
Showing posts with label steve demots. Show all posts
Showing posts with label steve demots. Show all posts
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Ed Gow Announced as VP of Sales & Marketing for Tickets.com
Tickets.com, a leading worldwide provider of integrated ticketing solutions, announced today the appointment of Ed Gow as its new vice president of sales & marketing. In this position, Mr. Gow will be responsible for developing and executing overall corporate sales strategy and managing the company’s national sales and marketing teams. He will be based in the Tickets.com world headquarters in Costa Mesa, California.
“We are pleased that Ed Gow has joined our executive team,” said Steve DeMots, senior vice president of business development. “His extensive ticketing background in various market segments is a perfect fit with our vision to advance the ticketing industry through leading-edge technologies.”
Mr. Gow has over 20 years in ticket operations and management and has worked with organizations such as University of Colorado, Denver Nuggets and Colorado Avalanche and Larry H. Miller Sports & Entertainment Group. Just prior to joining Tickets.com, he was with TicketsWest, a full service ticketing provider with over 100 clients and 7 million tickets sold annually.
“I’m very excited to be joining the Tickets.com team,” said Gow. “Tickets.com has a history of innovation and I see a real opportunity to build on here. The company is poised for significant growth in an industry that is evolving today more than ever and the ongoing development of the ProVenue ticketing solution puts us in a position to deliver dynamic solutions as the demands continue to change. I look forward to being a part of that success."
Mr. Gow spends his free time with his wife Andrea and his two sons, Eli and Jack. He is also a member of the National Eagle Scout Association and an active member of the International Ticketing Association. In 2007 he was the recipient of the Red Lion Hotels Corporation Esprit de Corps award acknowledging his dedication and company spirit.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Venues Today Industry News: Regional Ticketing
Ticketing companies get aggressive for regional business
Venues Today
Dave Brooks
History has a funny way of repeating itself. In 2002 when Daren Libonati and his group at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, launched their own in-house ticketing system, many wondered if the Paciolan-powered platform could hold its own against uber-robust Ticketmaster.
Fast forward to 2009, and Libonati is again asking if the provider is up for the job. Despite nearly seven years of impeccable functionality in a building that consistently ranks among the top 10-grossing facilities worldwide, changes in the marketplace have put another question mark around the Irvine, Calif.-based company.
After being purchased by Ticketmaster in 2007, Paciolan has changed its name (it’s now Ticketmaster Irvine) and slowed the development of its enablement software system, directing its engineers to focus their attention on the newest version of Ticketmaster’s Archtix platform; a potentially powerful, but largely unknown application, said former Paciolan Chairman Jane Kleinberger, now the executive VP of College Athletics for Ticketmaster. But what Archtix lacks in details, it makes up for with marketing punch. Ticketmaster has one of the largest consumer databases in the world.
“We love our distributor clients and continue to want to re-earn their business,” Kleinberger said. “We understand that some might not be comfortable with the Ticketmaster acquisition, but we’re here to help our partner venues with whatever they decide.”
While the Paciolan legacy system still dominates the regional market, the momentum seems to be behind Cleveland-based Veritix, which has scored two huge regional deals with the Denver Nuggets and the Utah Jazz. Not to be left out is Tickets.com, Major League Baseball’s ticketing wing that hired a former Paciolan executive to help Veritix develop its own regional business plan.
And that’s perhaps where history diverges. Where there once stood only one leader, now stand several.
“For us, we’ve come to the end of our seven years and we owe it to ourselves to evaluate and do our own due diligence on what else is out there,” said Libonati, who began accepting bids for his system in October and hopes to award a contract by the new year.
REBEL NO MORE
Libonati partnered with Paciolan in 2002 for one of the company’s first regional ticketing projects. The contract would cover the Thomas and Mack Center, a collegiate arena home to Rebels basketball and some of the biggest events in Sin City.
The move also allowed UNLV to collect its own consumer data and more importantly, the creation of UNLVtickets shifted the revenue models for both the venue and the ticketing company, he said.
“Vendors that go after the regional ticketing companies have to employ a different model, such as low flat transaction fees or annual subscriptions,” said Steve Demots of Tickets.com, a former Paciolan executive who has made regional ticketing contracts a top sales priority for its ProVenue platform.
Of course there are tradeoffs. Promoters are familiar with Ticketmaster’s reporting system and few can challenge the company’s marketing database. Not signing a full-service ticketing deal could also leave doubts about one’s throughput capabilities and whether their system could handle 20,000-40,000 transactions in a matter of seconds.
When the Utah Jazz’s 10-year-old ticketing contract with Ticketmaster expired earlier this year, Dee Dee Hill found herself in an odd position. Her regional Salt Lake City ticketing company Datatix had previously held the Jazz’s ticketing contract, and she desperately wanted them back.
“When I was with Paciolan, I could have gone to them and said, ‘Hey, let’s work on getting this client. Paciolan would have sent their sales force out and we would have gone to meet with the Jazz,’” she recalled. “When Ticketmaster bought Paciolan, I couldn’t call the Ticketmaster office and say, ‘Hey, I’m going to be bidding against you.’”
Using Ticketmaster software while competing against the company is nothing new. TicketAlternative, a regional ticketing group out of Atlanta, powers its platform with Paciolan. That hasn’t stopped the startup from going after Ticketmaster’s clients; in September, TicketAlternative signed over the Black Cat night club in Washington, D.C., a former longtime Ticketmaster client.
In Salt Lake, Hill needed a strong technology partner to make her pitch to the Jazz attractive, so she turned to Veritix, which already had ticketing deals with the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Houston Rockets. Working with Veritix CEO Jeff Kline, Hill developed a sales pitch that had Datatix branding and marketing the platform, while Veritix provided the backend technological support and retained exclusive rights to the team’s secondary market through its Flash Seats platform.
It’s the second such move for Veritix; the company recently signed a deal with the Denver Nuggets and owner Kroenke Sports and Entertainment, which partnered with Veritix to power the TicketHorse system for the Pepsi Center, Infinity Park, Dick’s Sporting Goods Park and the Paramount Theater, all in the Denver area.
“We started thinking about doing our own ticketing because with that much volume, you could afford the infrastructure that would be required, and the investment levels,” said Paul Andrews, director of Kroenke Sports and Entertainment. “We should be able to staff and run a pretty efficient ticketing operation for what we we’re paying a third-party vendor.”
BACK TO THE FUTURE?
Still, many regional operators taking a wait-and-see approach to how the market develops.
“We’re not hitting any type of panic button,” said Jack Lucas of TicketsWest, one of the country’s oldest regional ticketing companies, currently operating on the Paciolan platform.
Next year could provide a much better picture of where innovation in the enablement model lies. Ticketmaster will launch the latest version of its Archtix platform, which takes software updates originally slated for the Paciolan system and combines them with updates from Ticketmaster. It will also allow Archtix users to list their events on Ticketmaster.com and take advantage of the company’s huge marketing database.
“It makes more sense in the long run to have one superior platform rather than two,” Kleinberger said,
Tickets.com is also working on developing its own updates to its ProVenue suite to make it more suited to the regional model. Demots said he wants to develop the ability for any venue client within a regional model to put their own events on sale; most regional clients rely on a central administrator to update the system.
Meanwhile, many regional ticketing companies are content to sit back and wait to see what goes to market in the next 12-24 months
Who makes the next move is anyone’s guess, although many eyes are on New Era tickets, the Comcast-Spectacor owned ticketing company. The group recently put out a bid for its ticketing system — since 2004, the platform has been powered by Paciolan.
“All of the regionals talk with each other, and I think a few of us plan to wait and see what New Era does,” said Iain Bluett, TicketAlternative cofounder. “We’re not in any big hurry, except we’re always worried about keeping up with the latest technology and not getting left behind.”
Interviewed for this story: Daren Libonati, (702) 895-3727; Jane Kleinberger, (949) 823-1679; Steve Demots, (714) 327-5550; Dee Dee Hill, (801) 467-1055; Jamie Dwyer, (404) 897-2371; Jeff Kline, (216) 466-8055; Paul Andrews, (303) 405-1133; Fred Maglione, (610) 854-1100; Iain Bluett, (404) 897-2379
Venues Today
Dave Brooks
History has a funny way of repeating itself. In 2002 when Daren Libonati and his group at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, launched their own in-house ticketing system, many wondered if the Paciolan-powered platform could hold its own against uber-robust Ticketmaster.
Fast forward to 2009, and Libonati is again asking if the provider is up for the job. Despite nearly seven years of impeccable functionality in a building that consistently ranks among the top 10-grossing facilities worldwide, changes in the marketplace have put another question mark around the Irvine, Calif.-based company.
After being purchased by Ticketmaster in 2007, Paciolan has changed its name (it’s now Ticketmaster Irvine) and slowed the development of its enablement software system, directing its engineers to focus their attention on the newest version of Ticketmaster’s Archtix platform; a potentially powerful, but largely unknown application, said former Paciolan Chairman Jane Kleinberger, now the executive VP of College Athletics for Ticketmaster. But what Archtix lacks in details, it makes up for with marketing punch. Ticketmaster has one of the largest consumer databases in the world.
“We love our distributor clients and continue to want to re-earn their business,” Kleinberger said. “We understand that some might not be comfortable with the Ticketmaster acquisition, but we’re here to help our partner venues with whatever they decide.”
While the Paciolan legacy system still dominates the regional market, the momentum seems to be behind Cleveland-based Veritix, which has scored two huge regional deals with the Denver Nuggets and the Utah Jazz. Not to be left out is Tickets.com, Major League Baseball’s ticketing wing that hired a former Paciolan executive to help Veritix develop its own regional business plan.
And that’s perhaps where history diverges. Where there once stood only one leader, now stand several.
“For us, we’ve come to the end of our seven years and we owe it to ourselves to evaluate and do our own due diligence on what else is out there,” said Libonati, who began accepting bids for his system in October and hopes to award a contract by the new year.
REBEL NO MORE
Libonati partnered with Paciolan in 2002 for one of the company’s first regional ticketing projects. The contract would cover the Thomas and Mack Center, a collegiate arena home to Rebels basketball and some of the biggest events in Sin City.
The move also allowed UNLV to collect its own consumer data and more importantly, the creation of UNLVtickets shifted the revenue models for both the venue and the ticketing company, he said.
“Vendors that go after the regional ticketing companies have to employ a different model, such as low flat transaction fees or annual subscriptions,” said Steve Demots of Tickets.com, a former Paciolan executive who has made regional ticketing contracts a top sales priority for its ProVenue platform.
Of course there are tradeoffs. Promoters are familiar with Ticketmaster’s reporting system and few can challenge the company’s marketing database. Not signing a full-service ticketing deal could also leave doubts about one’s throughput capabilities and whether their system could handle 20,000-40,000 transactions in a matter of seconds.
When the Utah Jazz’s 10-year-old ticketing contract with Ticketmaster expired earlier this year, Dee Dee Hill found herself in an odd position. Her regional Salt Lake City ticketing company Datatix had previously held the Jazz’s ticketing contract, and she desperately wanted them back.
“When I was with Paciolan, I could have gone to them and said, ‘Hey, let’s work on getting this client. Paciolan would have sent their sales force out and we would have gone to meet with the Jazz,’” she recalled. “When Ticketmaster bought Paciolan, I couldn’t call the Ticketmaster office and say, ‘Hey, I’m going to be bidding against you.’”
Using Ticketmaster software while competing against the company is nothing new. TicketAlternative, a regional ticketing group out of Atlanta, powers its platform with Paciolan. That hasn’t stopped the startup from going after Ticketmaster’s clients; in September, TicketAlternative signed over the Black Cat night club in Washington, D.C., a former longtime Ticketmaster client.
In Salt Lake, Hill needed a strong technology partner to make her pitch to the Jazz attractive, so she turned to Veritix, which already had ticketing deals with the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Houston Rockets. Working with Veritix CEO Jeff Kline, Hill developed a sales pitch that had Datatix branding and marketing the platform, while Veritix provided the backend technological support and retained exclusive rights to the team’s secondary market through its Flash Seats platform.
It’s the second such move for Veritix; the company recently signed a deal with the Denver Nuggets and owner Kroenke Sports and Entertainment, which partnered with Veritix to power the TicketHorse system for the Pepsi Center, Infinity Park, Dick’s Sporting Goods Park and the Paramount Theater, all in the Denver area.
“We started thinking about doing our own ticketing because with that much volume, you could afford the infrastructure that would be required, and the investment levels,” said Paul Andrews, director of Kroenke Sports and Entertainment. “We should be able to staff and run a pretty efficient ticketing operation for what we we’re paying a third-party vendor.”
BACK TO THE FUTURE?
Still, many regional operators taking a wait-and-see approach to how the market develops.
“We’re not hitting any type of panic button,” said Jack Lucas of TicketsWest, one of the country’s oldest regional ticketing companies, currently operating on the Paciolan platform.
Next year could provide a much better picture of where innovation in the enablement model lies. Ticketmaster will launch the latest version of its Archtix platform, which takes software updates originally slated for the Paciolan system and combines them with updates from Ticketmaster. It will also allow Archtix users to list their events on Ticketmaster.com and take advantage of the company’s huge marketing database.
“It makes more sense in the long run to have one superior platform rather than two,” Kleinberger said,
Tickets.com is also working on developing its own updates to its ProVenue suite to make it more suited to the regional model. Demots said he wants to develop the ability for any venue client within a regional model to put their own events on sale; most regional clients rely on a central administrator to update the system.
Meanwhile, many regional ticketing companies are content to sit back and wait to see what goes to market in the next 12-24 months
Who makes the next move is anyone’s guess, although many eyes are on New Era tickets, the Comcast-Spectacor owned ticketing company. The group recently put out a bid for its ticketing system — since 2004, the platform has been powered by Paciolan.
“All of the regionals talk with each other, and I think a few of us plan to wait and see what New Era does,” said Iain Bluett, TicketAlternative cofounder. “We’re not in any big hurry, except we’re always worried about keeping up with the latest technology and not getting left behind.”
Interviewed for this story: Daren Libonati, (702) 895-3727; Jane Kleinberger, (949) 823-1679; Steve Demots, (714) 327-5550; Dee Dee Hill, (801) 467-1055; Jamie Dwyer, (404) 897-2371; Jeff Kline, (216) 466-8055; Paul Andrews, (303) 405-1133; Fred Maglione, (610) 854-1100; Iain Bluett, (404) 897-2379
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Karen LaVorgna Announced as Vice President of Sales for Tickets.com
Tickets.com, a leading worldwide provider of integrated ticketing solutions, announced the appointment of Karen LaVorgna as its new vice president of sales. In this position, Ms. LaVorgna will be responsible for developing and executing overall corporate sales strategy and managing the company’s national sales force. She will be based in the Tickets.com world headquarters in Costa Mesa, California.
“We are pleased that Karen LaVorgna has joined our executive team,” said Steve DeMots, senior vice president of business development. “Her extensive sales background in technology-related fields is a perfect fit with our vision to advance the ticketing industry through leading-edge technologies.”
Ms. LaVorgna has fourteen years in the information technology industry and has worked with such companies as NYSE, Boeing, APS, and Apollo. Just prior to joining Tickets.com, she was with Technology Staffing Solutions, a services company focused on providing the highest quality resources to their client’s businesses for the most effective use of Information Technology.
“I’m excited to be a part of the Tickets.com family,” said LaVorgna. “Tickets.com has such a strong product portfolio, anchored by the revolutionary ProVenue® ticketing solution. I look forward to communicating the corporate philosophy and helping venues and organizations understand the need for innovation and industry-leading technology when considering a ticketing provider.”
“We are pleased that Karen LaVorgna has joined our executive team,” said Steve DeMots, senior vice president of business development. “Her extensive sales background in technology-related fields is a perfect fit with our vision to advance the ticketing industry through leading-edge technologies.”
Ms. LaVorgna has fourteen years in the information technology industry and has worked with such companies as NYSE, Boeing, APS, and Apollo. Just prior to joining Tickets.com, she was with Technology Staffing Solutions, a services company focused on providing the highest quality resources to their client’s businesses for the most effective use of Information Technology.
“I’m excited to be a part of the Tickets.com family,” said LaVorgna. “Tickets.com has such a strong product portfolio, anchored by the revolutionary ProVenue® ticketing solution. I look forward to communicating the corporate philosophy and helping venues and organizations understand the need for innovation and industry-leading technology when considering a ticketing provider.”
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Venues Today Q&A with Steve DeMots
Venues Today Q&A
STEVE DEMOTS, TICKETS.COM
Dave Brooks
Tickets.com is continuing to expand the capabilities of its new ProVenue software suite and has signed a deal with gift card maker Givex to create Uptix, a stored value system for event tickets. The San Francisco Giants will premier the system this season.
Has the dream of combining concessions and tickets into a single purchasing experience finally come to the Big Leagues? Venues Today caught up with Tickets.com’s Sr. V.P. of Business Development Steve DeMots to learn more.
Venues Today: We’ve heard about this concept for a few years now. What is Tickets.com doing with stored value?
Steve DeMots: Our overall strategy right now is to focus on the core ticketing technology. All our additional functionality is being developed through strategic partnerships, so instead of building stored value ourselves, we partnered with one of the largest gift card companies in the world — Givex out of Toronto. We created a product with them called Uptix; our stored value offering.
VT: How does it work?
SD: In a nutshell, it means having a separate database that keeps track of value tied into the barcode on the ticket. What the Phillies have done with their own stored value system is take one of their $60 seats and make it into a $90 seat with $30 worth of stored value. Through the barcode, you can go to any POS station and redeem the remaining value on the ticket. The other way it is used is to add stored value on an existing ticket. A corporate season ticket holder can use the system to load concessions money onto the barcode of the ticket. This allows the corporate ticket holder to give his client four tickets and $40 each (or whatever amount they choose) to spend on concessions.
VT: How does the season ticket-holder manage his stored value account?
SD: The system has a customer portal for online management of stored value accounts. Imagine that a season ticket holder has a $1,000 of stored value that floats over their season package. This system allows them to assign different dollar amounts to different tickets.
VT: What kind of promotional opportunities can the teams build into the stored value system?
SD: Tons. Let’s use a hypothetical example. Imagine you’re an Angels fan and Coke sponsors a promotion that if Vladimir Guerrero hits a homerun in the 7th inning, everyone in section 330 gets $15 worth of Coke products, valid for that day. If he did hit a homerun, you could do a mass upload onto everyone’s ticket in that particular section, and that value could only be used to purchase Coke products. The promotional opportunities are endless.
VT: What happens with any left over money on the ticket?
SD: It can be used anywhere else in the park. It’s almost the same as a gift card, but instead of a magnetic strip you’re using the barcode on the ticket.
VT: Can you get a refund of your remaining balance?
SD: It’s all business rules of the individual client. Some clients have a “use-it-or-lose-it” mentality.
VT: Aren’t there federal laws mandating that vendors can’t take left over gift card balances?
SD: Yes there are. But, many teams are calling stored value a “coupon” because it's no longer a $60 seat with a $30 gift certificate. It’s now a $90 seat with a $30 coupon. If, however, someone buys additional value on their ticket through a customer portal, then the teams are subject to federal gift card laws.
VT: Which teams are implementing stored value?
SD: The Phillies are using Paciolan software and they’ve developed their own system. The Giants will be using Uptix this season with ProVenue. The competitor is a company called STADIS, which has launched stored value with the Washington Nationals and the Pittsburgh Pirates.
VT: What is your projected growth for Uptix?
SD: Within the next few years, a majority of the sports and entertainment organizations that have a lot of season tickets will have some type of stored value product. It intrigues everyone. The key is getting your arms around it on a venue-by-venue basis and deciding what you want to accomplish.
Learn more about Tickets.com ticketing technologies >
STEVE DEMOTS, TICKETS.COM
Dave Brooks
Tickets.com is continuing to expand the capabilities of its new ProVenue software suite and has signed a deal with gift card maker Givex to create Uptix, a stored value system for event tickets. The San Francisco Giants will premier the system this season. Has the dream of combining concessions and tickets into a single purchasing experience finally come to the Big Leagues? Venues Today caught up with Tickets.com’s Sr. V.P. of Business Development Steve DeMots to learn more.
Venues Today: We’ve heard about this concept for a few years now. What is Tickets.com doing with stored value?
Steve DeMots: Our overall strategy right now is to focus on the core ticketing technology. All our additional functionality is being developed through strategic partnerships, so instead of building stored value ourselves, we partnered with one of the largest gift card companies in the world — Givex out of Toronto. We created a product with them called Uptix; our stored value offering.
VT: How does it work?
SD: In a nutshell, it means having a separate database that keeps track of value tied into the barcode on the ticket. What the Phillies have done with their own stored value system is take one of their $60 seats and make it into a $90 seat with $30 worth of stored value. Through the barcode, you can go to any POS station and redeem the remaining value on the ticket. The other way it is used is to add stored value on an existing ticket. A corporate season ticket holder can use the system to load concessions money onto the barcode of the ticket. This allows the corporate ticket holder to give his client four tickets and $40 each (or whatever amount they choose) to spend on concessions.
VT: How does the season ticket-holder manage his stored value account?
SD: The system has a customer portal for online management of stored value accounts. Imagine that a season ticket holder has a $1,000 of stored value that floats over their season package. This system allows them to assign different dollar amounts to different tickets.
VT: What kind of promotional opportunities can the teams build into the stored value system?
SD: Tons. Let’s use a hypothetical example. Imagine you’re an Angels fan and Coke sponsors a promotion that if Vladimir Guerrero hits a homerun in the 7th inning, everyone in section 330 gets $15 worth of Coke products, valid for that day. If he did hit a homerun, you could do a mass upload onto everyone’s ticket in that particular section, and that value could only be used to purchase Coke products. The promotional opportunities are endless.
VT: What happens with any left over money on the ticket?
SD: It can be used anywhere else in the park. It’s almost the same as a gift card, but instead of a magnetic strip you’re using the barcode on the ticket.
VT: Can you get a refund of your remaining balance?
SD: It’s all business rules of the individual client. Some clients have a “use-it-or-lose-it” mentality.
VT: Aren’t there federal laws mandating that vendors can’t take left over gift card balances?
SD: Yes there are. But, many teams are calling stored value a “coupon” because it's no longer a $60 seat with a $30 gift certificate. It’s now a $90 seat with a $30 coupon. If, however, someone buys additional value on their ticket through a customer portal, then the teams are subject to federal gift card laws.
VT: Which teams are implementing stored value?
SD: The Phillies are using Paciolan software and they’ve developed their own system. The Giants will be using Uptix this season with ProVenue. The competitor is a company called STADIS, which has launched stored value with the Washington Nationals and the Pittsburgh Pirates.
VT: What is your projected growth for Uptix?
SD: Within the next few years, a majority of the sports and entertainment organizations that have a lot of season tickets will have some type of stored value product. It intrigues everyone. The key is getting your arms around it on a venue-by-venue basis and deciding what you want to accomplish.
Learn more about Tickets.com ticketing technologies >
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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