TicketNews Guest Commentary: The myths about dynamic pricing

By Barry Kahn
TicketNews.com

I was recently asked to be a panelist at the upcoming Ticket Summit 2010 and it made be think back to the last two Ticket Summit events that I’ve attended.

The first was the conference’s second year. Back then, Alfred Branch was the lone reporter for TicketNews, StubHub was the controversial young company, and there were only three representatives from the primary market (although once you consider that Fred Rosen was retired and Qcue was in its infancy, there was actually just one, Derek Palmer of Tickets.com).

Fast forward to this past July. StubHub’s president gave a keynote address, the New Jersey Nets had a booth, and Qcue was the controversial young company. In fact, our pricing panel stirred up such a healthy debate on what dynamic pricing really is and how it affects brokers and season ticket holders, that I thought it would be appropriate to revisit the three the biggest misconceptions raised during the discussion.

“With dynamic pricing, I won’t be able to resell my tickets for bad games since teams will just drop prices.”

What if I told you that prices are more likely to rise than fall over time, even for the worst games? Dynamic pricing is about being smarter with pricing, not just dynamic. That means that at the start of the season, a game played on Tuesday night against the last place team will start at a lower price than a game played on Saturday afternoon against your archrival. And there isn’t much that can happen to that Tuesday night game to make it worse. Sure it can rain, but barring that, prices will only move up as tickets sell and the game becomes, with any luck, better than it looked on paper.

You’ve always known that those games had different values because you could sell them for different prices -- but with dynamic pricing, you can’t pretend you paid the same price for them anymore, because you didn’t. Once you consider your real cost for those low value games, you’ll quickly realize that you can sell them at a fair price and dynamic pricing helps.

“I just found an interesting blog post about dynamic pricing for Giants tickets. For the first two games, it looks like ticket prices increased leading up to the game. Under the dynamic pricing model, don’t prices generally go down as the game approaches?”

If you track prices for tickets on StubHub or the other exchanges, you’ll see ticket prices drop immediately prior to an event. But dynamic pricing is very different from pricing on the secondary market. One element of this is that teams have more tickets to sell, meaning that they’re going to be more conservative with prices earlier in the sales cycle. As more tickets sell, and availability decreases, the prices leading up to a game will actually increase.

If you aren’t convinced that primary and secondary market pricing are different, take a look at group sales. Any team will gladly give you a discount for 25 tickets together because they have 20,000+ seats to sell and bigger sales are advantageous. But that same purchase on the secondary market will cost you a premium because for a broker, 25 seats together is a scarce commodity.

“Dynamic pricing is going to devalue my tickets. The team will just try to undercut me on the secondary market.”

Season ticket holders are the lifeblood of teams, and teams will always protect those loyal customers. Dynamic pricing brings more fans to the game, providing a better fan experience across the stadium, and increasing the resale value of tickets. More tickets sold also means more revenues for teams, which ultimately translates into lower costs for season ticket holders.

Dynamic pricing is really about teams being more intelligent and flexible with pricing – which means protecting your most loyal customers and increasing the value they receive. Increasing attendance and more accurately pricing premium games are two ways in which dynamic pricing achieves those goals.

Barry Kahn is the founder and CEO of Qcue, the world’s only dynamic pricing engine for live entertainment events. Sports teams, concert promoters and venues use Qcue’s patent-pending technology to set the right price at the right time, and provide the best value for fans, from the onsale date right up to the event date. Customers and partners include the San Francisco Giants, Major League Baseball and Tickets.com.

Ticket Industry News: Ticket Summit NYC adds more expert speakers to panel sessions

Ticket News
By Alfred Branch Jr.

Ticket Summit NYC, the nation's largest ticket industry conference and trade show, has added several more speakers to its already impressive roster of experts participating in panel discussions. The three-day conference is scheduled for January 6-8 in New York City at the Waldorf-Astoria.

Jeff Kline, President of the ticketing solutions company Veritix, will join keynote panel entitled "Who’s On First? The New Paradigm in the Ticket Marketplace," which will take an overall look at the constantly evolving ticket industry. From the panel description: "Primary, Secondary and Future markets have fueled a New Paradigm of continuous change in the industry. Leaders in the industry will discuss these changes and the continual evolution of the market."

In addition to Kline, the other participants on the panel are Greg Bettinelli, Executive Vice President, Business Development and Strategy for Live Nation; Derek Palmer, Chief Commercial Officer at Tickets.com; Mark Wienkes, CFA and CPA at Goldman Sachs; Chuck LaValle, head of Music Business Development at StubHub; and Don Vaccaro, CEO and Founder of TicketNetwork, which created and hosts Ticket Summit.

The other new speakers are Peter Glaeser, Founder of the European mobile marketing and ticketing company Mobile Space Ltd., will join the Getting Global: Ticketing & International Expansion panel, and Frederick Vallaeys, Adwords Evangelist at Google will be the featured speaker of the "Be Googled" best-practice session.

Ticket Summit NYC is one of two conferences TicketNetwork will host in 2009; the second is Ticket Summit Las Vegas, scheduled for July 15-17 at the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino.

Ticket Industry News: Ticket Summit 2009

With a full exhibition hall and an impressive attendee list, expect success at Ticket Summit 2009 NYC

By Crystal Astrachan
TicketNews

Even though the economy is struggling, Ticket Summit 2009, the ticketing industry’s leading biannual conference and tradeshow, has managed to beat the odds; with nearly 500 attendees already registered and only one booth left in the exhibition hall, conference organizers expect nothing but success for Ticket Summit 2009 NYC, which will take place at the Waldorf-Astoria from January 6-8.

The ticketing industry has seen brighter days. This year, TicketsNow and its parent company Ticketmaster reduced their workforces to stay competitive in the market. In October, Ticketmaster eliminated roughly 300 jobs, including 60 jobs at TicketsNow. Similarly, ticket brokers’ profits are becoming slimmer, as many tickets sell below face value, including tickets to Young Frankenstein and the Oscar De La Hoya-Manny Pacquiao fight. Ticket Summit’s ability to flourish during this economic downturn demonstrates the event’s value in the ticketing industry.

With only one booth remaining, the tradeshow’s exhibition hall has almost sold out. Registered exhibitors include Admit One, The Association of Secondary Ticket Agents UK, The Better Ticketing Association, Celebrity Access, FanFetch, FanSnap, Free Ticket Exchange, Global Collect, The New York Ticket Exchange, Suites & Seats, TicketNetwork, TicketNews, Travel Guard, Verizon Wireless, Worldwide Ticketcraft, and yoonew. A detailed floor plan, with booth assignments, can be found here.

Ticket Summit has been able to thrive because of its many supporters. CelebrityAccess (the operator of a state-of-the art database containing profiles on more than 35,000 performers, musicians, comedians, lecturers, agents, managers, record companies, talent buyers and venues) has been a proud supporter of the conference since Ticket Summit 2008 in Las Vegas. Shawn Garrity, senior account supervisor of CelebrityAccess told TicketNews that "Ticket Summit has opened a whole new mutually beneficial market to Celebrity Access." This year, CelebrityAccess did not hesitate to renew their contract with the conference, as it is clearly in their favor to sponsor of the conference as well set up a booth.

Attendees will also benefit from a wealth of panel sessions, training sessions, and product demonstrations. Industry professionals will educate attendees on legal issues, the differences between the primary and secondary ticket markets, PCI compliance, and a wide range of other topics. View the complete lineup of speakers and all panel descriptions on the event’s Web site.

The following distinguished companies have confirmed their attendance: Ticketmaster, LiveNation, StubHub, TicketNetwork, Tickets.com, GET ME IN, StubHub, eBay, AEG Live Northeast, Google, Association of Luxury Suite Directors, Goldman Sachs, INTIX, Celebrity Access, Chicago – The Musical, Federal Trade Commission, CNBC, NBA, NBC Universal, World Wrestling Entertainment, New Jersey Nets, New York Yankees, NFL, NHL, United States Tennis Association, New York Post, New York Times, Reuters, Venues Today, Sports Business Journal, Theatermania, Veritix, Control Scan, Verizon Center, SeatWave, Mondial Assistance, and The Berklee College of Music.

"We’re proud to have supported Ticket Summit since its first conference and every year since. Sponsoring helps support the industry’s activities, and it facilitates discussions with industry leaders which helps us stay abreast of ticketing trends and convey our unique value to clients," said Steve Utley of Mondial Assistance.

Ticket Summit NYC is one of two conferences scheduled for 2009; both were created and hosted by TicketNews's parent company TicketNetwork. The second event, Ticket Summit Las Vegas, will enter its fourth year July 15-17 at the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino. To register for Ticket Summit, visit www.ticketsummit.org or email info@ticketsummit.org. After 5pm today, December 15, the admission price for Ticket Summit NYC will go up to $499, and the amount for buying passes for both the New York and Las Vegas conferences (a combo pass) will be $599. A single admission pass to the Las Vegas conference will remain $249.