16 | No longer just the ticket No longer just the ticket Charged wristbands are becoming more popular The days of box offices selling physical tickets to fans queuing around the block are all but forgotten. Almost all tickets are now sold online and today’s agents are multi-service operators able to garner unprecedented insight into a festival-goer’s behaviour and interests, reports Christopher Barrett he use of social media, mobile Owned by Live Nation Entertainment, is able to sell thousands of tickets a min- platforms and radio-frequency and a sister subsidiary to multi-event ute without any issues. identification (RFID) is not only promoter Festival Republic (FR), Ticket- The company operates a full ticket revolutionising the festival cus- master UK (TM) has worked with festi- management service for Cornbury tomerT experience, but helping organis- vals including FR’s Reading (90,000) and (15,000), including access control. The ers streamline their operations, develop Leeds (80,000), Creamfields (30,000) and vast majority of its festival tickets are highly targeted marketing strategies SW4 (20,000). sold online, with nine per cent through and generate improved revenues. TM offers white-label festival platform a call centre and 14 per cent through a Festivals have long been more than Front Gate Tickets, which includes quick physical box office. a multi-day, multi-artiste music show check-out options, VIP experience up- Its collectable, glossy, colour paper – they are multi-entertainment experi- sells, group bookings, data analytics and FanTicket format is also a popular ences, brands in their own right, capa- access control. option. ble of building loyal communities inter- “Last summer was one of the busi- Ballentine says the arrival last May ested in engaging year-round. est we’ve ever had and this summer is of the European Union’s General Data Leading ticketing services are playing already shaping up to be another big Protection Regulations (GDPR), which a key role in that ongoing fan engage- one, with Camp Bestival [30,000] and requires businesses to ensure custom- ment, they have gone well beyond sim- Kisstory on the Common [10,000] also ers “opt in” to any data sharing arrange- ply focusing on supplying the tickets on board,” says Ticketmaster UK MD ments, has had a positive impact in and charging a fee for their troubles. Andrew Parsons. terms of fan engagement with email The range of ticketing services and “Following the hugely successfully marketing and ticket sales growth. options available for event organisers is launch of our redesigned website and “Understanding and analysing big unprecedented. app, we witnessed a huge spike in data has always been a focus for Even- Not only is there the consideration of mobile traffic and ticket sales in 2018. tim,” he says. “The group had always whether to sign an exclusive deal with Mobile-first is in everything we do, been very serious about data protec- one ticketing company or to use mul- from buying a ticket through to gaining tion, data usage and transparency tiple outlets, among the many things access to an event.” around what we do with data, therefore festivals organisers must now consider Dale Ballentine, chief operating GDPR was not a huge step up.” are the use of a white label platform, officer at Eventim, the UK subsidiary of Ticket Zone, based in Barnstaple, pro- whether to incentivise fans to become pan-Europe ticketing giant CTS Eventim, vides advanced white-label ticketing social influencers, the use of RFID wrist- says his company sold tickets for more services for clients. It primarily works on Alex Ogilvie bands and face-value re-sale services. than 40 festivals last year and its system family entertainment, such as Disney March 2019 ★ festival ★ www.liveuk.com FEST39_MAR_16-23_feature.indd 16 11/03/2019 13:56 No longer just the ticket | 17 on Ice, but is working with an increasing inform fans when a favourite band is number of festivals and last year worked playing at a nearby event. and enables with six. them to buy tickets. “Most of our work last year with fes- “Spreading the word via social media tivals was in ticket fulfi lment services, can be a very eff ective way to sell-out No longer just the ticket for Amazon we dispatched more than your festival, especially when you pair it 80,000 tickets for the British Summer with Eventbrite’s purchase integrations Time in Hyde Park (65,000) events alone,” on Instagram and Facebook,” says Pig- says Ticket Zone managing director got. Domingo Tjornelund. He says the company, which works Big moves with a wide range of ticket formats, is Gigantic sold tickets for 386 festivals focused on building its clients data- last year, including Download (105,000), bases, not its own. Reading, Leeds and All Points East “A post-GDPR enhancement which will (40,000). go live soon allows our web sales engine It also works on an exclusive basis with to opt customers in to our clients’s own events such as Tramlines (40,000), Penn databases rather than the Ticket Zone Festival (5,000) and Leopalloza (5,000). Online ticket websites are becoming the face of the ticketing world one, which will improve data collection The company sells 100 per cent of its one website. for our client events,” he says. tickets online. Among the festivals it works with are Gigantic founder Mark Gasson says Reading, Leeds, Creamfi elds, Latitude Social services his operation is far more than a payment (35,000), Kendal Calling (25,000) and Bel- With its head quarters in San Francisco processing platform. ladrum (17,000). Last year its gross ticket Charged wristbands are becoming more popular and European business based in Lon- Last year it launched a scanning app, sales amounted to £60 million, with don, Eventbrite off ers a white-label ser- enabling organisers to use their own around 40 per cent being for festivals. vice to festival clients such as WOMAD devices to scan customers into festivals, “We sell for an increasing number of (40,000), We Are FSTVL (30,000), Looe it is currently rolling out a fan-to-fan festivals every year,” says Skiddle’s co- Music Festival (12,500), Wickham Festival resale platform and recently launched founder and technical director Ben Seb- (7,000) and Wood Festival (2,000). YouTube sessions channel; The Moon- born. “From Inverness to Brighton, we “Most organisers know us as a self- shine Sessions. sell for hundreds of large, established service platform that gives you full con- “We’re starting to work with our cli- festivals with huge followings.” trol over your attendee data, but we ents to create new marketing content for Since launching in 2001, Skiddle has also off er a comprehensive service for their festivals by inviting artistes on the been responsible for a string of inno- festivals that includes onsite staffi ng, bill to perform and talk about the festi- vations, including being the fi rst to Richard Davies ingress and egress planning, technology val,” says Gasson. “We help our clients develop a ticket shop app on Facebook. that supports complex access control with targeting and marketing as well as Other initiatives include Re:Sell; a plat- requirements, customised web pages promoting the events itself on our own form that allows customers to return and and event apps, and the capacity to pro- channels.” resell tickets to others, and Cool:Off ; giv- cess high demand on-sales,” says Event- ing customers 72 hours to get a refund brite UK head of festivals Sally Piggot. Social integration on their purchase should their plans The tech-driven service is integrated What’s on guide and primary ticket change. in social media and streaming platforms agency Skiddle enables consumers to Skiddle’s in-house editorial team pro- including Spotify and Facebook, which peruse events and purchase tickets from vide a rolling festival news service and Richard Howle March 2019 ★ festival ★ www.liveuk.com FEST39_MAR_16-23_feature.indd 17 11/03/2019 13:56 18 | No longer just the ticket in-depth guides such as An A-Z of Festi- val Essentials and First Time at Glaston- bury. “Music fans visit our site to plan their summers and get all the information they need about the events they are planning to attend,” says Sebborn. Creating ambassadors See Tickets handles all sales for Glas- tonbury (140,000) and has worked with a raft of niche festivals including Love Saves the Day (20,000), Arcadia (20,000) and Nocturne Live (9,300). “Glastonbury stands above all obvi- ously but we still get excited about help- ing smaller operators grow their shows,” says See Tickets CEO Rob Wilmshurst. Carl-Erik Among the ways See helps festi- Michalsen Moberg val organisers raise awareness of their Online platforms of Ticket Factory Scanning a charged wristband to pay for concessions events is via its Fan Share service, which simple as it is totally integrated into the says. encourages people to become event ticketing platform, so there is no need to ambassadors, spread positive word-of- mess about with allocations.” Target marketing mouth and help market the events in He says that one of the company’s fes- Operational in the UK for more than 30 return for incentives, including free tick- tival clients sold 20 per cent of the event’s years and hailed as the country’s third ets and VIP upgrades. tickets via the Fan Share platform. largest agency after TM and See, Ticket- “It is free to organisers who use our “To me that’s amazing, but that client line works with festivals including Green ticketing services,” says Wilmshurst.