No Longer Just the Ticket No Longer Just the Ticket

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

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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

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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 helping 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. knows their crowd well and really knows Man (20,000), Kendal Calling, Bluedot Rob Wilmshurst “The management of the service is very how to engage them to drive sales,” he (5,000), and Beat-Herder (5,000).

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ticketing solutions and compatible with our scanning and access control system,” he says The company is currently working on the launch of a fan-to-fan ticket market- place to enable its clients to provide a face-value or less ticket re-sale facility.

Innovation brings insight Event Genius says it offers ticketing solutions to more than 100 festivals, including Park Life (65,000), through its Ticket Arena platform. All of its tickets are sold online, with 97 per cent delivered as mobile or e-tickets versus just three per cent physical. Head of marketing Alex Ogilvie says the company’s end-to-end service stretches well beyond simply providing Scanning a charged wristband to pay for concessions tickets. Ninety-nine per cent of its festival tick- says head of marketing James Lee. “Alongside our constant quest to ets are purchased online and the vast Ticketline’s ambassador programme, improve the white-label ticketing, majority issued are printed paper tickets. The Ticket Network enables organisers access control and analytics solutions, “Our services include in-depth target to recruit social influencers to sell tickets which have long been our bread and marketing, sales strategy and reporting on their behalf. The “reps” are incentiv- butter, we’ve made significant invest- with first-class customer and box office ised with offers of tickets, merchandise ments in our RFID cashless payment support, and real-time scanning access and VIP upgrades. solution- Event Genius Pay,” says Ogilvie. control solutions delivered in tandem “All tickets sold through The Ticket Used by more than 20 festivals last with our e-commerce ticketing systems,” Network are integrated into our existing year, Event Genius Pay enables fans to James Lee

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FEST39_MAR_16-23_feature.indd 19 11/03/2019 13:56 Audience Magazine 2018 full page.pdf 1 23/08/2018 14:48

20 | No longer just the ticket SECTOR FOCUS I 25 enables users to buy tickets, merchan- of transactional and behavioural data. dise, view content, engage with social “Festivals work hard to create a THE UK’S LEADING INDEPENDENT updates and earn rewards for their loy- unique identity, we work with organ- alty before, during, and after an event. isers to identify target audiences that “It allows organisers to build an audi- match the demographics they are try- TICKETING PARTNER ence on a platform that they can fully ing to attract,” he says. “Using our data control,” says Ogilvie. segmentation tools we can target spe- cifi c audience types and then, studying Winning tickets Identity policies conversions, identify look-a-likes and The Ticket Factory, part of Birmingham’s target them.” arena-owning NEC Group, has sold While more than 90 per cent of its fes- more than 60,000 tickets for 18 festivals tival ticket transaction take place online, across the UK in the past year, including the company has found its customers Reading, Leeds, Cropredy (17,000) Slam still prefer to receive paper tickets. Dunk (20,000) and Wireless (45,000). Lost Planet Technology used by Ticketline The company is the ticketing partner Keeping mobile Technology used by Ticketline use a single account to buy tickets and for Barclaycard, sponsor of London’s Founded in Norway in 2013, TicketCo “This summer was one Parsons says Ticketmaster combats the prob- of our biggest to date, we credit that can be usedlems at theby implementing festival measures to 65,000-capacityincluding IP British Summer Time in launched in the UK last year and has cli- staffed 142 box offices and “It is time to embrace blocking, paperless ticketing and CAPTCHA scanned more than three integratedpay for communications, food, drink and –merchandise a computer programme via ableHyde to distin Park.- ents including Wheels and Fins (5,000) million tickets at events guish humans from machines. The company including BBC Radio 1 Big usingRFID traditional wristbands. and Accordingalso recently to introduced Oglivie, its Verified InFan proorder- to ensure customers can and The Great Wonderfest (5,000). Weekend [cap. 25,000], BBC digital media, with gramme to the UK, after a successful roll-out in 6 Music Festival [various its use typically increasesthe US. a festival’s complete their transactions as eff ort- “We started as a ticketing solution Andrew Parsons venues] and the Reading insightful data targeting” This initiative involves ticket buyers pre- [90,000] and Leeds [80,000] festivals,” says TM UK revenuesJames Lee by around 25registering per cent for tickets. in theTM then examineslessly the as possible, NEC Group’s director but we have evolved into a sophisti- MD Andrew Parsons. fi rst year of use and providescustomer’s social valuablemedia activity to identifyof ticketing if they Richard Howle is oversee- cated payment solution for events,” says As the concert and festival ticketing business are a genuine fan, before they are sent a code has grown in scale in the past decade, so has the fraudsters insightsduring that aboutperiod, according fans. to allowing them to purchase a ticket. ing the redevelopment of The Ticket TicketCo co-founder Carl-Erik Michalsen threat from fraudsters and touts. a report by ecommerce fraud prevention firm “Verified Fan takes professional resellers and bots More than 21,000 people have reported fall- Riskified. It saysIn festivala further passes are fourmove times [roboticto help software thatits harvest fes- tickets forFactory resale] out website, taking a mobile-fi rst Moberg. “We can provide a full ticketing ing victim to ticket fraud in the last three years, more likely to be bought using fraudulent means of the equation before tickets even go on sale thus C and more than £17m has been lost to ticket than ticketstival to sporting organiser events. clientsminimising gain resale a activity,”closer says Parsons.approach. and e-commerce solution and point- understanding of their ticket buyers, Howle says one of the company’s key of-sale systems for the box offi ce, mer- M

Event Genius recently soft-launched a assets is its customer data segmenta- chandise stand, bars and food stands,” Y Andrew Parsons white-label “fan engagement” app that tion programme, created using six years Consumers who use the service to CM

We play everywhere CMY Any event. Any size. K

October 2017 • Issue 213 • www.liveuk.com

LP213_24-31_Sector Focus.indd 25 02/10/2017 16:52 Bespoke Extensive Integrated Payment ticketing marketing white-label plans Cashless POS Pre-sale solutions planning ticketing With Event Genius Pay Event registration solution

Fan engagement app Merchandise Drive loyalty & sales Sell products in one place

Rep sales On site Detailed Real time support reporting scanning Reserved seating Access control Mobile first user interface With our Entry Genius app

Winner of the eventgenius.io Product Innovation Award ticketline.co.uk/hello [email protected]

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THE UK’S LEADING INDEPENDENT TICKETING PARTNER

CMY

Bespoke Extensive Integrated Payment ticketing marketing white-label plans solutions planning ticketing

Rep sales On site Detailed Real time support reporting scanning

ticketline.co.uk/hello [email protected]

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purchase a ticket are supplied with a lists and barcodes generated by other QR [Qucik Response] code that acts as ticketing systems.” the ticket, but can also enable them to This month, We Got Tickets launched make cashless payments on site. Refund Protection, a service that ena- Moberg says the company’s mobile- bles customers to apply for a refund first strategy is a reflection of consumer should they be unable to attend an behaviour. event. “A recent survey among youngsters “Refund Protection offers custom- in Norway shows that loosing access to ers some reassurance when purchas- their mobile phone is by far their worst ing higher priced tickets a long time in nightmare, it beats losing their parents, advance of an event, as is often the case a bed to sleep in or food on the table,” with festivals,” says Kramer. he says. Face-value ticket exchange platform Working primarily with grassroots Twickets was launched in 2011 by for- and small-to-medium sized promot- mer EMI exec Richard Davies as a Twitter ers and venues, Oxford-based We Got service that matched buyers with sell- Tickets sells tickets for independent fes- ers. It has since evolved into a transac- tivals including the Beer And Bluegrass tional website with a mobile app. Festival and Southdowns Folk Fest Last year Twickets worked with festi- Mobile tickets are becoming more and more popular Mark Gasson The company was a pioneer of paper- vals including Boardmasters (50,000), ticket to the buyer, it is cancelled and less when it launched in 2000 and has Kendall Calling (25,000), Green Man a new one is generated and sent from not sold a physical ticket since. (20,000), End Of The Road (14,000) and Twickets,” says Davies. “We work with e-tickets and bar- Standon Calling (12,00). Another recent development at codes,” says We Got Tickets director and It has set up a fully integrated cancel Twickets is the launch of a waiting list chief operations officer Laura Kramer. and reissue service that Davies says has system for those interested in attending “Our barcodes are compatible with all been successfully adopted by End Of sold-out festivals, ensuring the person major scanning solutions, and our own The Road. at the front of the queue get first refusal Ben Sebborn access control system can import guest “Rather than passing on the original on any tickets that become available.

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