Tickets, Please

the REPORT Issue 336 | 19 February 2014 The decline in recorded music’s fortunes since Also in this issue: 2000 has pushed more and more acts onto the road in an attempt to make up for the shortfall PAGE 5: in their income. Away from blockbuster tours Beyond Music: Tickets, please: from U2, Take That and One Direction, the selling point of “scarcity” for acts at the small and mid- Big numbers from level is not so strong, meaning that they have to the hit-driven mobile cracking concert discovery find ways to stand out as more acts tour more games industry » often. PAGE 6: If streaming and downloading have a major Pinboard: discovery problem, then the concert business Stats, deals, arguably has it a lot worse – a problem that startups and more » is exacerbated by the fact that artists are increasingly expecting gigs to make up for the PAGE 7: dip in their recorded music revenue streams, Country profile: as CD album sales give way to single-track Italy » downloads which, in turn, are now giving way to micro-royalties from streams that will take years Acts are having to tour more than ever before and ticketing to stack up. If live is facing an over-abundance problem, how outlets are mushrooming to cater for this – from major can technology offer solutions? With more acts acts all the way down to bands playing the back rooms of touring, the consumer has more choice than ever before – but discovery is the first victim pubs. As with digital music, the consumer is balking at the here. Plus buying tickets is not as simple and dizzying amount of choice so ticketing companies have streamlined (especially not on mobile) as buying to address this – and fast. Songkick has set itself up to make a download from iTunes or streaming a song on YouTube or Spotify. Solutions, however, are recommendation and discovery easier, while giants like coming – albeit slowly. Ticketmaster are looking to map consumer affinity across Things, simply, need to be simpler a variety of levels, using that to provide real-time and geo- “I think we are a long way off from making it as specific recommendations. How are they doing this and how easy to go to concerts as it should be,” asserts will the face of ticketing be changed as a result? Ian Hogarth, co-founder and CEO of concert COVER STORY the REPORT | 19 February 2014 | Page 2 continued… discovery service Songkick. Wrapped up in says. “We are still quite early in the process, that is not just cracking the discovery issue but so it’s worth bearing in mind the amount of also broadening the appeal of Songkick (and opportunity there is for the industry if they other live discovery tools) to a truly mainstream engage with this idea of making concert-going audience. easier.” Songkick, he says, reaches around 8.5m unique Ticketmaster agrees that ease of discovery will users a month and that those using it go to be key for the future of the ticketing business around twice as many gigs as they did before and that the accumulation of rich consumer they signed up to it. It’s a start, says Hogarth; but data and advanced segmentation will play a his ambitions are much grander. central function. “That’s a little bit of progress and I am pleased “I think we have a huge role to play in that whole with that, but I think the real opportunity is discovery piece,” says Troy Suda, Ticketmaster to get to a place where we maybe quadruple UK’s VP of product. “With emerging acts, that the number of shows people are going to and social discovery aspect is something we need to we are reaching more like 50m people,” he facilitate more and more.” Mining big data “The data is now allowing us to understand secret connections between artists and Suda talks of basic things such as fans ‘liking’ the audiences and allowing us to reach out to Ticketmaster Facebook page (in order to see people who have a strong affinity with a news feeds about acts they might be interested particular artist,” she explains. “That has also in) already being in place but says that things been a really important new thing that we have can go both broader and deeper here. really started using the past year – using our Sophie Crosby, VP of insight at Ticketmaster data in those new ways.” UK, picks up on this and says that it will be Frans Jonker, CEO of self-ticketing company powered by the consumer data the company ticketscript, suggests the data now available to has gathered over the years. Ticketmaster is his company’s clients is becoming richer and is currently “cleansing” its data to understand helping them to better understand the period what consent it has from customers about how, before a purchase and not just the period after a precisely, their data can be used in the future purchase. and how the company can work with other clients in using it. COVER STORY the REPORT | 19 February 2014 | Page 3 continued… “Up to now [our clients] generally [got] the data Beyond CRM start to prepare for the future and anticipate are the practical applications here and how do from the point people would buy tickets to the more precisely what consumer expectations they work? Where Ticketmaster says it is innovating is in point they would enter the event,” he says. “We will be. regard to CRM and linking discovery to intricate “We can advise clients on location, pricing, line have added to that by giving our clients insight customer segmentation. “The primary channel is email for marketing, up for events – be it a rock festival or a family into the traffic to their website/sales channel but we know that the future is already looking event,” says Crosby. “We can also provide and the reach they have on the internet. We Crosby proposes that, while social media is an quite different and we are looking to maximise information to clients about their fans which help them analyse their traffic and conversion – important part of consumer discovery, email our usage of those other channels,” she says. can really help them move the needle – be that everything [people do] before they buy tickets.” remains the most powerful tool in their arsenal. “We are looking ahead to opportunities beyond through the line up or through sponsorship and “Social channels are incredibly important for Compared to other sectors, the concert CRM – which is really about insight and how marketing partnerships. It is beyond CRM which us in setting the tone, reaching out, making business is severely lagging behind, according we use data. Internally at Ticketmaster, we are is where we are going with the data.” sure people know, helping people talk about to Hogarth. He points to companies like Netflix, becoming a business that no longer has to what they are going to,” she says. “[But] email is Hogarth says, from where Songkick sits, he can Yelp and toptable as not just offering models the rely on gut instinct and we can make informed phenomenally important for us still. As is SMS see that the concert industry is not all moving as ticket business needs to aspire towards, but also decisions through the insight we have.” and push.” one with regard to all of this and that a fractured standing as serious competitors for consumers’ To take this future gazing out of the abstract, and fragmented approach to preparing for the attention and money. That said, the company argues it needs to go what does that actually mean in reality? What future is not ideal. “There are some promoters beyond these established and reliable tools and “Depeche Mode’s manager recently said to who are very engaged with digital marketing, me that it was crazy that it was easier for him personalisation and making things simpler for to book an Uber [taxi] to get to the show than the consumer,” he says. “And there are some it was to book a ticket for the show,” he says. who don’t see it as a big deal.” “Because the live experience is a unique one, the He believes, however, that the wake up call concert industry has almost got away with not is coming in how ad money is shifting from being as user-friendly for a long time. But I think traditional media to online and this is making that is increasingly going to be a problem and it all players in the live business pay attention and will increasingly mean people will choose other recalibrate their thinking. Or at least it should be. forms of entertainment over going to a concert unless it is solved.” “The thing that I have noticed that I think is changing the game a lot is that in the last year or The time for the live sector to act – and act so the advertising spend that historically went to decisively – is now, argues Hogarth, otherwise print advertising for concerts has really shifted it will see a serious drift away by consumers. online,” he proposes. “A lot of the dollars have “As other industries innovate and make the flowed away from print and radio and towards experience seamless and frictionless for the Google, Facebook and other online services. consumer,” he asserts, “the more the concert When you see real money flowing over, that is industry is going to be an obvious laggard.” making promoters sit up and think that they COVER STORY the REPORT | 19 February 2014 | Page 4 continued… want to be as smart as possible about how they This will involve not only proximity to venues work with the industry now that it’s a big chunk but a much richer understanding of consumer of where they spend their money.

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