Insights

Here you will find a selection of TheTicketingBusiness News' unique features, exclusive interviews, discussion papers, and business insights

TheTicketingBusiness Insights

See our gallery of exclusive interviews and insights, from the industry’s leading names

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#TBF20 Takeaway: British Museum's digital journey

The British Museum has been forced to fast-track its digital strategy after closing its doors to its more than 6.5 million yearly visitors in March due to COVID-19.

More than 80 per cent of the London attraction’s yearly visitors are international tourists, while it also has 73,000 members, which represent its core audience and repeat visitors.

Speaking at TheTicketingBusiness Forum 2020, Claire Byfield, membership engagement manager for the British Museum, detailed how her team continued to provide value through digital means to those members, who are a huge funding resource, as well as to the general public at home and internationally. Watch the full session above.

#TBF20 Takeaway: Repositioning in a Pandemic

EuroLeague Basketball has begun looking at new ticketing models, such as subscriptions, after its record-breaking season ground to a halt in March due to COVID-19.

The governing body opted to cancel the 2019-20 edition of its EuroLeague competition after being suspended on March 12. Prior to this, the league saw a record-setting attendance growth to 75 per cent of occupancy, with an average of 8,670 fans per game, which it projected would have reached 9,000 by the end of the season.

Speaking at TheTicketingBusiness Forum 2020 last month, Luca Scafati, director of business operations at EuroLeague Basketball, detailed how the league has used this time without games to discuss and deliver ways to reposition and better engage with fans. Watch the full session above.

#TBF20 Takeaway: Big 5 for online event success

Online events are taking off and the opportunities are massive and just beginning, according to Jim McCarthy, co-founder and chief executive of Goldstar and Stellar Tickets.

Speaking at last month’s TheTicketingBusiness Forum 2020, McCarthy encouraged live events organisations to take the leap into virtual events, if they have not done so already. He laid out a five-step guide that will help newcomers avoid some of the common pitfalls and improve their odds of success in the digital events sphere. Watch the full session above.

#TBF20 Takeaway: West End focus

When the UK and much of Europe went into lockdown in March, the West End, like most other sectors, events and businesses, was forced to shutter for more than six months before reopening with socially distanced audiences was allowed.

Speaking at TheTicketingBusiness Forum 2020, Laurence Miller, commercial director at Nimax Theatre, said the company, which owns and operates the Palace, Lyric, Apollo, Garrick, Vaudeville and Duchess Theatres, first looked to change its objectives for programming, to focus on stand up comedy, small musicals, entertainment and concerts. Watch the full session above.

9 October 2020: Patron Technology's majority investment puts it in a 'position of strength'

Patron Technology is in a stronger position now than pre-COVID thanks to new investment from Vector Capital, according to chief executive Marc Jenkins.

Despite being hit hard since March when events began to be cancelled and postponed en masse — and the firm was forced to make layoffs earlier than most — Jenkins said Patron now has a much better capital structure and financial strength than it did pre-pandemic.

Jenkins (pictured below), head of the Pennsylvania-headquartered parent company of brands such as ShowClix, PatronManager and GrowTix, told TheTicketingBusiness that the firm currently has no debt and in Vector Capital has gained an investor “who sees value in business but bought it at a discount price due to the situation.”

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1 October 2020: How historic data can support ticketing firms in the post-COVID world

Crowds may have disappeared from arenas over the last six months, but has the vital historic data about them been rendered meaningless too? TheTicketingBusiness asked representatives from Activity Stream, NEC Group and Selligent Marketing Cloud to assess the impact of COVID-19 on consumer behaviour within live events…

As COVID-19 continues to alter people’s behaviour and attitudes towards live events, ticketing and live entertainment companies are being forced to find ways to maintain value in their historic data sets.

After live events all but disappeared overnight back in March, companies began looking at new ways to remain afloat and stay connected to their customers. However, it is indisputable that this period of isolation has heightened audience fears around returning to full capacity crowds… whenever that may be!

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21 August 2020: The realities of social distanced seating

Softjourn, a global technology services provider focused on working with ticketing services, provides a deeper explanation of three social distance algorithms, and 11 additional areas that need careful consideration.

Everyone is scrambling to determine how to safely bring back live events. It’s clear that social distancing is an important part of the answer. For the last several months, ticketing platforms have been inundated with requests from venues and event organisers to help them add social distancing to their venue mapping and seat picking tools.

Ticketing platforms and other companies have created algorithms that turn venue maps into adequately spaced seating charts, often referred to as checkerboard seating. However, social distancing in venue maps is not a cure-all; if it was, live events would be back by now.

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22 July 2020: Viewpoint: The future of theatre

Theatre is having to adapt and following the recent COVID-19 pandemic it has proven just how important it is for the theatre, performing and visual arts industry to pivot and adopt a new approach.

The Blackpool Grand Theatre has laid out its plans for the next five years, with a focus on the audience, the booking journey and further engagement from the audience.

In a publication entitled ‘Future of Theatre In A Digital World’, the famous theatre looks at a changing sector and outlines a plan that will include collaborations with companies such as Spektrix, Activity Stream, Audience Agency (Data and Digital), the Arts Council England Digital Culture Network and The Evergreen Agency.

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21 April 2020: SecuTix says COVID-19 underscores the value of loyalty programmes

David Hornby, UK and Ireland managing director for SecuTix, said organisations without loyalty schemes in their armoury during the live events blackout due to COVID-19 will do so in the future.

Hornby said running a rewards scheme gives clients another string to their bow in terms of opportunity and flexibility.

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20 March 2020: The year that live died

A quick glance at the chart below reveals the pallous state of our sector – and this is just in the UK alone. From TheTicketingBusiness analysis of data pulled from Ticketmaster UK’s own Cancelled/Altered events portal we can consider that the live sector is effectively closed for business.

TM’s information portal details any events it had on sale which are cancelled or altered after initially being posted for sales. The listing covers comedy, arts, gigs, celeb events and some sport (darts, boxing).

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7 February 2020: Viewpoint: Hong Kong’s ticketing options

Chris B, a promoter of live music events and festivals, shares her recent experience of selecting a ticketing system in Hong Kong… 

Following a six-month testing period of different ticketing sites, Chris B concluded that Zicket.co was the easiest and most reasonably priced company she found in Hong Kong to begin selling tickets for her events.

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12th November 2019: Eventbrite - One year on from the IPO

“We are encouraged by the progress we’ve made in the year since becoming a public company.” That was Julia Hartz’s take on Eventbrite’s performance one year on from its IPO.

And it would seem – at least in the short-term – that Wall Street is in agreement, offering a 23 percent lift in the stock to $21.32 following the latest Quarterly Report.

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6th November 2019: Lne Q3 A bump in the road to growth?

Heralding a rare dip in the share price, we took a closer look at Live Nation Entertainment’s third quarter 2019 financial results…

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28 October 2019: eBay flat, StubHub selloff inevitable

Last week ebay released an ‘uninspiring’ set of figures – with growing pressure to offload StubHub and focus on ‘core’ business.

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7 June 2019: Riding the rollercoaster with Accesso

This week our Insights team turned its focus on the rise and fall of aim-listed accesso’s share price. Can the new board deliver a turnaround?

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31 May 2019: Millennial Ticket Discovery – TodayTix vs GetYourGuide

Two investment headlines from last week caught the eye of the FP&A team at TheTicketingBusiness.

Firstly, the $73M investment into TodayTix, the mobile-first ticket distribution platform which has sold 4M tickets to date. Secondly – GetYourGuide picks up $484M in Series E funding, putting the valuation of the company (which has now sold 25M tickets through its tourism activity app) above the $1Bn mark.

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4 April 2019: Eventbrite’s stock performance

We continue our TheTicketingBusiness Finance Insights with a look at Eventbrite’s share performance since its IPO in September.

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22 March 2019: Our new FP&A Team* here at TheTicketingBusiness begins its regular series of finance insights with a look at Eventim’s record-breaking figures and geographic reach

Earlier this week leading ticketing and live entertainment group CTS Eventim announced its plan for “the eleventh consecutive increase in its basic dividend”.

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27 Sep 2017: How the Centre Pompidou overhauled its ticketing and customer relationship operations

With 3.4 million yearly visitors, ticket sales at the Centre Pompidou museum in Paris is a serious business. Read this report to learn how Centre Pompidou overhauled its ticketing and customer relationship operations and succeeded to increase online ticket sales and consolidate customer data.

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06 Sep 2017: Secrets of Ticketing the IAAF World Championships

“We had less resources, less people and less money… and we still made it to a world record of sales” says Georgia Bekyra, Head of Ticketing Operations, World Para Athletics and IAAF World Championships London 2017.

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14 Aug 2017: Digital Transformation in Ticketing at the Pompidou

With 3.33m annual visitors, Centre Pompidou in Paris is the sixth largest museum in Europe. This report examines the recent project to overhaul its ticketing and CRM systems – Free Download

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April 2017: TheTicketingBusiness Forum 2017 Highlights

Why should you attend Europe’s biggest B2B ticketing meeting?

March 2017: Ticketing Insurance The Business Case

The commercial benefits of Ticketing Insurance and Protection are compelling. TicketPlan makes the business case – free download

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June 2017: Say goodbye to ticket fraud with Secutix

magine ticket sales that are 100% safe – without fraud, ticket duplication or exorbitant prices paid by fans – free download

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April 2016: Ticketing Technology Forum 2016 - highlights from Dublin

What were the best bits of the 2016 edition of Europe’s leading ticketing meeting?

March 2016: Dynamic Pricing in Sports

This discussion paper looks into the effectiveness of dynamic pricing in sports – and asks why UK sports teams have been slow to adopt – Free Download

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