The changing world of ticketing

The ticketing business is rapidly changing – due to trends such as mobile, social channels, fragmented secondary markets, targeted marketing, and dynamic pricing.

Breakthrough technologies are enabling new business models that can increase ticket sales. Social media, mobile computing, and real-time location tracking, just to name a few.

In addition, each consumer can now choose from multiple channels for ticket discovery and purchase, leading to an individualized experience.

All of these new technologies and channels can create additional revenue opportunities if used properly.

Carsten Wohlrath from ticketing experts SAP believes that the future of the industry is mobile ticketing, with the company focusing on providing platforms for tomorrow.

He said: “I think technology is a pretty important point for increasing revenue because the ticketing market is changing from desktop and laptop to mobile – we are working on a mobile first strategy as we know the ticketing platforms of the future will be social networks for example.”

“Ticketing will take place on social networks and of course all the ticketing and e-commerce purchase and transaction they will move to mobile devices. So it makes sense as software provider is using these platforms.”

“When you look on Facebook or Twitter etc. for each concert or match, you can see pictures from people being posted from these events. Our solutions on these platforms it will be a big benefit, as most people are on social media. When a ticketing organiser or club, is part of this community and can sell tickets via this platform, that will be a big benefit. We have to move into social media with our ticketing platforms.”

With so many different methods now at fans’ disposal Wohlrath was keen to highlight the importance of taking control of your own ticketing.

“It’s really important that companies are in charge of all ticketing transactions across all the channels and markets, because then you know who comes to the event, the customer behaviour, how many members are buying tickets, at what time, and how many tickets.

“You can do this when you have one platform across all of your ticketing sales, it’s important to have all the data, because then you can work with it, and know your customer and the behaviour of that customer.”

It’s something SAP know well, having worked with the German Football Federation to improve the ticketing for the German Cup Final.

“The ticketing solution for the German Cup final in Berlin, before using SAP event ticketing they used a lottery/waiting list functionality. But they didn’t have the data of what kind of people are entering this lottery and the type of ticket they wanted to buy.”

“With our integrated tool, the German Football Federation increased their customer database from 20,000 to 300,000 in just one match, and they also learned what kind of tickets people wanting to buy.”

“They used this data to work on campaigns for the women’s cup finals. For example, they give people a special voucher off for the next match, so it’s an idea to know which fans are willing to buy and work with the data in terms of CRM and data management – then the German Football Federation increases ticket sales.”

“It’s important to know which customers buy what product – even if they don’t win a ticket lottery.”

Having control of ticketing solutions is something which is vital in terms of data and fan engagement, if used correctly, it’s something which could prove invaluable to clubs and organisations.