Ticketing Professionals - Day 2 Round Up

So finally onto day two of the Ticketing Professionals Conference 2023.

Our Dynamic Pricing Journey was presented by James Davis of the Canolfan Mileniwm Cymru | Wales Millennium Centre . He highlighted some common themes in the normal Dynamic Pricing journey I think! Step one, test a low-tech dynamic pricing solution, work with the producers and promoters and get their buy in. Iterate the process and report facts back to the producer.

After a successful trial and proving that the process works, the team determined that the manual process that had been designed was not viable as a long term solution. It required too much day-to-day management and it was probable that opportunities were being missed and the potential for mistakes was high.

James was careful to highlight that the Wales Millennium Centre was keen to not alienate its customer base and ensure that dynamic pricing was not seen as gouging, but perhaps more simply an optimisation. Entry prices remained low in order to maintain access to events, and top prices remained below the (conceptual, imaginary?) ceiling of about ￡99 in order to deliver a premium experience at a threshold that customers will accept.

Having reviewed their options for continuing as was or finding a way of scaling their dynamic pricing, the Wales Millennium Centre decided to work with Digonex and their ticketing supplier, Tessitura , to implement an automated solution that made recommendations about price changes on a regular basis and then allowed the team to implement some or all of those changes.

Now this is the point when I should have grabbed some key learnings from the session, but I didn't, apart from the fact that James and the Wales Millennium Centre understand the needs of their ticket buyers and balance those against the needs of their visiting producers and themselves. This should lead to a win-win situation.

In the entertainment industry, these concepts really are still at their early stages, despite lots of talented people doing lots of amazing things with pricing. There isn't an airline or hotel or car-hire company out there that doesn't use dynamic pricing (or yield management), and as a long-time champion of this technology and method of pricing, I fully support these initiatives. I'm really pleased to see successful implementations of this type of technology with positive stories and broad support for the process.

I don't have very much to say about the next session, because I didn't win the giveaway.

Oh all right then, Why'd you have to go and make tings so complicated? Why complex marketing campaigns are frustrating buyers was a session presented by Chris Crossley underlining some of the reasons that customers get frustrated with the ticket purchase process.

Chris used some, quite frankly silly, illustrations to highlight how irritating some purchase processes are - I loved the concept of buying left and right shoes separately and then not being able to buy the right sized shoes for you because of availability (or the rules on the site).

There were three key takeaways from this session: -

Know your show/product!

I've witnessed a lot of behaviours in our industry which seek to define products as something that they are not, I'll not name any specific shows, but I think this behaviour is pretty common in the West End. Chris treated us to a comparison between Madonna and Macbeth.

In many ways this is another silly comparison (I think Chris was aiming for silly to underline the point), but it really does highlight that it's important to know your product, and make sure you have established where it sits in the market and what process for onsale and subsequent sales is going to be right.

To reflect on the themes from Day 1 of the conference, the team managing the Women's Euros 2022 knew how to do this, and recognised that the process wouldn't and shouldn't be identical to that which already existed for Men's football (or any other sport for that matter).

Kiss - Keep It Simple Stupid

Don't waste your time thinking of convoluted ways to stimulate interest and demand, and certainly don't do it at the customer's expense. Well, this is what I took away from this part of the session! There, a simple analysis of the content!

Golden parachute

And with all the above, and everything else in this session, don't let the customer think what you have is unobtainable (if it's not) or that they have lost out on tickets if that is not the case.

Give them a golden parachute and find a way of sustaining their interest and loyalty - don't lose them to another product or venue (or worse still let them go off and spend the money they had earmarked for a cultural event on something else, such as a Birkin or Jimmy Choos!).

So what is a Golden Parachute? Make sure they know how to get tickets once this process is over - and interesting case study was provided for a lottery whereby if the customer was unsuccessful on any occasion, they were offered an option to 'bid' for tickets and the venue followed up with an offer that might appeal to the customer, in one cases, this may have been at a similar rate to that offered through the lottery.

Again, referring back to microcopy (see Ticketing Professionals 2023 Day one), this might just be a simple prompt letting them know what happens next and how they can get the tickets they are looking for.

This was a really funny session (I mean haha, not odd) which illustrated to the attendees how silly some processes are and how to keep the customer and make sure they get what they want, or as close to it as possible.

In my penultimate session of Ticketing Professionals 2023, Welcome to a Cookie-Free World James Dale and Ben Bunce deftly took us through the complex and ever changing world of what is going on with cookies, touching on all the socials and why we are seeing such rapid change in the world of analytics.

Historically, cookies have been the foundation of analytics and customer recognition. But we've seen an erosion of the dependency on cookies, primarily for privacy concerns - Apple, Google and Mozilla have all announced plans to?phase out?support for third-party cookies in their web browsers

A short Q&A with the audience resulted in Ben handing out Ben's Cookies to attendees who answered the questions posed correctly. This was a fun way of engaging the audience in what can sometimes be an impenetrable (or just slightly dull, dare I say it) subject. But, it's so important to all that we do in the data and digital world, it's therefore important that we take it seriously and commit to it.

A customer case study was shared with the attendees which illustrated approaches to an onsale for a new musical. I won't share the details here (sorry, you had to be there), but suffice to say that some careful planning led to an approach to the campaign which led to effective acquisition of data for the purpose of the onsale and led to a very cost-effective model that can be applied to future onsales. If you want more detail about this case study and are interested in what Sine are up to, I really would suggest reaching out to Ben or James to discuss this in more detail. There are lots of specialists in this area and you have to work with a company that's the right fit for you.

Ultimately, the landscape appears to be simplifying in one respect (cookie bans), but getting more complicated because it's becoming important to track each individual social (Facebook, TikTok, YouTube etc) and web channel separately and make optimised content for each of those channels. First Party Data, On-platform conversions, Marketing Mix Modelling, Contextual Targeting and GA4 all provide mechanisms of ensuring you are ready for the impending changes.

Don't forget, GA4 replaces Universal Analytics on the 1st July 2023 - so check in with your teams and make sure that you are ready.

Server Side tracking and Google Signals also offer replacement technologies, but it's also going to be important to check that those Privacy Policies are fit for purpose and describe exactly what you're going to be doing with data in the future.

The message was clear that none of this is outside the reach of most organisations, but it's important to understand what's going on, what's important to you, and how to solve those problems. Make a plan (and don't be afraid to use experts in this field, it's worth it)!

The last session that I attended was Transforming Tourism - Reimaginging the Iconic Sears Tower & Skydeck Chicago introduced by Randy Stancik . I was hosting the session and had met Randy the day before and to say I was unprepared for this session was an understatement, and I think that's what encapsulates the essence of this powerful conference for me.

Randy had a packed presentation with content covering a complete imaging of this well known and well loved visitor attraction in Chicago.

The regeneration and reimagining of the experience, from the ground up (or from The Ledge down) seemed so simple, but as Randy wen through the content, it became clear what a massive challenge it was.

The Ledge

The Ledge is a glass balcony extending from the Skydeck on the 103rd floor of the Willis Tower. People are undoubtedly thrilled and terrified in equal measure by the experience of standing on a glass platform 1,353 feet (about 412 metres) above the ground and taking in the breathtaking views of the city, Lake Michigan and the four (?) states that you can see from The Ledge.

Starting with the experience at the top, how do you go about engineering something unique and spectacular.

Structural considerations

The Willis Tower is a massive building, and any modifications to it had to take into account its structural integrity. This meant that any additions or changes to the building had to be carefully planned and executed to ensure that the tower remained safe and stable.

Cost

The redevelopment of the Willis Tower was a major undertaking and required a significant financial investment. The project had to be carefully budgeted to ensure that it remained financially feasible. But like many projects, the budget that was offered was a lot higher than the budget that was actually available, so the project had to trim its costs, but not its ambitions.

Historical significance

The Willis Tower is an iconic landmark of Chicago and is deeply ingrained in the city's history and identity. Any changes to the building had to be made with respect to its historical significance and architectural integrity.

Accessibility

The Skydeck is a popular tourist attraction, and making it accessible to visitors of all abilities was an important consideration during the redevelopment. The project had to include the installation of elevators, ramps, and other features to make the Skydeck accessible to all.

Safety

As with any major construction project, safety was a top priority during the redevelopment. Special precautions had to be taken to ensure the safety of workers, visitors, and the general public throughout the project.

Raising the Profile

It seemed that there was nothing ruled out in the redevelopment of this project. It was important to put the customer first all the way through, but the team came up with innovative variations for its customers. Proposals (Romance on The Ledge), weddings, date nights, birthdays, office parties, dining, yoga, rehoming animals, vertical marathons, TV specials, just moments to enrich people's lives and make sure that the

Organisational Culture

Randy touched on the empowerment of employees and how important it was to recognise that sometimes you only have one chance to do the right thing for your employees and your customers.

The team at the Willis Tower recognise that they cannot be the career path for everyone that works there, but what they can do is make sure, where possible, that their teams have the very best development experience and where their team have unique talents and skills, they get an opportunity to use them where possible.

They also realise that they cannot say yes to everything, but they do seem to try and do what they can for as many people as possible to make each trip unique and memorable for each visitor.

Retail

Alongside the development of a gift shop for the Tower, the owners of the Willis Tower invested in Catalog, which is a three-story retail space located on the ground floor of the Willis Tower. It offers a mix of dining, shopping, and entertainment options, including a food hall, a coffee shop, a bar, and a lounge

Final Thoughts

This was a highly enjoyable hour, filled with positive energy from a speaker passionate about his project, and not forgetting the attraction itself. I will definitely be planning a trip to The Ledge next time I am in Chicago.

And then it was over. Many hugs and goodbyes (and a couple of hellos later), it was time to head back home and back to London. The Pride train sat on the platform waiting to whisk me back to the city. I find myself very much invigorated by this experience and readying myself for the next industry event, but most important, remaining committed to this event, Ticketing Professionals - #TPC2023!

About the Author

An accomplished Information Technology professional with extensive experience in Project, Programme and Executive Level Operational Management. Areas of expertise include Digital Transformation, Business Development, Product & Solution Development, Agile Development Processes, Systems and Software Development and Supplier & Partner Management. Possessing a proven record of achievement in developing and delivering effective solutions to solve identified business problems, add tangible value and deliver excellent bottom line results.?

Currently seeking new opportunities as a Solutions Architect, Product Manager, Project/Programme Manager, Head of Technology, or a CTO role with a view to pursuing further training or certification to enhance existing skills and experience in the longer term.

In the meantime, Christian is undertaking independent consultancy to assist organisations in these processes.