Posts filed under ‘box office’
Do I have a dream job for you @viagogo
This job may now be a bit of a nightmare on the back of the ‘Dispatches’ exposé of The Great Ticket Scandal.
“It’s really ####ing shady!“ Viagogo employee in The Great Ticket Scandal.
“at viagogo you’ll work with fun people who are committed to helping fans gain access to tickets to the best live events in the world!“
One of the required Skills and Attributes is “A sense of humour” 
The Great Ticket Scandal in summary:
Viagogo takes the most flack (not surprisingly they attempted to block the broadcast with an injunction), but Seatwave and others named are not without blame. Promoters LiveNation and SJM are also incriminated for duping fans with a 90/10 split (in their favour) on the markup on tickets withheld from the primary marketplace and allocated to resellers like Viagogo.
1. SECONDARY MARKET COMPETITION WITH PRIMARY MARKET
“Viagogo staff compete directly with real fans to buy tickets from primary ticket sellers, like Ticketmaster, for in demand events as soon as they go on sale. To get around systems put in place to prevent bulk buying of tickets, Viagogo staff use multiple credit cards registered to different addresses.“
2. PRIMARY MARKET SHORTCHANGED
“major promoters allocate hundreds or even thousands of tickets to be sold through their (Viagogo) website at well above the face value. Tickets for recent gigs and tours by Coldplay, Rihanna, Westlife, Take That, and V Festival have been allocated by the promoters in this way.“
The Dispatches episode on the Channel 4 website:
The Great Ticket Scandal (not available online outside the UK)
Outside the UK watch the exposé on YouTube (in 4 parts):
The Great Ticket Scandal (outside the UK)
Various recent articles:
28 February, 2012 at 11:05 am Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
Isn’t it time you looked at integrating ticketing on Facebook?
Rob Martin, Digital Marketing Manager at The Lowry, Salford explains the implementation of Facebook ticketing at their venue as reported on the AMA COMMONS. Of note is the fact that at a cost of just £500 to integrate the new service, it paid for itself in the first month!
According to Rob “On average we sell around 50% of our tickets online, with the percentages rising for music and comedy.” Google Analytics revealed how important their Facebook page was for referring traffic, so logically they explored the option of selling tickets directly from Facebook.
“Live performances and ticket inventory taken from the Box office system into the … CMS now allows the website to share that information with Facebook users. The Facebook Events Page is a web application that … retrieves the current event information from the website via an exposed web service.“
Read more about the solution that paid for itself in a month: Lowry’s portrait of a Facebook ticketing operation
29 November, 2011 at 9:38 am Tim Roberts ARTS Australia 4 comments
Near Field Communication (NFC) and Ticketing … soon?
The video is not new now (2007), but it seems that everyone is only keener now to roll out NFC, we may be just waiting for ticketing providers and venues to support NFC.
PayPal has been trying out mobile to mobile payments via ‘bumping’ in PayPal bringing NFC to Australia in months
Visa and ANZ have been trialling NFC this year as reported in NFC Is Coming To Australia Sooner Than Later
Coming to a turnstile near you … soon
18 October, 2011 at 11:22 am Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
Is there change in the wind regarding venue exclusive ticketing contracts?
Just maybe we have some potential precedents looming internationally … finally! It is not Ticketmaster taking it in the neck this time. However, the industry practice of venue exclusive ticketing contracts (introduced by Fred Rosen in the 80′s when CEO of Ticketmaster) is being questioned.
There are two cases currently, one in Singapore and the other South Africa, that are considering the anti-competitive impact of venue exclusive contracts.
Singapore
Competition Commission Singapore – Abuse of Dominant Position by Sistic resulting in a $989K fine with the appeal hearing on 3rd October 2011.
The Infringement Decision was 4th June 2010 – CCS Fines SISTIC.com Pte Ltd for Abusing Its Dominant Position to Foreclose Competition in the Ticketing Services Market
“CCS finds that SISTIC is the dominant ticketing service provider in Singapore with a persistent market share of [85-95]%, and that the restrictions under the Exclusive Agreements are harmful to competition by restricting the choices of venue operators, event promoters and ticket buyers. Symptoms of such harmful effects have been observed in the market, such as an increase in SISTIC’s booking fee for ticket buyers in 2008.“
South Africa
Competition Commission South Africa – Exclusionary Conduct by Computicket. Next hearing 13th October 2011
Press Release from the SA Competition Commission announcing the case of exclusionary conduct against Computicket back in May 2010.
“With a market share exceeding 95%, the Commission identified that Computicket is dominant in the market for outsourced ticketing services for entertainment events including theatres, festivals and live events.“
“Computicket’s exclusive contracts prevent rivals from entering the market thereby reducing choice and convenience for consumers. As a result the commission and fees that it charges for its services are higher than they would have been in a competitive market,” said Commissioner Shan Ramburuth. They don’t seem to be addressing the whole issue by focussing (maybe by legal necessity) on the B2C impact as opposed to the B2B effect upon event owners and presenters.
If these cases do set an international precedent, will we see an enduring change to the current ticketing model for venues and agencies?
4 October, 2011 at 10:10 am Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
Do You Understand The Difference Between Apps and Mobile Websites?
Drew McManus provides a good overview on the Adaptistration blog of the difference between apps and a mobile website in Understanding The Difference Between Apps and Mobile Websites
Included is a neat summary of the pros and cons of the two approaches which he describes in very accessible terms:
“apps function separately from your existing website and a mobile website is a variation of your existing website.“
Drew does sneak in a little plug for the Venture Platform which they describe as a mobile ready architecture, but I think we can excuse him that for such useful information.
For arts and entertainment organisations the big question to consider is Does your organisation wish to facilitate customer transactions i.e. sell tickets etc.?
This question is addressed in a FULL HOUSES post from last year.
Which way are you leaning – Mobile Web or an App?
23 August, 2011 at 3:30 pm Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
CASE STUDY: Ticketing on your mobile
An entry in the 2011 Australian Mobile Awards in the Online Shoping & Payments category – Ticketing on your mobile with Moshtix.
There are a variety of notable elements in this implementation:
- Mobile optimised site – not an app.
- Ticket delivery via a mobile barcode allowing scanning direct on the phone – no paper ticket or physical fulfillment
- PayPal integration
- After purchase ticket buyers receive an SMS linking to their mobile barcode ticket
- Integration with Google Maps
- Social sharing of events through Facebook and Twitter
- Forwarding of tickets to friends from the same mobile
9 August, 2011 at 6:27 pm Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
Is a scalping bot a bot, if it looks and smells like a bot?
I was surprised by the candour of this website TicketBots – automating human efforts.
“Ticketmaster Helper Application is designed to help brokers, so that they get more organized and save time while purchasing tickets. This product is legal and developed by authorizing the lawsuits. Ticketmaster helper application just helps the user to reduce manual work that user does while purchasing tickets. It is just a transformation of human efforts into an automatic process of buying tickets.“
It appears that they are covering a fair few of the scalping opportunities with a suite of offerings:
8 June, 2011 at 3:11 am Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
Westpac and Moshtix wear the blame for Splendour Ticketing Meltdown
In a public relations nightmare for all parties involved, the eagerly awaited onsale for for the annual Splendour in the Grass festival hit had a major meltdown as reported in the Sydney Morning Herald. Online blogs were aflame with fans venting their frustrations with the problems getting hold of tickets.
Of course, the Fairfax Media owned Herald could not miss the opportunity to take a free jab at the Rupert Murdoch News Corp owned Moshtix.
Westpac’s air-con blunder takes a blender to Splendour
6 May, 2011 at 11:39 am Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
Want an Open Source Ticketing & Patron Management Solution that’s free?
Fractured Atlas has released ATHENA 1.0 with basic support for both ticketing and donor/patron management.
This is an open source solution that is offered free. You ask how? This was made possible with the support of the following foundations: The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, and The Kresge Foundation.
“ATHENA
Management Tools for the Cultural Sector.
ATHENA is an open source software framework that is intended to meet the needs of arts and cultural organizations. The first release supports basic event ticketing and donor/patron management.“
Hot off the press – The 2011 Ticketing Software Satisfaction Survey Report
The Technology in the Arts Ticketing Software Satisfaction Survey Report is out for 2011. A survey is oftens very useful.
But this seems to be a measure of overall satisfaction levels by organisation size as opposed to an assessment of satisfaction with specific software options. Surely a brand compariosn is what people are after?
2 April, 2011 at 12:33 am Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
