Lots and Lots of Resale! How's Your Biz Model?
Hey!
This morning I don’t really have a story to tell. I have a few observations from things around the world of tickets.
I’m curious what you think about these stories.
So drop me a line.
Don’t forget I’m doing some in-person events this year since my travel schedule didn’t let me get to any of the conferences so far:
London, 2 July: Happy Hour, TBD
September 4, 2024 in NYC with the new, improved ‘Fans For Life’.
Melbourne, Australia on 19 November 2024 with ‘Fans For Life’.
That’s right.
2 ‘Fans for Life’ dates on opposite sides of the planet!
I’ll have the pages live for sign ups in a few days…but just know we are going to break the day down into 4 parts:
Branding
New Fans
Retention
Fan Lifecycle
Avenged Seven Fold has an interesting spin on a loyalty program:
This is worth looking at.
They’ve got layers to how you earn points and layers to the rewards you can win.
This is the most sophisticated loyalty program I’ve seen in entertainment.
But I will add the caveat about loyalty programs:
Most fail because they are complicated to run and the teams don’t have the resources to make them work.
That doesn’t mean Avenged Seven Fold is guilty of this. But it means that you need to invest in the program and not just roll it out.
John Martin, CEO at CREEM, talks business models:
His aim is at VICE, but I think the idea of making your product so good that people will pay the price you ask makes a lot of sense.
It is something I’ve been thinking about.
And, when I look at a lot of sports, arts, and other advertisements…seems to be something that people don’t spend nearly enough time on.
Look at these ads and tell me whether or not they scream, “BUY ME!”
Ticket touts were convicted of fraudulent trading in the UK:
(Full disclosure: I was asked to write a report comparing the US and UK ticket markets for the defense.)
Another exhibit in the differences between almost every other market and the US when it comes to ticket resale.
At the same time, Labour says they will crack down on resale and cap resale prices if elected.
P.S The Coalition for Ticket Fairness is having their first official dinner in London in May.
What do you think of this idea of ‘plastic’ fans?
To me, it is absurd.
Do we know many bigger Spurs fans than me?
I don’t bring it up for that reason though.
I bring it up because no matter where you look in sports, the arts, theatre, etc. you find plenty of people that just make assumptions about the kinds of people buying tickets or that should know what they are buying…or, whatever.
They make assumptions.
The thing is that if we are doing our jobs well, we should be reaching a huge audience of people at all different points in their journey.
Tell me what you think in the ‘Talking Tickets’ Slack Channel.
Sabres try to combat reselling with $5,000 reseller license:
You’d really have to dig into the data on resale of hockey tickets to know what to make out of this.
A few things I know from working in other hockey markets:
Hockey tickets are more expensive on average than other sports due to lower TV rights money, meaning that the teams are more reliant on ticket revenue.
This makes hockey tickets slightly more likely to be resold as a way to recoup some of the expense for ticket holders.
Hockey being the least popular major sport in most markets also means that the marketing effort needs to be greater to create a preference for attendance which can lead to more resale.
What’s your take on this situation?
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Cheers!
Dave