Reader Question: "You Talk to People Globally..."
Hi!
I received a reader question recently that deserves an answer:
You talk with people around the world, what’s your take on the state of the ticket business?
This is different than the last one based on my research.
So I’ve put together a list to answer the question:
The status quo works for a lot of people.
This should seem evident.
Folks ask me why change seems so slow or business can seem stagnant.
My answer is pretty simple, “The status quo is very comfortable for most people.”
Why change if you don’t have to?
There are many good tech options and other solutions, the challenge for many of them is that they have to get better at making sure their solution smacks people upside the head with how it helps improve the business.
You might call this “customer success”.
In too many cases, customer success doesn’t get the attention it deserves and the venue/team/organization ends up unhappy or frustrated with the solution.
Why?
Because three things aren’t happening:
The provider and the user aren’t on the same page about “what success looks like”. So they miss each other in a lot of conversations.
The venue/team/organization doesn’t have a strategy or has a new team of folks implementing a previous team’s ideas, necessitating the need to make a “second sale” to get buy-in or helping the partner uncover their direction essential to shared success.
Sometimes tech is deployed in an organization where folks are overwhelmed and just hanging on. This isn’t a formula for success.
This “free market” argument is somewhat laughable.
I’ve had more folks from the “free market” send me notes about how they have to sit out a waiting period or deal with a non-compete than any time in my time around tickets.
“FREE MARKET FOR ME! NOT FOR THEE!”
The commoditization of tickets has broken a lot of the industry.
“The Engines of Transaction” that have come to dominate so much of the industry have broken “The Engines of Relationships” that power much of the entertainment business.
“Open Distribution” is a red herring.
It fits in with the “Free Market”.
A good marketing team knows that the way you distribute your offering matters a lot.
The Open Distribution model works for a commodity.
For teams/artists/performers, open distribution doesn’t necessarily work.
It can, but it doesn’t always.
These antitrust cases are the best hope for innovation and change in the business of tickets.
It isn’t just the Live Nation case.
The NFL Sunday Ticket case is important as well.
If the way TV packages is negotiated changes, that will change the way teams have to do business.
If Live Nation’s business is forced to change, that will create opportunities and voids.
Imagine if teams didn’t have the hundreds of millions of dollars that came from the leagues in shared TV revenue and had to negotiate more of their own deals in a competitive marketplace.
This would have knock-on effects in theatre, concerts, and other art forms.
Too many people are too comfortable not knowing their customers.
This is the data v. research thing I have brought up many times.
Data happened in the past.
Research is a proactive activity.
More importantly, your customer isn’t standing in one place and all customers aren’t the same.
I like to teach folks that if you’ve done a good job of your research, you can see actual customers in your research.
If you are blindly relying on data, you are basing your decisions on the bet that the future will look exactly like the past because you don’t know who you are really talking with.
“Everyone” still makes far too many appearances.
I still talk with too many people who tell me they have to do something because “everyone” else is doing it.
The reality is that you don’t have to do anything that doesn’t fit your plan.
“Everyone” seems to come up because, in too many instances, there isn’t a real strategy in place.
So….
“Everyone else is discounting to clear out tickets…”
“Everyone else is on social media…”
“Everyone else does this kind of ad…”
Your “Flavor of the Day” is great, but it isn’t a substitute for doing things right.
Sports Gambling.
D2C.
Artificial Intelligence.
On and on.
These all sound good. They are maybe the latest buzzword. They probably even feel like being “cutting edge”.
I’m old enough to remember:
“Interleague Play” will save baseball.
“All we need is another Hamilton”.
Boosts.
And, many more.
My take has always been, “Get the basics right so you have the freedom to try new things.”
Unfortunately, I don’t always see that happening.
Tell me, what do you see in the world of tickets and entertainment right now?
Am I wrong?
Am I right?
Did I miss something?
Saw the Foo Fighters in Boston on Sunday: great show!
