Resend: Talking Tickets 1 July 2022: Barcelona! A List! And, More!
Had to resend this today. For some reason, the software reverted to an earlier version and cut off portions of the newsletter.
Substack is on vacation mode this morning as well…I’m guessing.
Good morning from NYC!
How are y’all?!
I’m on vacation time from now until the 23rd of July…or there about. So, you get what you pay for from the newsletter.
I’ll be in Miami next week. So stop by the pool at the Four Seasons and say, “hello”.
You’ll be getting the summer version of the newsletter…so maybe a little less in-depth, but I’m on vacation.
Come see me in NYC on 12 September. I’m doing the Whiteboard Workshop! Email me to reserve a spot.
Share this newsletter with someone that might find this valuable!
1. The Big Story: I’m traveling a bit this week and when I make lists, I get the most emails. So let’s do a list this morning of some observations and ideas I’ve been thinking on lately:
Big Ideas:
When I make a list, it generates more discussion.
I keep a notebook with me at all times to jot down thoughts and ideas.
Sometimes, I don’t recognize a really good idea until it pops up a few times.
Here are some things I’ve been thinking on or working on lately:
The persistence of the past: what got you here won’t get you to the next success. But this persistence typically holds organizations back.
We can’t manage our businesses for certainty now. How will we change because of this?
Too much emphasis on consistency drives stagnation.
More people need to get out of their offices and down dirty with the customers. If you are close to your fans, you’ll find that the validity of your opinions might change.
In every market, I’ve seen that buyer behavior has changed. This has been driven by inflation, but it is also because of the pattern disruption of COVID.
What guests call a great experience is impacted by every touchpoint in the event journey, even ones that your building can’t control like traffic, the service at dinner, or something else.
Many folks keep talking to me about mindset and changing the mindset of the industry. But there is the persistence of the way things were that fights change.
Countries with open ticket markets are doing better sales-wise than countries with closed ticket markets.
Not enough research is being done. Almost everyone says that, but it is also coupled with there being a lot of data. Having data can feel like a challenge to developing new insights for a lot of organizations and teams.
Where revenues are up for teams and organizations, it can be a hard lift to look past the top line number to the profitability or to lower purchase rates.
What would you add to my list?
There is more in the notebook, but I need to save some for next week.
2. The Road to Recovery: Barcelona puts a plan in place to drive attendance:
Big Ideas:
Driving attendance should be key for any organization. An empty seat might have been paid for, but empty seats don’t spend money on F&B or merch.
Carrots and sticks!
The renewal of the Camp Nou is a driver here as well.
Getting folks to use the tickets they buy is a key challenge right now. Scan rates are still down pretty significantly in a lot of places.
Barcelona is interesting because they have a huge fanbase, but attending a game, their fans can behave in the same stereotypical way that people talk about Dodgers’ fans.
They arrive late and leave early.
Not always, but it happens more often than people know.
Most teams might not be able to use the carrot and stick approach to fan engagement, but Barcelona can get away with this because they do have a big fan base.
As the Camp Nou gets renovated this year, this is part of a larger reset and one that recognizes that an empty seat that is paid for but not used has a definite cost in revenues booked from purchases in the stadium, but also a lack of atmosphere and worse fan experience.
3. How To: Be a Great Podcast Guest, Part 2:
Big Ideas:
I talk about future strategies for tickets with Eric Fuller.
To be successful going forward, you’ll have to challenge the assumptions underpinning the actions you take.
Inflation, the price of going out, jobs, and more are all impacting people from going out.
Well, well, well…I’m back.
Not just at the man’s lounge at Sak’s, but on the podcast circuit!
This time I sit down with Eric Fuller to talk about tickets: marketing, selling, and pricing those suckers because the market for tickets is changing as fast as we can think we’ve figured anything out these days.
As always, give the full conversation a listen. You’ll find out what I think a night out on the town costs at my house and more.
A few key ideas to get you to click the link:
I think the pricing, sales, and marketing models for a lot of venues, especially in the States, are way behind.
Use your data better to make better decisions going forward. I don’t know if I laid it out in this post completely, but you also have to realize that all of your data is historical and that whatever happens in the future is a bet.
Strategy is about making choices and the most important is often what you won’t do.
4. Tech/Tools/Profiles: An amazing term comes to us from Australia: cleanskinning!
Big Ideas:
You tell me that Australia is a small country, but I will tell you that they have some of the best ideas going because they have to find ways to win in a competitive market. a
Cleanskinning saves your brand.
Don’t discount!
This article got to me after someone from Australia listened to me on ‘Call to Action’ with Giles Edwards two weeks ago.
We were talking about pricing and my experience with booze. Giles couldn’t come up with the term that was used to clear wines out without undercutting the brand equity of the vineyard.
Lo and behold, folks listened.
Now we know the name of the term is cleanskinning and our lives are richer for it.
Read the article because it shows you that the pricing ideas I share with you all the time aren’t just stuff I’m pulling out of thin air, these ideas are often evident in the strategies of other organizations and places around the world.
Why do so many of my examples come from Australia or why does my attention wander there so much?
First, I love the place. If you’ve never been, get there. What an amazing place and what wonderful people.
Also, real shrimp on the barbie!
But the main reason I go back to Australia so much is due to the creativity that people show in their problem-solving.
It is true that Australia only has around 26 million people, but the cities are still very competitive, and winning fans in Australia is a competitive thing.
So, don’t sleep on the Australians.
The second thing here, is cleanskinning saves your brand.
If you read the piece, you’ll notice that the writer lays out several reasons that cleanskinning happens in Australia. But a big bit of attention is paid to protecting the brand.
Why does cleanskinning protect your brand?
Several reasons but if the wine is bad, you don’t take the hit. If you discount it, no one necessarily knows it is you, so you don’t take the hit. Finally, you don’t lose points for presentation or damaged packaging.
The key is that you maintain your brand equity.
Winning!
Finally, as we’ve discussed many times before: don’t discount.
Discounts might feel like a sugar rush of easy revenue, but here are just a few of the ways that discounts harm you:
You lose profit. Somewhere between 10-40%.
You destroy brand equity. Meaning that you wipe out the positives that you’ve been trying to build up over the years.
You teach your audience to wait for a better deal.
I can go on with this.
I won’t, but I realize that getting an idea across takes multiple touches so I’ll continue to tell you: Discounts are for Dummies!
Use this:
Put your brand at the heart of your thinking around marketing. Your decisions can make or break your ability to sell now and into the future.
Get out of your market and look at what people are doing in other parts of the world. I’m telling you that you might not be doing nearly enough of that.
Don’t discount. It is bad for your business’s health. (I won’t open up how to use a price war because then I’ll just confuse you.)
5. Blurbs and such:
A brutal takedown of DC’s bid for World Cup games: I’m not saying they are wrong, but I wanted to attend World Cup matches in DC because it is the nation’s capital after all.
The economic impact of the World Cup in Qatar is lowered: These estimations are almost always way off. But to see one lowered is strange.
NHS workers find their Ed Sheeran tickets are canceled: Not a good look for Ed Sheeran here. Canceling comp tickets for NHS workers is likely going over like a lead balloon.
Madrid went YOLO and its theatre scene is recovering more rapidly than other major European cities: What is 2,200 deaths per million amongst friends? I only point this out because you’ll have to pay attention to the local culture in each city or country to get a feel for what recovery will mean in each locale…some places will have different risk profiles.
Celebrate the theatre in your local community: I’ll advocate just celebrating art in your community. Think about the great musicians that came out of Athens when I was a kid: R.E.M., The B-52s, Widespread Panic, and Vic Chesnutt. A young Dave grew up about 30 minutes outside of town…support art in your local community. Actually, in the town I lived in until I went to high school, a really big Nashville songwriter, Hillary Lindsey, grew up as well. So, celebrate the arts, theatre, and sculpture. Whatever!
Table tennis is the only sport continuing in Ukraine right now!: When I saw this, I was scratching my head as well, but the reason is simple: gambling.
Digonex hooks up with Vivaticket!: Economists and marketers have a lot in common when it comes to pricing effectively. Speaking of pricing, West End prices are up 21.3% since before the pandemic. That’s going to create a challenging environment the longer inflation continues to grow in the UK.
Viagogo is fined in Italy: I highlight to illustrate that other countries treat the secondary market much differently than the States does.
You can find me everywhere with my special Linktree! It is all my links!
Be a part of the ‘Talking Tickets’ Slack community.
Check out my friends at Booking Protect!
We continue to see the value of offering refund protection in the data. Feedback shows that the most challenging issues since re-opening have been pretty consistent for teams, theatres, and venues:
Consumer confidence
Changes in buyer behavior
COVID policies coupled with refund or exchange policies.
Offering refund protection helps you provide a solution for these challenges.
Hook up with the team at Booking Protect!
I did the FREE webinar a few weeks back but had some technical issues with the live stream on Microsoft Teams. I’m not sure if was Teams or my new desktop computer, either way…I’m going to continue to play with the tech stack and I posted the audio file in the podcast stream. So, pricing ideas to your heart’s desire.
Lots of great podcast conversations: check out recent conversations with Amanda Lester, Paul Williamson, and, Brett Goldberg.
Let me know who you’d like to hear from by sharing your ideas with me here.