Talking Tickets 11 March 2022: I'm in Europe! Strategy! Revenue! TPC! And, More
#126 from the pub!
Bon Jour! Cheers! Hey!
Hello from Dave’s international tour!
Will I see you at TPC next week? Let me know.
To the Tickets!
1. The Big Story: Meka Morris nails a whole ton of stuff:
Big Ideas:
Look for insights, not data.
You aren’t your market, diversity of people and ideas matters.
There is no going back to normal.
I feel like I should send Meka a bottle of Chardonnay and we should hang out the next time I’m in Minneapolis. Because she brought up so much great stuff that we don’t hear nearly enough about.
First, we will start with Data. And, Meka brings up the idea that teams are drowning in data, but lack insights.
Fact check: true!
The thing is that data comes at us from all angles, all places, and everything we touch. I’ve been knee-deep in reports, research, and feedback with partners in the States, Europe, the UK, Mexico, China, and Australia over the last 3 months and if I put a theme on this, I’d say there is too much data and too few insights.
You don’t gain insights by just looking at the numbers.
You gain insights by looking at questions, looking for patterns, listening to the data speak to you.
When you do a good market segmentation, the segmentation map should speak with you.
When you gain an insight, you should feel it hit you like a thunderbolt of obviousness.
Insights take a lot of work.
Data is easy to collect, but hard to make useful.
Second, there is no “going back to normal”.
Duh!
If you haven’t figured that out by now, I feel bad for you.
The thing about this is that this return to more normal habits is a great chance to rethink what you’ve done, how you’ve done it, and what you want to be doing differently.
Just getting things back to “normal” is a waste of time.
Don’t believe me, go to the activity above and look at your research. I bet if you spend any time with the research at all, you’ll see changes in behavior.
That’s important to consider now because you are going to have to adjust your behavior to the current world, not the previous world.
Finally, “you aren’t your market.”
That’s a favorite saying in the “Fans for Life” workshop.
Meka goes into the need to bring a diverse set of employees into your business. This is true because what happens is every business is that you get too close to what you are marketing and selling.
This especially happens when you get executives that think they can dictate what the market wants.
Diversity helps fight that because of the nature of different perspectives, backgrounds, races, or sexes.
The big thing is that by gaining more perspectives, you open up your thinking to new opportunities. New opportunities can equal more money!
So there’s that as well.
2. The Road to Recovery: Arsenal Raise Prices 4%:
Big Ideas:
The first price increase since 2014 is about 4%.
Look at the pricing for young folks.
The way this is communicated is pretty strong.
Okay. Okay.
I’m going to say a few things nice about Arsenal…I can’t help it.
But Arsenal is raising their prices for the first time in 2014 and they did a good job of the way they rolled it out.
Let’s look at a few highlights this morning:
First, the crazy thing is that the prices haven’t risen since 2014…the first comment I got here was, “that’s wild.”
In the rest of the world, they run a different game.
That’s all I can say.
But raising your prices once every 7-8 years is a pretty good run for holding the line on ticketing prices.
Second, the amount of ticket price increases is 4%.
If you dig in, they could be a little more if Arsenal makes the Europa League or the Champions League, but still not a huge bump up in pricing after such a lengthy break in price increases.
Finally, the real magic of this is in the communications of the program.
They specifically laid out why they are raising prices and in an environment where inflation was over 5% in 2021 and where the Bank of England projects it could hit over 7% this year, the conversation won’t be easy. By treating people like adults and explaining it with a clear recognition of the realities that the club is dealing with, makes the conversation simpler to have from the teams’ standpoint.
Also, a bonus if you check out the way that they encourage kids to come to games…look at those prices and pricing structures.
3. How-To: Build success in your organization:
Big Ideas:
Nick Saban is the GOAT! Coach K was at the Wynn the first time I was in Vegas…and I could have cared less except the security interrupted my bourbon search.
Strategy and culture go hand-in-hand.
Success doesn’t just happen, it builds over time.
I haven’t had a chance to talk about Nick Saban in weeks.
So, here is a good time to bust out some Nick Saban examples.
Actually, what caught my eye here is a tweet from Patrick Ryan about culture and strategy.
So when I saw Saban and Coach K, I recognized an opportunity to build on these things.
Let’s look at three strategy ideas right away:
First, culture and strategy go hand-in-hand.
I’ve been in many businesses that have no strategy and they all eventually fail. I’ve also been in plenty of businesses where no amount of strategy could fix them because the culture was so broken.
The two things go hand-in-hand.
That’s actually a lesson I’ve learned coaching kids soccer as well. You need to set up a good environment for the kids so you can put a strategy in place that allows them to develop and grow, then achieve.
It is the same in most businesses.
Second, success isn’t often instantaneous.
Nick Saban went 7-6 in his first year at Alabama.
Coach K struggled in his first years as a head coach. The Duke basketball job was a step down from South Carolina.
Antonio Conte is struggling at Tottenham right now because for too long the players have created a culture that allowed for inconsistent performance.
This is all just a way for me to point to the idea that success isn’t instantaneous. You build it over time.
Bird by bird as the Anne Lamont book on writing would tell you.
Third, culture and strategy are about choicefulness.
Meaning, you have to decide what you will do and what you won’t do.
Will you tolerate great performers that are jerks?
Does your strategy explicitly tell you where you are going to focus your attention?
Is culture something you only teach, talk, and reinforce in the good times?
Does your strategy change as soon as you hit the market and your sales team brings in a sale that you can make, but with a significant discount?
To me, all of this stuff goes together.
You don’t have a healthy culture without a strong strategy. In my research, I’ve found that lacking a strategy is one of the biggest hindrances for many, many organizations.
4. Tech/Tools/Profile: TiqAssist helps STHs sell their extra or unusable seats:
Big Ideas:
The number of events someone attends has been on my mind a lot lately.
TicketManager’s research shows that the average STH uses less than 8 tickets a season.
The difficulty of selling your tickets can probably feel like a “by owner” listing in real estate.
Selling season tickets and equivalents is getting more and more difficult.
TiqAssist seems like a novel solution to the challenge of a retail ticket buyer trying to sell some of their excess inventory.
I’ve been thinking about the size of packages a lot lately for a few different things I’m working on.
The data shows that the full season package is having a harder time finding a real market in every case, but the willingness to change to the package has been slow to adjust in many instances.
I get it:
Change is hard.
Brokers will buy the full season.
Often it is difficult to make a case compelling enough to spur change, even when the case is compelling.
The reality of the situation is that research shows that people are going to fewer games on average than they may have a decade or so ago. There are going to be many reasons that something like this is happening including:
Increased costs.
More competition.
Less free time.
This means that a few things have to happen including:
Change to the value proposition.
More consideration of the competitor set.
Getting the pricing right.
Right now, full-season packages are still pretty common. There has been a much greater move than previously seen of teams moving to offer different and unique packages as a way to capture more of the spend from fans that may only be willing or able to commit to a partial plan. And, as long as there is excess inventory, fans are going to look to use the secondary market to offload some of that inventory.
Back to the offer that TiqAssist is making, this could be the difference from listing your house with an agent over listing your house FSBO. The help of a trusted partner makes the process more likely to be successful and less painful all around.
5. Blurbs and Stuff:
Promotion Candidates in English Rugby Can’t Be Promoted Due to Not Meeting Promotion Requirements: This is interesting because we hear a lot about promotion and relegation in soccer and in the States around MLS. Having that rule in place means you have requirements too.
A Ticketmaster Glitch Jams Up AFL Ticket Sales: This reminds me about the first podcast conversation I had with Richard Howle when we talked about how tickets is the only business that puts things on sale when it is easy for the seller and doesn’t pay any attention to the customer’s best interest with on-sales.
Putin won’t see Batman any time soon: Don’t mess around with my Batman movies. The entertainment industry has jumped on board with every other industry to shut down Russia’s economy.
I’m going to London and was going to see Chelsea, now you can’t even get a scarf…jokes on me: Obviously, I’m poking fun at myself because that is what I do. These sanctions happened really fast and a pretty comprehensive. This is one situation where you can use the term, “unprecedented” and it fits. This is wild and I’ll be curious what happens going forward.
The expenses from the coronavirus are still holding Sydney’s theatre scene back: This kind of thing is going to continue to be a challenge for us going forward and the years beyond,
I was in Sportico with Simon Mabb a few weeks back talking about Booking Protect, refund protection, and what customers want and need now. Give it a read.
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!
Customers have been taking up refund protection at a rate that is double what it was before the pandemic began. This is a great opportunity for you to offer more value to your customers in a way that they want while also creating a new revenue stream for your organization.
Also, check them out in Birmingham, UK at the Ticketing Professionals Conference UK. If you are in the neighborhood, get to the conference, Andrew, Carol, and the TPC team do a great job and they throw great parties.
I had my buddy, Simon Severino, back on the podcast this week. We talked about marketing, strategy, and long-term planning. Hit some of the previous episodes. All of the ones from 2022 have been bangers: Ruth Hartt, Hannah Grannemann, Lyndsey Jackson, and, now, MK Lever. I’ve got some more good stuff coming up!