Talking Tickets 25 February 2022: I'm Going to TPC! Customers Are Still Mad at Ticketmaster! Market Research Is a Must Now! And, More!
Number 124!
Hey, y’all!
Okay…I’m in. I’m going to be in Birmingham for the Ticketing Professionals Conference 16-18 March at the NEC Campus.
This year’s event is going to be the biggest yet…the trade show floor is sold out, an opening night party this year! And, great, great speakers like Richard Howle, Lyndsey Jackson, Pauline Fallowell, Jaime Snelgrove, Roger Tomlinson, Kate Mroczkowski, Simon Mabb, and many more.
Let me know if you are going to be in Birmingham! I’ll also be venturing into a place that I may not come back from by going to a Chelsea match…but that’s a different story.
I’m going to try and do some on-location podcast conversations from the Booking Protect booth! Let’s see if I can actually pull that off!
BTW, if you are looking for ways to help the kids in Ukraine right now, I’m supporting this NGO that helps kids with trauma.
To the tickets!
1. The Big Story: Buying tickets on Ticketmaster is a frustrating experience for fans:
Big Ideas:
As long as brokers are snapping up tickets, nothing will change about the customer experience because fees are fees brother.
Unregulated monopolies are good investments.
Is transparency really a goal folks should be striving towards?
I’m getting through a bunch of open tabs on my iPad and iPhone to get to some stories that I would have covered much earlier…but you know, Covid and Long Covid, not my friends.
So let’s dig into this thing quickly.
It is a big story, but one we’ve covered a lot over the last couple of years. So we don’t need to rehash things constantly.
First, we have the customer experience aspect of this story.
When people email me about Ticketmaster, I’m often reminded of the way that someone jumps into the conversation on Facebook or Twitter to say, “I love my insurance company.”
You, sir, are a damn liar.
Even if you have a Cadillac health plan like mine, you hate your insurance company if you are an American.
The same goes for Ticketmaster.
You deal with them because they have 70% market share, but does anyone really like it?
That brings me back to the idea of the experience…and how bad this young lady’s experience was reported to be with not being able to get into purchase tickets, seeing tickets jump right onto Ticketmaster Resale, etc. and I think to myself that she doesn’t know it but the system is working just fine.
As long as there are BOTS and brokers snapping up tickets, a fee is a fee.
Second, I’d like to remind you that you might want to talk to your financial advisor about investing in Live Nation stock.
As Professor Scott Galloway says, “unregulated monopolies are good investments.” And, as the economist in the story points out, a lot of the behaviors on display are happening due to the lack of competition in the market.
So…call your investment advisors now and find out if Live Nation is a good addition to your portfolio.
Finally, the most interesting thing here is that we hear a lot of talk about “transparency” or something adjacent to that concept.
When I hear this, I’m reminded of talking with Ian Taylor about this topic at TPC once or twice and on the podcast.
He would say to me something along the lines of “why does transparency matter?” He makes a good point because how many pairs of Jordans are dropped on a Nike on-sale is never listed.
The same way that we had no idea how many Model 3s were rolling off the assembly line when they went on sale.
Transparency seems like a good idea, but is it really the right way to sell tickets?
This is probably something for a big story later on down the road, but we seem to have full transparency when tickets are posted on the secondary market a lot of time…but to what end?
You end up losing pricing power, brand equity, and a sense of urgency by seeing 1,000 tickets to the Wizards and Hawks game on Wednesday at the Capital One Arena.
On the other hand, we see On Location manage Super Bowl tickets very tightly and the last few years they’ve held their price.
Then, we also have the way that on-sales happen on websites…and how they can seem almost designed to create a lack of urgency.
Ahh…is transparency the real issue here?
Or, is it just a better way of marketing and selling tickets that drives demand, creates the perception of value, and maintains brand equity.
I’ll put my money on that one, but right now…the incentives aren’t lined up for that.
Anyway, back to Ticketmaster…
2. The Road to Recovery: Subscriptions now with Sean Kelly:
Big Ideas:
The market for subscriptions/season tickets has changed.
You are not your audience.
Selling season subscriptions is about value.
You’ve heard from Sean a few times on the podcast. He does the job of following the data and not getting caught up in making rash decisions because they’ve always been done that way.
I won’t add much to what Sean adds in the piece, but I will share three observations from the work I’ve been doing around season tickets on three continents over the last year.
First, do your research.
Right now, it is taking me longer to figure out what the research means that it would normally take me to figure things out, but when I get to the bottom of the research…it totally works and is worth it.
The research matters because your market has changed during the two years we’ve been fighting through the pandemic in ways large and small. You need to know what that means so you can deal with the changes.
Second, step back and recognize that your idea of value doesn’t matter…only the audiences.
Keep this idea in mind at all times. You might be passionate about the opera, the philharmonic, or baseball…but it doesn’t matter. You aren’t the audience. Your perception of value is going to be different than your audience because you are too close to the issue.
This feeds point one…do your research so you can force yourself to disconnect from thinking you know exactly what people want.
You don’t.
Finally, selling subscriptions and tickets now is all about value and the value proposition has changed.
Remember a few weeks back when I shared the ‘Scott’s Take episode with Scott O’Neil” and Scott O’Neil talked about the need to update the sales process and adapt the value proposition?
That point has stuck with me because in too many cases, the basic value proposition hasn’t changed in years.
When I talked with Ruth Hartt a few weeks back and we got on about “Jobs to Be Done” theory, understanding that value is always changing is at the heart of what she is offering up.
And, I can speak specifically to my own experience here when I’ve seen people actually have to rip up their old plans because they don’t fit the new market.
If that is what the data says, the customer wants, and how you can sell tickets now…that’s what you do.
That’s the big takeaway here from Sean’s interview and my work: you have to be willing to not have the answer right away so you can get the right answer going forward.
3. How-To: Sam Brealey teaches us how to do research even when we don’t have a huge budget:
Big Ideas:
A good primer for market research.
Sam misses one point that is important tell you about, representative samples are much smaller than most folks assume.
The job of research is one that should lead to the ability to have insights that will deliver impact for your business.
Sam is a good guy and does proper marketing.
If you remember my conversation with Giles Edwards, you’ll know that talking up someone as a “proper marketer” is about as high praise as I can give.
Sam’s article stands on its own, but after Sean Kelly’s piece, I felt that Sam’s provided a nice bookend.
So three quick points here:
First, research is important and you don’t need tons of money to do it. Though more time and money can help depending on the project.
The big thing to remember is that you build your research from the bottom up, start small and grow the audiences you are talking to from there.
Second, representative samples are important to give you data that you can actually use, but they are often smaller than you think.
Here’s a tool from Survey Monkey that allows you to calculate how many people you really need to get a representative sample. I put in 8M people in NYC at a confidence level of 95% and with a margin of error of 5% and got back 385 people.
You can play with the confidence level and margin of error and it will change your sample size, but as a rule of thumb…95/5 is pretty good and fairly standard. It is when the margin of error shoots up to 10%, 20% or more that you should start questioning the research you are looking at.
Finally, your research isn’t about just doing the research…you need to gain insights and the ability to take actions that will put you in a position to be successful.
As I said recently, “when you finally get your research in order, it will speak to you and you’ll be able to see real clients in the segmentations of the market.”
You want to get to the point where you can hear the research talking to you. And, you want it to get you to a point where you can make real bets on what the data is telling you.
My jumping off question with almost every prospect or client is “what does your research look like?”
That’s how important I take this.
4. Tech/Tools/Profile:
Big Ideas: Crypto sponsorships everywhere:
Big Ideas:
What could possibly go wrong?
Are you getting paid in crypto or cash?
Buyer beware. In this case, seller beware.
I’ll keep this short. My crypto wallet says I’m still up 50% from where I started but down from the heights of being up 125% or so.
My crypto investment is a very small portion of my investment portfolio and I’ve started looking at it with a lens that my friend, Simon Severino, taught me about rebalancing my portfolio.
Let’s hit three ideas this morning:
First, anytime there is a mad rush into some new form of technology or sponsorship, I’m a little cautious. I’ve seen Hard Rock Stadium go through what feels like 100 names in its lifetime.
I know how fleeting some companies can be.
And, the more rapidly these big crypto sponsorship numbers get thrown around, the more I feel like this has the makings of a bust like the big tulip bubble of 1637. FYI, this isn’t even the first time you’d find globalization in the history books.
Second, now that everyone has a crypto deal…is it in cash or crypto?
Many of us know the story of Odell Beckham’s contract last season, yeah?!
Dave takes cash, wire fund, credit cards, but not crypto!
Finally, I have heard the rumors that many of these deals haven’t been getting paid out, globally.
I’m always a buyer beware guy to begin with, but in this case…how about seller beware and think about how you are going to protect yourself from a sudden loss of revenue? If we’ve learned anything from the last few years, it is that we can’t be certain that the way things were will last forever.
So beware of anything that sounds too good to be true…because it probably is.
5. Blurbs and Such:
The AFL freezes prices on General Admission tickets: This is quite the statement from the AFL focusing on fans at the stadium, in grass roots footie, and in supporting the community around footie matches. This is a good example for how to talk to your customers and not pander at them.
Culture in Crisis study in the UK: This is a comprehensive look at the live theatre and entertainment industry in light of the Covid-19 disruption. You’ll get a really broad understanding of the market by giving this a read.
Found my 101 ways to market, sell, and monetize a live event: I put this together a few years back and I’m going to update it soon, but I figured I’d share it again. I’m sure I’ll get to share some of the new ideas in Birmingham…look me up!
Florida advances a bill to give consumers more choice in ticket format and how they can resell a ticket: I’ll come down on the side of needing to see what the bill really says and does, but being concerned about the unintended consequences of anything that passes through the Florida legislature because there have been numerous bills that have been signed into law in the state that haven’t achieved their stated goals or ended up not being the panacea for consumers they were professed to be.
I’m guessing if you have to tell brokers how hot your tickets are and inviting them to come and buy them at a discount, that the ticket isn’t probably that hot, but what do I know?!
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 and Carol do a great job and they throw great parties.
I was a guest in Ken Troupe’s sports management class and I gave a guest lecture that hit on strategy, branding, marketing, and tactics. I released it as this week’s podcast. Or, 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!