The 4 Numbers I Look At When I Work With Ticket Teams...
Hi!
You’ve asked me to share a bit more about what I’m looking for when I do work with clients.
Today, I’m going to peel back the cover and share 4 numbers I look at when I work with a team/theatre/organization with some context to help you understand why I’m looking at the number.
Also, I saw Burna Boy last night…lots of fun. Spaceship Billy is my new favorite.
I also got stuck in an elevator at my buddy’s office at midnight.
YOLO!
Scan Rate * Sell Through:
I like to know the attendance rate as a percentage of the seating area.
Why?
There are certain brand, revenue, and ticket sales aspects to this number:
Empty seats don’t buy food, drink, merch, or anything else.
Brand equity is harmed by empty seats.
Ticket sales are harder when people aren’t using their tickets.
Median Ticket Price v. Median Resale Price:
This gives me a sense for how much value you are maintaining in your ticket inventory.
As an example, I went to a concert in DC that was “sold out”.
Yay!
The median ticket was around $60.
The median ticket price for the secondary market $10.
This told me that the event was as strong as initial reports might have suggested.
Meaning, the sales job for the show isn’t really done.
Why?
Because a low secondary market price means that there is still weakness in the perceived value of a show, game, or event.
Ancillary spending by categories:
I like to know the total average spend, but also like to see where the spending is coming in.
Are people buying a lot of t-shirts?
Beers?
Posters?
What?
Why do I care?
The spend on these items can tell you a lot about the health of your brand, the customer experience, and ways to improve both using the things you offer a customer when they are in your venue.
Entry times v. start time:
This one is about whether or not your ticket holders want to get in early.
Are people waiting until the last minute to come in?
Are they coming in right when the gates open?
What’s happening?
This can tell us a lot about whether or not people are excited by our offerings. Do we have an appealing place to hangout?
If people are coming in earlier, that can be a sign that people like grabbing a drink or a bite and talking with people, seeing things, and hanging out before the game/show.
If people arrive at the last moment, this can be a sign that there is nothing attractive about getting to the venue later.
You might not see the value in this number for certain types of venues like Broadway or West End theatres, but I’d argue that you can still learn a lot from the number.
Key Ideas:
In looking at these numbers, I’m teasing out a few important things:
The health of the brand. You might not have a brand tracking survey, but you will have the ability to look at these numbers to pick out signals about the strength or weakness of your brand.
Customer Experience: Too often we might be lulled into trying to max revenue on every purchase in our buildings, but we have to balance that with the brand equity created by a fuller building, seeing more people having drinks and snacks at a game, or buying some merchandise on the way out.
Revenue Streams: I’ve done back of the envelope calculations and I figure many teams could see a minimum 10% revenue boost by getting the basics of marketing and branding right. I’m not going to give you the real number because I’m actually rounding way down but I went through my calculations with an executive and we agreed that the numbers made sense.
Next week, I’m going to share a conversation I had with Al Crawley from Fanbase in the UK. We hit upon some of these ideas in greater detail.
But one key takeaway from our conversation was how the silo’d nature of our operations gives our ticket buyers a big hole to fall through and get lost.
Looking at my 4 numbers, tell me…what numbers do you look at and why?
HOW AM I DOING?
I love to hear from you.
How am I doing with ‘Talking Tickets’?
Is there anything you’d like to see more or less of?
Which aspects of the newsletter (and/or podcast) do you enjoy the most?
Hit reply and say hello — I’d love to hear from you!
Cheers!
Dave
PS: Share this newsletter with someone that is trying to think about how to sell more tickets/subscriptions/partnerships and is trying to put a different spin on things.