How can nonprofits and charities can meet and exceed all their goals? One of the best ways to cause a positive association between donors and the cause is through music. We look at the psychology of giving as spurred on by what the Colorado Nonprofit Association calls “specials events”.

Understanding Giving

The reputable think tank, the Colorado Nonprofit Association (CNA), has written extensively on the subject of understanding how and why people give to charities. Their scholarly approach to helping non-profits achieve their fundraising goals is cited repeatedly as the reference standard.

The association has conducted several extensive research projects on charitable giving and nonprofits, and on the causes, connections, and actions that lead to making a donation. Organization wanting to increase their donations should note what CNA calls “special events”. Special events were the second most productive method of generating donations, with word-of-mouth being the first. The special events category includes fairs, ballroom dancing, auctions, and the most popular method of all - live music events.

Music is the most unifying experience known, always has been and always will be. Music transcends political and religious convictions as a neutral, positive force understandable by everyone.

Scientific American has previously reported on a study that demonstrated music directly elicits a range of emotions: music with a quick tempo in a major key brought about all the physical changes associated with happiness in listeners. Happy people give more. Music makes people happy.

Concert for a Cause

Last week, jazz music legend Gerald Albright performed at the Jazz It Up Music Festival in San Diego, California. The festival is the primary fundraiser for The Trinity House a nonprofit helping homeless women and children with a safe place to live. As described on the website:

The mission of The Trinity House, is to provide transitional housing in San Diego to underserved individuals and families in need, and to coordinate successful re-integration of residents into the community by promoting a positive transformation of their lives.

Fundraising and donations efforts are made year round, using a variety of methods, but the Jazz It Up festival is by far the single most successful effort. Many jazz fans bought tickets for an average of $50 each to attend the event with the proceeds going to Trinity House.

The Trinity House charity tapped into the universal appeal of music in order to cause people to contribute to their cause. Jazz fans may not have even given much thought to the altruism of their actions, and simply wanted to attend the special event to see their favorite performers.

It’s a small world (after all)

The universal appeal of music can be a non-profit’s best friend, so much so it becomes a self-perpetuating dynamo. An example of this can been seen in the Small World Music Society’s annual music festival in Toronto Canada. The Festival celebrates the cultural diversity of Canada’s largest city by bringing performers from across the country and around the world. The festival runs for several consecutive days, spread across multiple venues in and around Toronto.

Small World is a nonprofit organization with their stated mission as “promotion, community outreach and business development.” That goal is achieved through various live music events occurring throughout the year, with the Small World Music Festival being the primary event.

Noteworthy is the seeming contradiction of many festival events being free to attend. How can a non-profit hope to raise donations when the event doesn’t cost anything? It is another example of the psychology of giving cited earlier – the highly effective, universal appeal of music.

While acquiring tickets for the free event, Small World Society can accept donations using a custom donations request. The process, as seen by the music fan, is easy to understand and politely worded. The prompt for a donation taps into the excitement the patron already feels and encourages the impulsive act to give.

Live Music Event Ticketing for Nonprofits

If you are part of a charity or nonprofit organization looking for ways to increase fundraising results, a live music event should be considered. The universal appeal of music means you can raise more money while making people happy just like Jazz it Up and Small World Music have done. The ticketing software you use is just as important as the performances you book. Make sure you can accept (and retain 100% of) donations as part of the ticket buying process, even if the event is free.

ThunderTix has easy-to-use yet powerful tools for nonprofits to get the most from their charity events. Our experience with for-profit live music events is directly applicable to your not for profit event.

What do you think? Does music have a universal appeal that transcends all boundaries and makes people want to donate to a cause? Let us know in the comments below!

The ticket fee is 91% of the purchase price?! And that’s not the worst of it. This week Fee Free Friday walks the gritty streets of Los Angeles and Toronto to find all new ticket fee horror stories. Also, the legal rhetoric against the ticket industry goes up another notch and a first ever for the weekly wall of woe!

On Par with a Gangbanger

According to the L.A. Times a city attorney has allegedly accepted $18,000 in contributions from executives of Live Nation Entertainment Inc. At issue is the possibility of a conflict of interest since the city employee is currently pursuing an injunction against unregulated ticket resellers (or so-called “scalpers”). If the injunction were to pass Live Nation would benefit from it by becoming the sole event ticket re-seller in Los Angeles. Times reporter Alex Pham writes:

Live Nation’s Ticketmaster service is the authorized ticket seller for Staples, the Coliseum and Dodger Stadium. Because the company would benefit from an elimination of competing ticket resellers, the donations could create an appearance of a conflict of interest[...]Trutanich’s campaign officials adamantly denied a link between the contributions and the civil court action.

Originally, the city wide injunction on so-called scalpers was touted as the toughest in the country. The LA Weekly wrote of it a few weeks ago:

That guy with the cardboard sign yelling ‘Tickets!’ is on par with a gangbanger. At least that’s the message City Attorney Carmen Trutanich sent with an announcement yesterday that Los Angeles will institute the nation’s first-ever scalper injunction. What that means is that known scalpers – 17 of them in particular – will be preemptively banned from plying their trade at specific venues and associating with each other. This tactic is more commonly used against gang members, preventing them from congregating in particular areas, or with particular people.

That is the right idea, but the alleged conflict of interest between the city attorney and Live Nation may have mangled the injunction’s benefits. The injunction was designed to protect public safety, not corporate interests.

One eye popping statistic in the article is the estimated amount of money made from the face value markup re-sellers get – an estimated  $4.5 billion. That amount is in the U.S. alone and does not include Canada where the war against outrageously high ticket fees and face value markup has a new front…

Canuck Conundrum

This week Bronwyn Oatley  asked ‘How do cities control ticket-scalpers?‘  in her investigatve report for the Open File. Her approach to making consumers in Canada more aware of the laws against ticket scalping was to define the law in each province.

As Oatley cites case law, her tone changes from one of confidence to disappointment. Enforcement, she writes, is not effective, hampered by a lack of resources, but more over, a lack of commitment by the ticket outlets.

I don’t think the fines deter them that much. They just add it into the ‘loss’ category of their balance sheet. Though, we have seen their behavior start to change ["scalpers"] have gotten smarter. They don’t carry many tickets on them anymore because they know that we seize all of the tickets if they are caught for scalping. They will work with someone else and run back and forth as they make sales. this crime is rarely enforced, its partner law—one that prohibits the sale of a ticket at a price higher than that at which it was purchased—is more often handed down.

Oatley isn’t the only person to call the ticket industry to the carpet this week…

What a Sell-Out

Suhail Khan’s ‘How ticketing companies deny our property rights and monopolize markets‘ is quite a scathing indictment of the ticket industry as a whole.

The OpEd rails against ticket fees and consumer hostile practices by venues and ticket resellers as being “violators of established private property rights“. He goes so far as to cite the Fifth Amendment’s right to own private property saying this freedom ensures consumers own what they buy and no institution or person can deprive a consumer of that property, or control how they use it.

In defense of the consumer, Khan goes into special detail on the ticket buying experience:

By tying tickets to the purchaser’s credit card, these companies are in effect stripping you of basic ownership rights. Most paperless tickets are non-transferable, meaning you can’t sell them to a colleague if you get tied up at the office; if there’s a family emergency and you can’t make it to the game, you won’t be able to give the tickets away to friends; you can’t even give paperless tickets as gifts. When companies and venues do allow restrictive tickets to be transferred, they force consumers to use a single, designated marketplace. These exchanges often require both buyers and sellers to pay fees — even to give away tickets for free.

Khan doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to ticket fees either:

Laughably described as a ‘convenience’ the restrictive ticketing is simply and obviously a way for a dysfunctional industry to monopolize the resale market. Having long enjoyed near-monopoly control of the primary ticketing market.

The escalation of language is what should give anyone in the ticket industry pause. We report on “Usurious Ticket Fee“, now Khan cites the Private Property legal statutes of the Fifth Amendment. The tone and case laws are getting more and more severe when it comes to ticket fees and service charges. It may be best for the entire industry to rethink the concept of fees.

Wall of Woe 2.0

What would Fee Free Friday be without a long list of miserable ticket buyers being displayed on the Wall of Woe. The wall is below but with a difference…

Noel Liebman noted that taxes and fees made up 91% of the purchase price for a ticket(!) as seen below.

The conversation started to take a turn for the worse, but then one of our favorite people, Austin software developer Keith Gaddis, chimed in with what we think is an excellent suggestion!

The Wall of Woe with a happy ending? That’s a first!

That last bit of self-indulgence aside, the issue of how much people hate unreasonably high per ticket fees is a serious one. Fees and service charges that amount to more than half of the purchase price are bound to cause cart abandonment. In addition to abandonment, there is sure to be a subsequent tweet made, and you’ll be lucky if only a few thousand people read it.

ThunderTix does not charge per ticket fees and we give you all the tools and options you need to pass that savings along to your customers – You can even go fee free! If you are not sure of the best practices for charging ticket fees, we encourage you to read To Fee or Not to Fee – That is the question.

Ticket fees, services charges, ticket fulfillment costs are serious business, so are the ticket fee fee tools in a ThunderTix account.

That’s it for this week. If you have been the victim of an outrageous per ticket fee or know of someone, let us know in the comments below!

Your event has completely sold out weeks ahead of schedule. All tickets are G-O-N-E gone.

So, now what? Sell some more! Even in the best case scenario of an event selling all tickets, the opportunity is there for you to sell even more. Adding new ancillary events that occur nearby is a smart way to keep both your patrons and your bottom line happy. The completely sold out Austin City Limits Music Festival is not resting on its laurels, you shouldn’t either.

ACL 2012

The Austin City limits Music Festival is one of the most popular, highest attended music events in the country with thousands of fans flocking to the state capitol every year. The annual three-day music festival has been going strong for ten years and shows no sign of slowing down. For 2012 the ACL has another impressive lineup of performances including headliners Florence and the Machine, The Roots, Iggy and Stooges and Neil Young

To get a feel for the event’s scope, scale and popularity, below is a video highlight reel of the 2011 event.

If the festival sounds like something you want to go to, you better have your tickets already because, like in years past, the event is completely sold out. No tickets are available for any of the three days from official outlets. The velocity of ticket sales exceeded expectations this year, surprising even seasoned veterans of the event.

Some have said the window of opportunity to get ACL tickets seems to get smaller and smaller every year even with the fair practices of early reserves for Austin residents and UT students.

Once the tickets are gone, there’s no hope of being part of the experience…Or is there?

Ancillary events. Official. Late night.

Last week, the ACL Music Festival announced that there will be over 20 official ancillary events to take place late at night after the big daytime performances. The ‘Late Night Shows’ will occur at various small to medium sized venues in the area surrounding the festivals formal Zilker Park location.

There will be an presale time for fans to be put into the purchase queue, then a day later, the tickets will go on sale. Note the creative use of pre-registration and passcodes for access to the pre-sale tickets:

Pre-Sale happens at 10AM CDT on Wednesday, August 22nd and you must be on the C3 Concerts e-mail list by 9:59 pm CDT on Tuesday, August 21, 2012 to get your passcodes! If you sign up before 9:59 pm on August 21 OR if you’re already on the list, you’ll receive your passcodes a few hours before the on-sale happening Wednesday, August 22ng @ 10AM CDT. Pre-Sale Tickets are limited and subscribing to the e-list does not guarantee you access. The Public On-Sale happens at 10AM CDT on Thursday, August 23rd.

Given how quickly the main event sold out, these new smaller shows are fully expected to do the same.

The new events are officially sanctioned by ACL and are receiving full marketing and advertising, but technically, they have been assigned to a 3rd party. The ticket buying public is being given full disclosure of  the 3rd party involvement on the ACL website as seen by the 3rd party production company’s name in prominent display.

If there were people who missed out on getting ticket for the main event, they now have a second chance to attend the new ancillary events, thereby participating in the experience. Even better, those who did get tickets to the main event are now considering buying even more tickets for the “late night” supporting events. It’s just a Win-Win-Win (event ticket sales, previous ticket buyers, and those who missed out the first time) anyway you look at it.

No rest for the wicked

ACL never stopped to open champagne bottles after this year’s festival sold all its tickets. They continued on selling and providing more entertainment by adding a veritable cornucopia of “bonus events” in the same vicinity – an extremely smart strategy.

The Austin City Limits production company and the 3rd parties have the big budget that’s needed to extend beyond the original scope of their planned event, but that doesn’t mean smaller venues and event organisers cannot learn and adapt the same strategy to a smaller scale.

In theory, any event for which ticket sales velocity was much higher than expected could plan ahead and have the same new additionals shows occur just like the ACL “late nights”. But gauging ticket sales velocities and knowing when to add anncilary events at multiple venues is not trivial and requires a lot of experience and the right tools.

First venue sold out in an hour? Great. The event name suffix changes from “concert” to “block party”. All those new venues sold out too? No problem. The event is no longer a “block party” but a “city-fest”. There is no limit. Unless, of course, the tools you use, like online ticketing software, isn’t up to the job. Going from sold out concert at one location to multi-venue block party requires ticket software that can adapt as needed, meet demand, and keep track of all remote sales and commissions.

ThunderTix has extensive tools for an event that occurs in multiple locations, on multiple days, and with sales by multiple agents. We pride ourselves on meeting your needs and providing the best possible set of tools and pricing plans that work best for you and your event.

What do you think? Can anyone do what ACL has done by continuing to sell tickets for ancillary events post-sellout? Let us know in the comments below.

Will outrageous ticket fees and services charges put a damper on the exuberance of youth as they return to school? Why would happy-go-lucky 20-something write a solemn tale about going to a concert? Hint: Fees. And just what the heck is a $81.00 “facility charge”? Questions like these must mean it’s time for another edition of Fee Free Friday!

Who will get a failing grade and who will be the teacher’s pet? Read on to find out!

Teacher’s Pet –  The Great Allentown Fair

The Great Allentown Fair starts today with tens of thousands returning once again to enjoy the fun, food and live entertainment. The fair is one of the oldest fairs in the United States, and one of the largest in the state of Pennsylvania. It encompasses a very large area and includes several venues, each with different entertainment types.

Of note is the news that a ticket fee has been added to admission, but it is not what you expect (at least not from a Fee Free Friday post). Event organizers have added a $1 fee for a very good reason. John J. Moser of The Morning Call explains:

The Allentown Fair has started charging a $1-per-ticket grandstand concert venue restoration fee on all tickets to headline shows, starting Tuesday. The event president and chief executive officer said the fee was added reluctantly, and added “The fact is that we had no alternative”

Moser also says that regular ticket prices are finely calculated for artists’ benefit and often leave little profit for the fair. Noting that the $1 addition is minimal and goes directly into an account only for renovation.

This is one of the few example of when ticket buyers have absolutely no qualms about fees. The reason for the fee is being clearly conveyed and the end result will be a better event in the future. We would go so far as to say that the fee should have been higher(!) to amortize the restorations cost more quickly.

We applaud the Great Allentown Fair for “getting it right” and we hope the event continues its transparent practice of applying reasonable fees to tickets. Thunderous applause wanes as we return to the misery unjustifiable ticket fees bring…

No Wonder Young People Feel So Old

Music blogger Becca Jones-Starr wrote earlier in the week of her experience going to see The Red Hot Chili Peppers perform at the Oracle Arena in Oakland California. One would expect a person in their 20s to write with glee about how fun it was, but cold reality of of ticket fees and services charges poison the party right way.

This isn’t even the worst part with exorbitant concert fees. “Convenience” charges are getting to the point where they cost half the price of the ticket…and you can’t escape them. And they charge this fee PER ticket. Some argue that you can just go to the venue and avoid having to go through Ticketmaster to get your tickets. First of all, to the best of my knowledge, that is untrue. Some venues are the exception and you can go to the box office to buy them. But that seems to be rare these days. Not to mention, who does that anymore?

Becca knows that events and music venues are for profit endeavours, but her tolerance level was exceeded.

I know that Ticketmaster is providing a service, but the fees are still too much. They are also tacking on other fees which is making it even more questionable and ridiculous. Check these out: ‘Convenience charge tax’, ‘Facility charge’ and ‘Order processing fee.’ If there’s going to be this charge, why not blanket it all under what we assume is the ‘convenience fee.’

It is painful to read someone so young write so somberly about a ruined experience.

There’s been a few times where I couldn’t quite afford a concert ticket because the convenience charge was too much. And if you want the tickets mailed to you…you gotta pay for that as well. Printing them is free, but it used to be the other way around. Mailing or printing should not cost anything. These days I have resorted to printing tickets to save money. I consider the actual concert ticket as the moment important memento for a concert…No wonder young people feel so old

Becca Jones-Starr blog is yet another example of how high per-ticket fees crush the exuberance of youth. The venue and the ticket vendor were spared any real brunt of Beccas eloquent writing, she just seemed too disappointed to write with an angry fervor.

While one  music blogger may be too polite to call the ticket fee misery merchant sto task, we are glad to poke the hornet’s nests with a stick.

Wall of Woe – Back to School Edition

This week wall ain’t pretty, and some of the language used was so profane we had to redact it, but that won’t prevent the message to all venues and events from coming through. Tumblr user ‘Daydream Believer’ has just had it with ticket fees and exorbitant face value markups.

“To all the people/companies who buy sections of seats at a concert only to turn around and sell them for 4x times the price…F*** YOU. [How is a]$450 per ticket is a “reasonable” seat?!?! wtf. $2000+ dollars for a ticket that goes for $109…. omg. I can’t even. and stubhub just f**** you over again, taking 10% for service fee so thats another 90 bucks for what? Your annoying site that didn’t even work. Oh my friggin bulls*** I just can’t. Thank you for taking what should be an awesome experience and turning it into me needing a friggin loan to buy tickets. Once again f*** you.”

‘Daydream Believer’ lost her belief that she could attend events for a reasonable price. The choir of the disenfranchised continues :

“Ticket – 81.00 Facility charge – 4.00 Conv Charge – 12.70 Processing fee – 5.95 -Total $103.65 $23.65 per ticket in charges (23%) Shameful”

“They doubled the price of my tickets (actually 191.3%). Did not send the tickets, then charged over $42.00 in extraneous fees. Plus, we did not get the tickets we ordered when we clicked the Des Moines Civic Center seating choice. The interface between DM CC and ticket master is all TM’s fault I found out after 40 minutes on the phone!”

“$59.50 for a ticket to see New Order + $14.50 for service fees. $74 dollars to see New Order.”

Way too many young people getting kicked in the teeth  by ticket fees this week. It doesn’t have to be like this.

We know that running a business isn’t easy, but there is no need to pass undue burden onto your customers in the form of ticket fees and service charges. In fact, we have written extensively on when you should and should not charge fees. We encourage all to take the time to read our new ‘To Fee or Not To Fee’ guideline and decide if per-tickets fee are the right thing to do (or not). Remember – Happy ticket buyers will become your venue’s best sales people, so why not make use of that?

That’s it for this for this week. #FeeFreeFriday will return with all new triumphs, all new horrors next week. Until then if you have been kicked in the teeth by unreasonable ticket fees, please share your story and let us know in the comments below!

In part 1 of ‘Stronger Venue and Patron Affinity‘, we asked if it is possible for venue owners and event organizers to enrich the relationships they have with their patrons to provide a better experience and improve ticket sales. In part 2 we look at some very specific examples currently being used.

Why do we blog this? Being in the business of events means the venue owner or event promoter is uniquely positioned to benefit from a close association with patrons. The idea of having close ties with your patrons is a win-win for all since it can cause patrons to become sales agents via word of mouth recommendations to their friends.

Me So Hungry

In Austin Texas, popular food trucks Me So Hungry and Arlo’s reside within the confines of the venue Cheer-up Charlies. The benefit of this is the venue defers the cost of serving food to the 3rd party  food truck operator, while utterly delighting patrons with delicious food. Since one must be inside the club in order to get the food, the venue inherits the patron delight.

Where having specialty food service on-premise isn’t feasible, venues may be able to schedule catering and have it part of early admittance ticket or in a sectioned off VIP area. This “early bird gets the worm” incentive can be part of a larger strategy to increase patron affinity.

The specialty foods can be for all patrons, some getting to eat for free with a rewards program, the rest paying some nominal amount for it. Gate efficiency comes into play here, since the more time event patrons spend inside the venue, the more time they have to eat (aka spend money) whatever specialty craft food are being provided.

The proverb “The way to a person’s heart is through their stomach!” immediately comes to mind – Everyone loves to eat, so making food part of the incentive is nearly an assured way to bind the ticket buyer closer with the event or venue.

VIP For Life

The most popular West Coast music festival, Coachella, has several different initiatives for enriching the relationship between event and the ticket-buyer, one of which is their “secret spotter”. In the initiative, event representatives look for people who are carpooling to the event and at random give VIP status for life to the winners. From the Coachella website:

[Our] secret spotter will be out at the parking and camping entrances watching people drive in. At random times, random cars with 4 or more people with a CARPOOLCHELLA on their dash or written on their car will be approached and might possibly win a VIP ticket/pass for life starting in 2013 or one of the other prizes drawn randomly.

Coachella’s enrichment of affinity is part of an often underutilized aspect of an event – transportation.

The use of so-called “party vans” is pervasive in cities like Las Vegas. Party vans to and from a venue can be centered around the local college or sister-venue under the same ownership effectively making for a “pub crawl”. The party van can easily be made a value add to any event ticket or as this series of posts suggests a very powerful way to increase venue-patron affinity.

How the party van becomes an extra is entirely open.  One could set it as a premium upgrade to all ticket purchases, then establish a threshold for returning patrons to get the upgrade for free via a coupon. The cost of having the party bus service can be amortized when it is available to everyone, some paying for the privilege, others getting it for free as a reward for visiting frequently.

Plot Your Escape

On a much more sophisticated level than Las Vegas party vans is Caesars Palace’s ‘Rewards Program’ and how it is promoted via Twitter.

Outlined in a recent case study was Caesars Entertainment Corporation’s ‘Plot your Escape‘ promotion that was a very high tech series of social media communications with would be patrons. The  ’Escape’ promotion was spread across Twitter by the concert artists themselves. Artists’ tweets encouraged fans to shake off their daily routines and “escape” by planning to attend one of four concerts in Miami, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York – all of them being Caesar’s Entertainment events.

The scope and scale of Caesar’s effort to bind themselves with their customers is impressive and so was the return on their investment.  The director of new media at Caesars Entertainment, Eric Petersen, explains:

The day before the concerts, we were able to drive an incredible amount of brand conversations because Twitter users were retweeting the celebrities and spreading our message for us.Twitter also helped us extend the live concert experiences beyond the physical location and deliver on our brand promise to bring unique entertainment experiences to consumers.

Of course not all venues or events have a huge budget like Caesar’s, but you can configure a similar program by reading the case study and tailoring to a scale that works for you. Our spotlight posts on various venues who use social media well is also a good place to find inspiration.

Early bird gets the worm admittance, VIP party buses, and rewards programs promoted via social media all have one thing in common – they all originate with the event ticket. The very first place to start enriching the relationships you have with your patrons is inside the online ticketing software you use.

If you are going to start a “closer to the customer” program, your ticketing software must have the tools you need.  A ThunderTix account has just that and much more.

In addition to customized ticket packages and VIP incentives, a ThunderTix account has advanced sales reporting tools to show you the benefits of the closer patron relationships have to your bottom line.

What do you think? Are the three examples in this post enough for you to start building a closer relationship with your patrons? Do you already have a program in place? Let us know in the comments below!

Per-ticket fee of $16.75 on a $99 ticket? Charging ticket fees is to become prosecutable under usury laws? Questions like that can only mean one thing… Free Free Friday is back with reports from the trenches in the War on Ticket Fees. This week we have new vox populi videos and we want to let you know that Nick Persico hates you.

Why does Nick Persico hate you? Read on and find out!

Nick Persico Hates You

We found an articulate, concise expression of how unreasonable per-ticket fees impact the everyday person that you need to read. Earlier this week, Nick Persico wrote a post on his personal blog titled “Why I Hate Buying Tickets” that describes his utter frustration and disgust at the ticketing buying process.

The post starts immediately with a pain point that is all too familiar… “23.8% Of My Ticket Price Were Charges & Fees” and goes on item-by-item, point-by-point just how bad his ticket buying experience has been.

…[then] as I moved through the buying process, the fee frenzy began with the infamous “Convenience Charge”: A whopping $10.30 per ticket convenience charge. That is 25.7% of the total ticket price. I really want to go to the concert, so I decided to proceed to the next step.

It gets worse.

Print at home delivery method, I see a charge of $2.50 per order! What the hell?! Let me get this straight, I need to pay $2.50 to print out my tickets at home? I’ve come this far, so I might as well continue with my purchase. Before I click Purchase and throw a fist pump in the air, I notice another fee. An “Order Processing Fee” for $4.45

Once Persico finally completed the ticket purchase he ended up paying $105.00 dollars for a $45 ticket. especially his manifesto of  the ticket industry’s “A Broken Pricing Structure”

It’s Time To Change, Here’s What Needs To Happen…Someone needs to create a new ticketing platform [and] create a online/mobile ticketing platform for venues and artists that does not charge per transaction. Your revenues are generated by a monthly subscription to the artist or venue.

( We can help you with that one Nick! )

If you work in any area of event ticketing you are strongly encouraged to read the entire post, and appreciate the perspective of a consumer. Only after reading the post can you determine if Nick hates you.

Want to see who else may hate you? There are some videos you need to watch….

Vox Populi

Our kindred spirits over at Fans First have posted two new Vox populi (  or “man in the street”  ) videos that let regular everyday people have their say about ticket scalping, high prices, fees and service charges. The videos are highly recommended viewing for  anyone who sells event tickets or owns a venue.

First the importance of offering paperless tickets is discussed.

Then the general dismay and frustration fans feel when secondary market “value add” services force ticket prices into the stratosphere, often artificially out of line with actual demand. Note the real emotion, the honesty.

Gut wrenching isn’t it? Imagine if these videos got promoted to the front page of YouTube and viewed several million times an hour?

If the opinions of regular folks are not convincing enough, how about the opinion of a respected economics professor, who is well versed in the law?

“Usurious” Ticket Fees

Prof. Mark J. Perry asks a great question in his post “What About the Legal “Usurious” Ticket Fees?“. After citing the rancor in Michigan, Perry coins a new term – Usurious Ticket Fee.

Usury is defined as “the practice of making loans with excessive or abusive interest rates by taking advantage of others’ misfortunes“. The professor wants to have ticket fees considered in that context ( Uh oh ):

Forget about the high ticket prices in the secondary market, what about the legalized, usurious scalping going on in the primary market? If you order a single $17 ticket for the Detroit Tigers home game from the Tigers website, your total cost with a $4.75 convenience fee and a $4.10 order fee, brings the total cost to $25.85, or a whopping 52% above face value!

Summing up his intent, Perry asks if states should also introduce legislation aimed at the ticket fees in the primary market when they surpass his proposed threshold of 50% of the face value of a ticket.

We defer to the professor’s knowledge of economics, but his math is sound. The idea of unreasonable ticket fees may have just graduated ( pun intended ) to the domain of academics and ivy league professors who have a command of usury laws – that is probably not something those who charge excessive service charges and per-ticket fees want.

Of course, if the thoughts of an economics professor isn’t convincing, we have a choir of animosity to listen to…

Weekly Wall of Woe

The Weekly Wall of Woe is, yet again, rife with what people are talking about. Ticket fees are what people talk about more than any other aspect of attending an event, by far.

“Ticket: $25. Fees: $14.”

“$15 a ticket convenience charge @Ticketmaster? What’s so convenient about that?”

“$16.75 in fees for a $99 ticket. ruining rock the bells before it even starts”

With so many people’s written and spoken opinions on what they think about unreasonable ticket fees included in this week’s Fee Free Friday, we sincerely hope it causes you to pause and think very carefully.

We have written an extensive guide on ticket fees - To Fee or Not to Fee, That is The Question – and time spent reading it may just be the final push you need to re-think your ticket fee policies. Our technology offers more tools and options for ticket fees than any other. Plus ThunderTix users do not pay per-ticket fees, we have an annual subscription fee for just about every event and venue size, including yours.

That’s it for this week. We hope Nick Persico doesn’t hate you, or anyone else for that matter. Free Free Friday will be back next week with all new war stories to tell. Until then, if you or someone you know has paid an outrageously high ticket fee, speak up in the comments below!

Taylor Swift is one of our favorite artists, and VH1′s ‘Storytellers’ is one of our favorite TV shows. The two have teamed up for a  fantastic new contest – What could go wrong? Well, an underreported line item in the Taylor Swift contest FAQs could spell trouble.

Taylor Swift on Campus

Yesterday, immensely popular entertainer Taylor Swift announced she will perform live at a high school or college that wins the ‘Taylor Swift on Campus‘ contest. The contest is sponsored by VH1 and Swift’s performance at the winning school will be broadcast on the TV music channel’s show ‘Storytellers‘.

The contest uses Facebook for school nomination and the subsequent ‘Likes’ for each school count as a contest “vote” ala American Idol. The school with the most votes will win the in-person Taylor Swift performance.

In addition to the top vote getter, Swift, known for her sincere loyaty to her fans and for groundbreaking changes to the music industry, is giving back in a new, altruistic way via the contest. The top five schools will each get a $10,000 grant to their music department as part of a philanthropic program of Chegg a prominate student support portal. Swift talks about the contest in the video below:

The fun contest should be hotly contested among all the schools nationwide with students clicking the Facebook ‘Like’ button millions of times. But will this contest end up being a blessing or a curse for the winning school?

Potential gotcha

Taking the time to read the ‘Taylor Swift on Campus’ contest frequently asked questions, this particular line item caught our attention:

The winning school will administer handing out tickets and manage the selection process of who is able to attend, based on the size of the venue available for the show.

Uh-oh.

In the past, some of the largest, most sophitaticated concert areas in the country have had issues with the massive demand for Taylor Swift concert tickets. These gigantic venues have every resource available to distribute tickets and manage the crowds – how will a local high school or city college fare with same challenge?

The daunting task is exacerbated by the fact the winner will not be known until the contest ends weeks from now, lessening the amount of time to prepare a ticket sale and event management strategy.

This is not to suggest the winning school cannot triumph and have a successful event, it just seems that the school should be given the logistical support needed. The contest sponsors ( Viacom, Papa John’s Pizza and CoverGirl Make-up ) have the resources to help the winning school, so there is still time to change the “You’re on your own!” nature of contest FAQ answer.

Online ticketing for schools

Some colleges have big sports stadiums, and they will fair much better should they win, but imagine a local high school or city college trying to organize, and distribute tickets for a Swift concert. Hopefully, one of the major contest sponsors step-up and help with the winning schools challenge of having an entertainer as popular as Taylor Swift perform on campus.

We would like to go on the record now and offer the school that wins the ‘Taylor Swift on Campus’ contest everything needed for ticket sales, box office management and barcode scanning of tickets at the gate. That same offer is extended to YOU as well. Should your school or non-profit be in need of the tools to sell tickets or take donations, we are confident that our technology will exceed your expectations.

What do you think? Are those contest rules a bit harsh, leaving the winning school to fend for itself and have a Taylor Swift concert on its campus? Should VH1 and Swift’s production company step in and help? Let us know in the comments below!

The times they are a changin’. Recently, we have seen the headlines splashed across mainstream news outlets about Amanda Palmer and Louis C.K. turning the recording and ticketing industries upside down and appeal directly to their fans. Now MTV has launched a new platform for any band to tap into that same powerful dynamic.

Can the savvy promoter or venue owner also make use of new strengthening-of-ties trend? Is it possible for an event locale to enrich the relationships they have with patrons to provide a better experience and improve ticket sales?

This post is a first in a series – In the coming weeks we will be writing much more on how you can strengthen your relationship with your patrons.

Band & fan affinity

Parent company of the MTV networks, Viacom, announced their new platform for musicians called artists.MTV. The long tail of bands often struggles to be discoverable by current and potentially new fans. Even the more well-known successful acts can flounder with all the different media distribution and social platforms. Just a few years ago, a band could merely have a Myspace page and effectively reach out to fans. But now they have to manage Facebook, Twitter, Bandcamp, Soundcloud, et al, knowing a fan’s attention is diverted across a span of music-centric services.

MTV wants to address the issue with its new artists.MTV service. Viacom vice-president Dermot McCormack describes his intent in this post-Myspace world of 2012:

No one had stepped into that space to provide quality, trusted information around the artists you love, curated in a loving way. We saw a need in the space and we thought we had the brand, the assets, and the temperament to do it.

Dermot  goes on to say the potential for making money by both the band and the platform is very promising. Once the intimacy and immersion is established, the bands can offer exclusive access to new material, merchandising and of particular interest, concert tickets.

The new service is currently in private beta testing, and bands can request an invite here: http://www.mtv.com/artist-platform/sign-up

MTV joins the growing trend of artists and performers tying themselves more closely to fans. Recently Louis C.K. made national headlines by booking all the venues himself and selling tickets directly to fans for his tour. The other high profile case  was Amanda Palmer’s notorious kickstarter project that eliminated the traditional “middle men” entirely. Palmer not only met all of her funding goals, but the day-to-day drama of the campaign itself made the emotional connection with her fans much stronger.

We see artists and performers making the effort to be as close as possible to their fanbase, knowing it key to their success as entertainers and as business people. It may be in the best interest of venues of all kinds, not just live music, to consider this new trend and ways to emulate it for their own purposes.

Venue & patron affinity

Being in the business of events, more specifically, being in the business of events that people want to attend, means the venue owner or event promoter is uniquely positioned to benefit from a close association with patrons.

Where a single performance by a given act has a built-in affinity, that happens infrequently, and in the case of a “one night only”, just the one time. Conversely, the location ( be it a nightclub, a theater, a vacation destination, even a boat! ) is where a patron’s experience occurs over and over.

As a centralized place of gathering, venues have the ability to have a close relationship with its patrons is on par with, if not greater than, the new trend of artist.MTV or Kickstarter. People who go to a nightclub often, will see a different act perform, but the constant is the venue. The familiarity that is established from it, week to week, year after year, is what you can build on.

Venues and event promoters can provide incentives and rewards for those who return frequently by using coupons, VIP backstage passes and exclusive merchandise.

The idea of having close ties with your patrons is a win-win for all since it can cause patrons to become sales agents via word of mouth recommendations to their friends, for example. The return for the nominal amount invested in t-shirts that are given to your patrons can be exponentially higher than expected. It just takes one tweet to let 12,000 of their friends know about your venue ( “OMG! I got a free shirt last night at the show – So awesome!” ) to exponentially increase venue awareness ( and ticket sales! ).

Do you have the right software?

Coupons, season passes, special promotions are all aspects of the online ticketing software you use – not all of which have what is needed to tap into the new “closer to the fan” trend. Everyone with a ThunderTix account has what they need to build special ticket packages, apply discounts that reward patron loyalty, and much more, which enable them to strengthen the ties with patrons.

What do you think? Will this new trend be only for the performers and their fans, or can an event promoter or a venue owner also benefit from new levels of intimacy and experience immersion? Let us know in the comments below!

That’s right, football is back! But the preseason isn’t all tailgating and touchdowns, it also includes outrageously high per ticket fees. We run through the red zone of the worst ones. Also this week, a $97.20 ticket fee is described as “other expenses”, a family pays a $82.00 “service fee” and all new entries on the “Weekly Wall of Woe”.

Why did USA Today call football tickets “The worst value in sports”? Read on!

Are you ready for some football…fees?

Several harsh criticisms have been made this week on the value of pre-season NFL tickets, and per-ticket fees seem to be exacerbating the situation. Professional football tickets already have a reputation for being too expensive for the average fan to afford, but the pre-season is supposed to be a “value”.

USA Today’s Jarrett Bell kicked off the 2012 NFL season with an acromonious article titled ‘Fans still get ripped off by preseason‘. Bell chastises the poor value of attending any pre-season game in person:

If there’s a worse value in sports for the paying customer than NFL preseason games, maybe it can be found on the sales rack at an apparel shop at the mall or in the back corner of a makeshift memorabilia store.

The sports editors of The Daily news is more specific about the costs, in a detailed breakdown published earlier this week. The focus is Jets vs. Giants preseason tickets with exact pricing for tickets by location in the stadium:

The average ticket price for this year’s game is $74, individual purchases have been all over the map. Several fans purchased tickets in upper sections for $10 apiece, the cheapest ticket thus far. At the other end of the spectrum, one person bought four tickets priced at $600 each to sit in the Coaches Club Section 113…and $24 for a seat in Section 305, Row 20 and range up to $1106 for a seat in Section 149, Row 12.

New York fans pay some of the highest face value marked-ups in the country for preseason games. The mark-ups assigned by so-called “value add resellers” ( *ahem* ) are under fire from multiple state legislative initiatives, most notably in the state of New Jersey, home of Giants Stadium.

Just how bad are pro sport ticket fees? One need only to read the comments in a recent post on Yahoo! Sports. There, two dozen fans discuss the outrage they feel about ticket costs, and one need only to read the first few to know how bad it is:

“Ticket Brokers are the worst. You can go online and there are hundreds of tickets. They manage to take a $65 ticket and ask for upwards of $1,000 for them, especially if it is a hyped up game.”

“Brokers buy up a lot of the tickets and then increase the face value prices with fees and their profit money! With the economy the way it is, it can be difficult even to purchase the tickets at face value, never mind the add cost these brokers add to them.”

We have no official comment from the NFL if they intend to wrangle in the skyrocketing costs of preseason tickets being sold on the secondary market, but wonder if making the effort would be in their own best interest – especially If the cost of preseason tickets are upwards of $1,000.00

Ticket Drone

Jacquie Miller of the Ottawa Citizen has written some helpful tips to get tickets for the upcoming Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band concert. The column starts off with a heartwarming example of a father and son who have been camped out in front of the venue box office for days hoping to get Boss tickets the old fashion way.

Miller casts gloom on the cheerful folks in line by recounting the disappointments of those who camped out in the past, saying that the specter of automated “scalper bots” may dash all hope.

For those camped out at Scotiabank Place Thursday, it’s worth a shot. [ They tried to ] buy tickets online for Springsteen’s 2003 concert here, but had no luck. Sometimes when something big like this comes, you have to get off your butt and get in line.

Of note is the promising new “Ticket drone” service that Miller mentions. It supposedly alerts fans willing to wait in line for tickets via an automated phone call. Ticket drone robo calls fans alerting them if tickets are on sale, then they can go online and try to buy them.

Less than encouraging is the $11 and $18 per ticket fee that Ticket Drone applies on top of the Springsteen face value price of $67.50 to $115.

Weekly Wall of Woe

A report on the war against unreasonable ticket fees would be incomplete without the weekly “Wall of Woe”, our bulleted line-item list of what people are saying across the web. Sadly this week is just as awful as ever.

“Over seven tickets bought in three transactions that’s $82.00 in service and administration costs, when we [already] paid  $87.00 per ticket in the first place.”

http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/investigations/2012/08/one-family-pays-5250-in-additi.html

“[ I ] was charged $432 for the 3 tickets, $15.00 for shipping and $97.20 for ‘other expenses’.

http://www.nwcn.com/home/?fId=166481796&fPath=/news/local&fDomain=10202

“This makes me so raging [mad]”

https://twitter.com/rebeccacairns_/status/229908746330062848/photo/1

“$16.75 in fees for a $99 ticket. ruining rock the bells before it even starts.”

https://twitter.com/D_m_a_T_T/status/233689146395336704

“@amandapalmer Yikes, $8 fee on a $25 ticket “

https://twitter.com/amandapalmer/status/231095628963389440

“Charging 24% “handling fee” to buy mcfc tickets. Don’t buy from them!!”

https://twitter.com/cityneil69/status/235796245778681856

Of course, there is a better way. You need not be included in the misery expressed by individuals and the widely national headlines above. We know you must run a profitable business, and yes, reasonable ticket fees are part of that. We have an all new guide on ticket fees called ‘To Fee or not to Fee.” in which we talk frankly about when, where and why you should or shouldn’t charge per ticket fees.

A ThunderTix account includes extensive tools to manage the application of ticket fees to for your event. Better still, our software uses an annual subscription – we do not charge you per-ticket fees!

Fee Free Friday will be back next week with more from the front lines of high ticket fees, “service charges” and outrageous face value markups. Until then if you or someone you know has been slapped with a truly horrible ticket fee, let us know in the comments below!

Estes Park Colorado is a well known vacation destination for tens of thousands each year. What is less well known is the expansive complex of state park, fairgrounds, entertainment venues and hotels are so well represented by the very latest in social media and web technologies. ThunderTix is proud to be the ticketing software of choice for Estes Park and we love the way such a historic grounds use ultra modern tools for event promotion and cultivating the shared experience.

The entire span of facilities and services that are represented fall under two entities, the Town of Estes Park municipality and the Colorado state govenment. Together, the two bodies manage myriad ways for people to find fun, relaxation, food, lodging and entertainment.

In this post we look at how well Estes Park presents its wealth of recreation and entertainment to the public via its website and social media so you may learn from their example.

History

The grounds date back over 100 years, to the late 1800s, when the land was a privately owned collection of ranches welcoming guests hardy enough to make the arduous journey “way out West”. One such guest,  F. O. Stanley from  Massachusetts, found Estes Colorado to be so accommodating, he relocated there and built the Stanley Hotel as a luxury travel stop.

Stephen King fans take note – The Edwardian opulence of the Stanley Hotel had a very special guest one Summer, none other than author Stephen King. It was his stay in Estes Park that inspiring him to change the locale for his novel The Shining from an amusement park to the Stanley’s fictional stand-in, the Overlook Hotel.

After that first popular travel destination, the town of Estes grew quickly, ultimately becoming the world class collection of venues and parks it is today.

Estes Park has been the place where people of all walks of life, from hard working families to Pope John Paul II and President George W. Bush, go for a vacation, or a wedding, in spectacular natural beauty.

Today

Estes Park is surrounded by the Rocky mountains and nationally protected lands, within which are dozens of venues and facilities. Of particular note are the two most popular – The fairgrounds and the Performance Park amphitheater.

The fairgrounds are home to events like the Colorado Senior Pro Charity Rodeo, The heritage festival and the an upcomming performance by the Marshall Tucker Band.

In contrast to the big crowds at the fairgrounds, the Estes Park Performance amphitheater has initmate “blankets and lawn chairs” performances by symphony quartets, jazz, rock-and-roll and even old-fashioned cowboy sing-a-longs.

To list all of the available things to do in and around Estes is far beyond the scope of a mere blog post, but if you want to learn more, you are encouraged to visit the website:

http://www.estesparkcvb.com

Speaking of the well designed Estes Park website, it is representational of the strong command of technology the town has, in cooperation with the Colorado state’s websites, that is the focus of this post.

Strong command of social tools

You may be forgiven for thinking that a city municipality and a state government would be less than cutting edge sources of inspiration for things like online ticket sales and social media. But make no mistake – there are best practices being very well executed. Estes Park should be a standard reference for all venues to take notes from.

Their website is easy to use, putting the considerable amount of visitor information all in the correct order of presentation. The near frictionless way the website transitions from city government to vacation destination to event ticketing outlet is impressive, and owners of  multi-use versatile venues would do well to use Este as a guide.

Our favorite aspect of Estes Park web presence is the way it cultivate the shared experience using all the social media tools.  The Estes Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and foursquare accounts are a tour de force of meaningful interactions with visitors past present and future. There’s even a Songkick venue entry for the Performance Park amphitheater ( You know much we like Songkick! )

The result of Estes’ hard work and social media efforts? Vistors share their experience by taking photos and add the appropriate hashtag. The collection of shared photos becomes a marketing resource for Estes’ use in the future.

Be savvy like Estes Park

We hope this spotlight on Estes Park helps you with your event awareness as a great example of the how it’s done. In the coming weeks, we’ll be posting many more “spotlights” on events, venues, our beloved ThunderTix users and some “secret” lesser known technical aspects of a successful event. You can subscribe to the RSS feed of this blog here:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/thundertix

If you have an example of a great venue, or want to be in the spotlight yourself, just let us know in the comments below!