Live Music Intelligence May 2010, Issue 29
Bon Voyage
Wrapping up ILMC 22
Shamrock & Roll
Ireland market focus
Days of Thunder
Donington rocks at 30
They think its All Over...
Coldplay tour Latin America
Alternative Hits
The fastest growing sectors of live
European ticketing in the spotlight
Framing the Issue: Ed Vaizey A Roadie Writes: Matt McGinn Planting the Right Seeds: Colleen Zulian Raising the Game: Mark Hamilton
Mergers, consolidation, new formats and widening distribution channels‌ anyone would think the European ticketing industry was still in a state of flux, writes Greg Parmley.
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When the US Department of Justice cleared the merger between Live Nation and Ticketmaster at the start of the year, there were few who greeted the news with surprise. Of some surprise though was Live Nation’s public remonstration of CTS Eventim’s system, and the announcement that it was returning to Ticketmaster in North America. The idealistic might surmise that any failings of Eventim’s system were convenient for Live Nation, giving just cause to renegotiate its ten-year deal with the German ticketer. The cynical might imagine witnessing a significant move in what has turned out to be a long and complicated chess game. It’s 15 months since the world’s largest live entertainment company and its equal in ticketing announced their engagement, and the knot is now tied in all but the UK where the Competition Commission seems intent on chasing its own tail, having first blocked the merger, then cleared it, and having now reversed its decision once more. When this last hurdle is finally cleared, the world’s largest entertainment company will effectively swallow the Ticketmaster brand to become Live Nation Entertainment, an entity which boasted combined revenues of $5.52billion (€4.04bn) in 2009. Eventim’s 2009 revenues of €466.7million (which include its promotion division) are more modest, yet having sold 80 million tickets in Europe last year it still claims to be the continent’s top dog for ticketing. And some of the sting felt in North America will be salved by income from the fees Live Nation is still paying for its system. Nonetheless, relations have reportedly soured between the two camps of late, and the launch of Live Nation Germany in Eventim’s backyard (led by veteran promoter Johannes Wessels) probably haven’t helped. Having sold back its 20% stake in promoter Marek Lieberberg Konzertagentur (MLK), Live Nation has effectively severed all ties with Eventim in Germany, and will undoubtedly begin pumping tickets for its concerts through Ticketmaster Germany (now led by former Ticket Online GM Klaus Zemke), which has historically struggled to gain a foothold in the market. Ticketmaster’s VP of European development Tim Chambers says he expects the volume of tickets in the 50-strong German office to increase significantly. “Germany is a focus of international growth and a priority to the company, so it would not surprise me if more resources were added to the German market,” he says. If anything though, the merger throws up more questions than it answers, particularly in Europe where ticketing is a global concept but a local activity, governed by tradition, culture, tax law and legislation in each market. After announcing the Live Nation deal, Eventim moved into several countries where Ticketmaster already has operations: Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Hungary, Czech Republic and the UK, and for now at least, Live Nation says it’s sticking to the agreement it has.
“We’ve got a contract with Eventim although none of us would say we’re happy with the services being provided,” says international CEO Alan Ridgeway. While it recently filed for arbitration, publicly, Eventim is remaining tightlipped, but for other European players, the corporate wranglings are being viewed as an opportunity. “For us it’s an opportunity to find a position in this market sector,” says Norbert Stockmann, MD of Germany’s number two ticketer Ticket Online, which is on track to sell 20 million tickets this year and recently ticketed the World Championships in Athletics in Berlin. “We’d never have got [Live Nation’s tour with] Lady Gaga last year, but now we’re selling tickets for the shows, and we’re able to prove that we can sell tickets in this area. It’s a positive development.” And Ticketpro’s Serge Grimaux, a former Live Nation promoter recently returned to independence, says that whether positive or otherwise, the merger will affect everyone in the market. “It has helped to change the landscape and to crystallise several things,” he says. “If you pay attention and do what you’re supposed to be doing, you should be able to cruise with this change and it should benefit you.” Others believe that the consolidation of the ticketing industry is far from finished, and the fallout will yet redefine the map. “Europe has, especially in some markets, lagged behind North America and the UK experience, so there will likely be the development of more advanced retail ticketing,” Chambers says. “Over the medium term, venue box offices or retail sites will migrate more to online destinations, to aggregators of ticketing inventory; and whether via mobile phone companies, traditional ticketing agencies or new entrants, there will be more distribution hubs that will reflect local marketing conditions; national, regional or genre ticketing destinations, like westendtheatres.com or spanishfootball.com.” This prediction is a departure from Ticketmaster’s onestop-shop model, which Chambers says, “may not be the predominant model going forward”. Certainly, Ticketmaster (which had a “flat, if slightly up” year in Europe last year) and other established players are facing more competition than ever, much to the chagrin of some. “There are too many people trying to be ticket sellers,” says Nick Blackburn, MD at See Tickets. “Who knows how many times a ticket is sold before it reaches the end user and who is involved in the process. The public is very confused ... in my view you need strongly resourced ticketing companies with good operating systems and strong financial backing.” “In the Czech Republic right now we have seven ticketing companies,” adds Grimaux. “There are more ticketing companies in the Czech Republic than in America. How can a market of 10 million people sustain seven ticketing companies?” Grimaux is sensitive to competition – last year alone, Ticketpro launched in the Baltic States and Belarus, and it recently won the tender for the Left: Frankie and the Heartstrings © Barney Britton
Commonwealth Games in India in October, a deal worth 2.4 million tickets. But new players are being taken seriously, as Stockmann illustrates: “We have a couple of smaller players here who we have to watch – they play their strength in regional corners and provide very lean, cheap ticket solutions which are cheap. They’re niche markets, but it’s still probably 200,000 tickets. The question for us is how we can provide for this part of the market?”
percentage back to Ticketpro HQ in exchange for the ticket software, branding, expertise, hardware and staff pooling for large jobs. It’s a deal that empowers the local companies, and one that correlates with Grimaux’s belief in the potential of online communities. “It creates a design ready to grow as the operation grows,” he says. “It’s lean with the lowest possible overhead.” Keeping that competitive edge also requires keeping up with technology, and a number of new developments are worth noting here, such as See Tickets’ See360 system which unites every point of customer interaction – from marketing to F&B – into one database (see page 42). In January, Ticketmaster launched an interactive seating plan for venues, allowing ticket buyers to choose their seats, and Live Nation COO John Probyn recently revealed that RFID festival wristbands are in development. Add to that the April announcement by UK ticketing platform Fatsoma that it has developed software to sell tickets via Facebook, and the industry is hardly standing still. Not all future-facing solutions rocket off to quick success, though after years spent heralding the age of mobile ticketing, mobile ticket provider Mobiqa says the time is almost upon us. “We’ve been going for eight years and arguably we’ve been seven and a half years ahead of our time,” says MD Nick Rankin, who reports that since 2D barcode boarding passes became standard in aviation in December, Mobiqa’s volumes are growing by 30% a month. “The airline sector is the sharp end of the knife, and it will help change awareness and whatever scepticism there is around mobile ticketing.” Partly due to the lack of suitable access control equipment in most venues, Rankin says mobile ticketing uptake is still in “low single-digit” percentages, but some arenas are installing scanners, and with the airline industry having already driven dynamic pricing, there’s a strong
“ Europe has, especially in some markets, lagged behind North America and the UK experience, so there will likely be the development of more advanced retail ticketing.”
– Tim Chambers, Ticketmaster “The long tail is bigger than people thought,” says Chambers of such niche areas, and the UK alone boasts several examples of such specialist providers and confident new players. Ticket Factory, the venue box office of the NEC Group of arenas is utilising detailed CRM and data analysis (see page 42) to sell for UK-wide tours and events. “We’re targeting two million tickets for this year” says new general manager Will Quekett, who predicts that half of all tickets sold by year end will be outside the NEC’s borders. WeGotTickets now shifts close to 500,000 tickets a year for club dates and festivals without issuing a single physical ticket; the SECC recently rebranded its box office Ticket Soup, selling events across the UK; and technology company MusicGlue recently repositioned its business model to focus on selling tickets directly from artists’ websites. On last month’s tour by English indie folk band Mumford & Sons, it sold 56% of the 12,800 tickets direct. “We’re being asked to tender for all of Universal Records’ artists,” says MD Mark Meharry. “Direct-to-consumer via the artist-controlled sites is going to be a huge part of the next two years and you’ll see every band realising the value in accessing the consumers themselves.” Meharry is outspoken about the role of traditional ticket companies that he believes are struggling to acclimatise to the digital world. “Their model is based on getting into the middle of the relationship and blocking it,” he says. “It’s very restrictive, but the internet and all the shifts that are happening is the direct opposite of that, and it’s about providing good service and encouraging those relationships. They’re two polar approaches to marketing and service.” But many business models are adapting, and sometimes radically. By the end of 2010, the shareholding of everyTicketpro outpost (of which there are 19 on four continents) will have changed to 100% local ownership, with each local operator paying a per ticket licence fee and a small profit Right: Lady Gaga
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chance it will also drive acceptance of mobile barcodes. As airlines show, the ticketing industry might be a vibrant marketplace, but the influence of external industries has the potential to affect the most change. “[Telecoms provider] O2 now do presales for shows, and Deutsche Telecom have announced that they intend to launch a competitor to iTunes,” Chambers says. “Does it have a ticketing aspect? Maybe, maybe not. But it is indicative that in the same way that record companies don’t have recorded music just to themselves anymore, ticketing is not necessarily just the reserve of ticketing companies.” Is there a comparison to be drawn between the major records labels and their equivalents in ticketing? Both have struggled to change consumer behaviour (in the latter’s case with the fight against secondary ticketing), both face unparalleled competition from low overhead start ups using the internet as their main distribution channel, and both have historically sat between the artist and fan; a position proving increasingly unpopular in some quarters. Indeed, in the same way that the 3600 model swept recording, a lone ticket company operating without a parent company or any other complementary divisions today, would be a precarious one. See Tickets counts theatre producers and venues under its wing, Eventim has promoters and venues, and through its merger with Live Nation, there’s very little Ticketmaster doesn’t have access to.
the possibility of putting it in the venues,” says HMV’s ticketing head Jason Thomas. With ticketing systems in 275 of its 420 stores and a strong High Street presence, Thomas says that in addition to guaranteeing footfall past gig promotion, they’re experimenting with bundling. “For example we did a John Mayer promotion where if you pre-ordered the album you got a 48-hour window to buy tickets for the tour,” he says. “It generated over 3,000 presales – well above expectations.” Online sales might be increasing across the continent, but HMV aren’t the only ticket seller combining clicks and mortar. “We have an exclusive deal with the German Automobile club ADAC that gives us access to 11,000 points of sale,” says Ticket Online’s Stockmann. “This type of distribution is getting stronger and is a real competitor to the established points of sale which are still important in Germany.” In the US, Live Nation recently signed a deal to sell tickets for local shows from 500 selected Wal-Mart stores, and for all the advances in technology and whether via networks of kiosks, box offices or good old fashioned post, the paper ticket is proving an enduringly popular choice.
If there’s one sector of the ticketing industry that loves paper tickets, it’s resellers. And while primary companies continue to advance the ways consumers can access and purchase tickets, the secondary market continues to find ways to resell them. Removing the physical ticket from the equation would make things trickier, and with Ticketmaster’s Paperless Ticket technology, which ties the credit card holder to the ticket, and Live Nation’s mooted RFID chips, options are being explored. The vitriol the likes of Viagogo and Seatwave once faced, however, has now largely subsided, as promoters and artists choose either to engage with the market directly or to ignore it and accept that an element of resale might just be inevitable. So is it still a contentious issue? Given the headlines when England football captain John Terry was discovered touting his Skybox at Wembley Stadium in February, perhaps. And while some governments refuse to legislate against resale, the Belgians are, “ Direct-to-consumer via the artist-controlled sites is and the Dutch are in the final stages of passing a law that limits ticket mark-up going to be a huge part of the next two years.” to resale to 20% of face value. - Mark Meharry, MusicGlue An in depth discussion on the evolution of the relationship between Also sporting vertical integration tendencies is British primary and secondary ticketing companies, and indeed music retailer HMV, which completed its purchase of the promoters they serve, would occupy another six promoter/venue operator Mama Group earlier this year pages of text, but the primary market is reporting a and has just launched its own ticketing system having positive picture overall. Technology, competition and united some 3 million customer records. The Mama consolidation are keeping the industry on its toes, and venues are currently powered by a Ticketmaster system, while ticketing might be “invisible” to the consumer, contracted until the autumn. “One of the reasons we behind the scenes, there are more levers being pulled and were looking at getting our own system was based on more tickets being issued than ever. Top: John Mayer
Euro Box Office Austria
Major ticketing companies: CTS Eventim, Wien Ticket CTS Eventim is the market leader, followed by Wien Ticket, the inhouse system of the Stadthalle arena in Vienna. “I sometimes get the feeling it’s only Vienna,” says Norbert Stockmann of third-ranked company Ticket Online. Most sales are made online (around 70%) with box office accounting for roughly 20%. Average Ticket (Av Tick): €45
Baltic States
Majors: Ticketpro, Piletilevi, Piletimaailm The Baltic States got into internet ticketing when Ticketpro launched with a Madonna show last year and sold 90% of tickets (40,000) via the web. Promoters report that outlet sales are gradually decreasing and the market is fairly segmented with many local promoters putting on smaller shows and using local ticketing agents. The main issue the market faces is the low consumer purchasing power making it difficult to attract high calibre international names. Av Tick: 800eek-1200eek (€55-€75)
Belgium
Majors: TTS, Sherpa, Proximus Goformusic Live Nation Belgium reports that the main operators are TTS and Sherpa while most tickets are sold via Belgian telecoms platform Proximus Goformusic. Belgian reservation fees are some of the lowest in Western Europe, with fees averaging €4. Live Nation’s Herman Schueremans is in the latter stages of establishing a law to cap the resale of tickets at 10% of face value. Av Tick: €40
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Denmark
Majors: Billetnet, Billetlugen There are two main ticket suppliers, Ticketmaster-owned Billetnet and Billetlugen, which is owned by Icelandic ticketing company Midi.is. The two companies have a roughly equal share of a relatively small market, although there are a few smaller players, run directly from theatres. Booking fees are fixed at €2.68 and advertising a ticket above face value is illegal, so there is little secondary market. Av Tick: DKK 400-DKK 500 (€53-€67)
Finland
Majors: Lippupalvelu, Lippupiste, Tiketti, Menolippu The market is well developed and dominated by two major operators, Lippupalvelu (Ticketmaster) and Lippupiste (CTS Eventim). Due to consumer laws, all box office fees must be included in the ticket price, so service fees have remained reasonable – between €0.50 and €1.50. Occasional system failures have resulted in fans having difficulties getting hold of tickets, but secondary ticketing is not a significant issue. Av Tick: €50-€60
France
Majors: Fnac, Ticketnet Online sales account for 25% of tickets on average, although several stadium shows have recorded 50% online. Booking fees are an average of 10-12% of the face value of the ticket and France has recently seen the major secondary marketplaces – Viagogo and Seatwave – arrive. Av Tick: €45
Germany
Majors: CTS Eventim, Ticket Online Germany is a fragmented market, both regionally and in terms of content. A raft of regional players operate alongside the three national players, of which Eventim is the leading ticketer. However, Live Nation’s arrival in the region will see Eventim ceding ticket sales to its rivals, including Ticketmaster. Av Tick: €40-€60
Greece
Majors: Ticket House, Ticketpro All tickets for live shows and music events are sold exclusively through Ticket House in Greece, which is partnered with Ticketpro for online sales. Since several high profile shows sold out quickly, advance purchasing of tickets is replacing the traditional pattern of buying on the day. The majority of tickets – 70% – are sold at points of sale and the other 30% are sold online. The Greek market is unique in that all tickets are physical – eTickets don’t exist. Av Tick: €50
Hungary
Major: Ticket Express Hungary, Ticketpro CTS Eventim-owned Ticket Express Hungary is the largest supplier with 50-60% of the market and it currently distributes tickets for Live Nation. Ticketpro holds 20-25% of the market followed by Interticket. Most tickets are still sold at the box office, however, internet sales have grown rapidly in the last two-three years and now account for 20-25% of sales. Av Tick: 15,000 HUF (€56)
Ireland
Majors: Ticketmaster Ticketmaster holds 70% of the market, with the rest of tickets being sold in-house at venues. Business is still good, although due to the recession, promoters report that customers are holding back and making ticket purchases closer to the day of the event. The Irish market is distinct for its remaining tradition of over-the-counter sales, while online sales account for roughly 50%. Av Tick: €50
majority of tickets (over 60%) are sold online. Av Tick: €65
Poland
Italy
Majors: CTS Eventim, Ticketpro Promoters report a recession-proof market, with fans snapping up tickets to big name acts when they go on sale. Consumers are sceptical of e-ticketing and cash sales are still very popular. Promoters are trying to endorse credit card and online purchases by running exclusive web sales, although this has yet to prove successful. Av Tick: €35-€50
The Netherlands
Majors: Ticketline, Blueticket Blueticket and Ticketline are the leaders in a market hit hard by the recession, and the latter’s fees are higher, being an online service in a country where most tickets are sold via the web. However, many Portuguese ticket buyers still enjoy purchasing physical tickets at outlets and the savings banks still play a part in ticket sales and distribution. Av Tick: €50
Majors: TicketOne The dominant ticket company is TicketOne, which sells 80-90% of all tickets. Additionally, there are a number of smaller ticket companies, mainly distributed in the north and central Italy. Tickets sold in outlets are often sold for less than online, and over-the-counter sales still account for the majority of sales (around 65%). Av Tick: €50-€55 Majors: Ticket Service Nederland, See Tickets, CTS Eventim, Live Nation The market in the Netherlands is well organised and runs effectively. Live Nation has scrapped all its outlets and is now exclusively selling tickets via the internet and call centres. 98% of their tickets are sold on the web, up 1% from last year. The Dutch Government is currently pushing through a law to limit resale to 20% above face value. Av Tick: €49.50
Norway
Major: Billettservice Billettservice, owned by Ticketmaster, is by far the dominant ticket provider, while many venues run in-house systems. The market is well organised and the ticketing fees are fairly low compared to the rest of Europe. The
Portugal
Spain
Majors: Tick Tack Ticket, Serviticket, Entradas. com
The market in Spain was very much in the hands of the banking system, and uniquely to the country there is a large network of cash dispensers which work closely with Serviticket and Entradas.com. This changed slightly when Tick Tack Ticket entered the market. Booking fees are low, and print-at-home is starting to gain popularity, but it is hampered by few venues having suitable access control systems. A high proportion of tickets are still sold in record shops and larger department stores. Av Tick: €42
Sweden Majors: Ticnet
Live Nation began selling its own tickets at the start of last year, backed by CTS Eventim. It remains to be seen whether Eventim will continue to sell the promoter’s tickets, or whether market leader, Ticketmasterowned Ticnet will take over the role. With a traditional reservation system still in operation, most tickets are picked up at outlets (60%) although they can be booked online. Av Tick: SEK500 (€45)
Switzerland
Majors: TicketCorner, Starticket CTS Eventim paid €60million for market leader TicketCorner in February this year. The most established ticket seller in the Swiss market, TicketCorner has a 60% share of the market and sold 9.3 million tickets in 2009, including through its network of distribution points in train stations and post offices across the country. Av Tick: CHF75 (€45)
Turkey
Majors: Biletix, Ticketturk, MyBilet Ticketmaster-owned Biletix has a near-monopoly on concert ticket sales in the market, as well as the rights for selling home tickets for the three largest football clubs. Etickets are the most common form of purchase for big shows, whilst door sales are dominant in club shows. Av Tick: €25
UK
Majors: Ticketmaster, See Tickets Ticketmaster holds the top slot in the UK, followed by See Tickets, although the market has many other sellers vying for market share, including HMV, Ticket Factory, WeGotTickets, and recent new entry CTS Eventim, which began selling tickets for Live Nation in February this year. Around 90% of sales are now online. Av Tick: £35 (€40)
Relationship Advice When it comes to wooing customers, ticket companies are realising that a little understanding goes a long way. Life must have been easy before the internet. In the days when physical tickets were printed, customers queued up or called a phone number to buy them, then they went to the show. Hopefully they enjoyed it, hopefully they came back again, hopefully tickets would sell the next time around. It was chalk to today’s cheese when technology is removing the guess work, and allowing ticketing companies to empirically know their customers. If they want to. Customer relationship management (CRM) is something of a catch-all phrase for nurturing and interacting with a company’s clients and customers. And if one area of ticketing is developing apace of the rest, this
scanners at each entrance record when and where ticket holders enter, feeding the information back into the Audience View system. See Tickets MD Nick Blackburn is currently focussed on rolling out his new ticketing system, See360, for football club clients. It is currently being used by Fulham FC, West Ham FC and Stoke City FC in the Premiership as well as several football league clubs. “It offers ticketing, CRM, retail, corporate hospitality, catering and bar access control,” Blackburn says. “There is one database for every interaction between the fan and the football club, and we are looking to put the system into arenas as well. For example, you only need one point of “ The live music industry has effectively sale to buy a piece of merchandise and siloed itself. All we care about is what a ticket, and clubs are already making people buy once a year when they want savings by using the integration it to buy a ticket.” offers – I see this as the way forward.” Yet some within the industry – Steve Machin, Stormcrowd believe that ticketing companies could go to much greater lengths to get is it. There are a multitude of ticketing companies now to know their customers. “They do an adequate job in profiling customers, gathering information on them to managing data, but they’re probably not tasked that hard,” better know what they’re interested in and how best to says Steve Machin at ticketing consultancy Stormcrowd. communicate with them. If it sounds a bit like dating, it “If all you’re doing is selling tickets, what you want is probably is. At least in wanting to keep their many other more people paying a more efficient price, or to save halves engaged and attentive. Live Nation categorises money on marketing. If those are the kind of parameters, concert goers by music taste and level of fandom; Ticket Online has been focussed on CRM for the last two years and recently opened its second data warehouse, in France, dedicated to international projects; and in the UK, the NEC Group’s Ticket Factory is positively evangelical. “One of our strengths is the quality of our digital marketing and that is only going to get better; it is a tremendous focus for the group as a whole,” says newly appointed general manager Will Quickett. “We have a custom-made electronic marketing system built for the NEC Group by the Royal Mail, in which the data from our Audience View system and other sources is mapped out and it has enabled us to come up with very interesting profiles on people who come to different events here.” The system also includes number plate recognition which matches cars to the postcode of its keeper, allowing the group to see where exhibition audiences are coming from and how long they’re staying. Additionally, barcode
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you’re quite limited. You could analyse a truck load of data but ultimately if you’ve got a capacity room that’s as good as it gets.” Machin cites Ticketmaster’s weekly customer email as an example of traditional blanket marketing whereas “a bespoke company that’s selling on behalf of an individual artist would be very careful with that data and only send them really relevant pieces of information. “The live music industry has effectively siloed itself,” he continues. “All we care about is what people buy once a year when they want to buy a ticket. Companies will have to start paying attention to what social network fans are on; what pages they’ve joined; what groups they’re in … all that sort of good stuff. Managing data is going to get much more complex and require more sophisticated analysis tools, and it will reach much deeper relationships with those customers. Potentially knowing more about those customers will make it easier to find the right customer for the ticket.” While UK promotion and ticketing platform Fatsoma recently launched software to sell tickets on Facebook, a similar product is being developed by veteran promoter Serge Grimaux at Ticketpro. “A lot of research has been done, experiments have been very conclusive and I am shooting for Q3 and Q4 this year,” he says. “This is definitely part of the future; missing out on this would be unthinkable.” Grimaux is also developing what he terms “a completely new approach to RFID so that festivals can start to manage, understand and use data to better understand who they are dealing with and to better provide services.” At ILMC 22 last month, deputy chair of the Music Managers’ Forum Gary McClarnan warned that “data is misleading more than it is useful,” cautioning that it can be easy to misinterpret information, and therefore misunderstand the consumer. But without a robust, capable database to house such data, relationship management is an entirely lost cause. As an example, since teaming up with Mama Group, music retailer HMV has invested in amalgamating three data sources – Mama’s own customer database, the 1.2 million entries on hmv.com and details of its 1 million loyalty card holders. “Our ticketing and marketing now works from one integrated system,” says HMV’s Jason Thomas. “We’ve completely changed the way we do everything.” Indeed, one of the major benefits of the Live Nation/Ticketmaster merger could well be the sharing of data sets that were once kept apart by data protection laws. “The ‘win’ is where you have two existing databases, like Live Nation and Ticketmaster, or HMV and Mama,
and identifying the subset of consumers that co-exist in both,” says Machin. “It’s in that crossover that you get a better view of your customer.” It’s certainly an argument for vertical integration of companies, and just as reams of fan data are available online, Mobiqa’s Nick Rankin says that mobile technology has the potential to bring them even closer. “Say that you go to The O2 with a mobile ticket and a sponsor sends you an advert for discounted drinks and money off some merchandise,” he says. “Each interaction is scanned and entered into the database so we know your profile. The next gig that comes up, we send you an alert, so there’s a link between mobile and CRM
“ There’s a link between mobile and CRM which I don’t think anybody has really bridged yet.”
– Nick Rankin, Mobiqa which I don’t think anybody has really bridged yet. It’s quite a big jump to get there but there’s a powerful link which makes mobile ticketing more than just a ticket.” While currently underutilised, mobile is arguably the closest, most effective channel of communication, and yet another source of data that can give companies a more holistic view of their customers. And while CRM may have bags of potential still waiting to be tapped, it’s an area that’s fast developing, and for those willing to invest time and resources into it, one that pays quick and worthwhile dividends. Left: Mumford & Sons Top: What the fans are saying