International case study: The Riley Center & MyProVenue™
Located in the heart of historic downtown Meridian and opened in 2006, the Mississippi State University (MSU) Riley Center offers cultural, artistic and educational experiences unlike any other venue in the region. The facility includes a fully restored 1889 grand opera house with approximately 950 seats, a 200 seat studio theatre and 30,000 square feet of meeting space. The venue is distinctly unique and hosts a variety of events, conferences, and concerts. In 2008, the Center even hosted John McCain’s announcement for the presidency.
Derron Radcliff, Box Office Manager, talks about the Center’s role in the community: “We host between 40 to 50 performances and events each year and attract more than 60,000 visitors. They all return because the Riley Center is a special place for social interaction, enjoying the arts, engaging in lifelong learning and stimulating community growth and development.”
The Riley Center has been a customer of Tickets.com® since its opening in 2006 and recently upgraded to the ProVenue® ticketing system to improve sales and marketing operations, while also improving the patron experience.
“We have been able to improve our online presence and sales as a result of the new system. With the integrated tools including MyProVenue™ and Access Control, we have been able to better plan for other performances based on audience reaction and participation,” says Radcliff.
“The improved online platform is more user-friendly, and its features have been extremely well received by our staff and our customers,” Radcliff added.
“Thanks to MyProVenue, we can now do things we weren’t previously able to,” says Radcliff.
Radcliff continued, “Tickets@Home and Ticket Forwarding are particular favourites with our audiences and a remarkable improvement on our previous system. Our patrons can now forward tickets onto their friends and no longer have to wait in line to pick them up.”
The team at the Riley Center can now implement targeted marketing strategies aided by the comprehensive patron information available through ProVenue, and the complete data capture from Access Control. Radcliff states, “The best feature for us is Access Control. I love having the ability to record an accurate head count after each performance. This, combined with ProVenue’s other features, means we can be more effective with our communications.”
Radcliff mentions not only ProVenue as a reason that the Riley Center has remained a loyal Tickets.com client, but also the team that supports it: “My experience has been great all round. I personally have never had reason to call support, but I know that they go out of their way to solve any issue or problem. The Tickets.com team truly excels in supporting its clients.”
For more information about The MSU Riley Center, visit http://www.msurileycenter.com/