Tickets.com chosen as official MiLB provider

Originally published on MiLB.com

New York — Tickets.com today announced a new long-term partnership with Minor League Baseball® (MiLB™), the governing body for all 160 affiliated professional baseball teams, making it the organization’s first-ever Official Ticketing Provider. Effective immediately, the long-term agreement furthers Tickets.com’s commitment to the Minor Leagues™ by providing fans with a great customer experience, powered by Tickets.com’s ProVenue® platform technology on the devices fans use most.

Tickets.com and MiLB also will jointly create a first-of-its-kind consumer innovation lab to develop new ideas and initiatives through technology to connect fans to their favorite ballparks, teams, players and communities, while also providing a storytelling platform of the MiLB fan experience. The innovation lab will be constructed to embrace and expand the latest technology innovations from Tickets.com and serve as an extension of Minor League Baseball’s commitment to connect its fans to the game.

“We have continuously been an industry-leader in family entertainment with over 41 million fans attending games in our ballparks annually,” said Pat O’Conner, President & CEO of Minor League Baseball. “Looking forward, we have some lofty attendance goals, and our long-term partnership with Tickets.com represents a core pillar to our overall growth strategy.”

“Technology is at the forefront of our commitment to super-serve the MiLB fan,” said Ken Babby, owner of the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp and Akron RubberDucks and Chairman of the Baseball Internet Rights Company (BIRCO) Board. “After a 12-month process, it became clear that Tickets.com was the perfect technology partner to power our ever-evolving and growing ticketing needs.”

Tickets.com, which already has partnerships with a number of Minor League Baseball teams across all classification levels, will be providing its ProVenue® technology platform and infrastructure to participating teams over the term of the agreement, enabling widespread integration for crossover marketing and promotional opportunities. This marks the first time all participating clubs will have access to a universal ticketing technology and customer experience data, providing access to untapped business potential to drive meaningful fan experiences.

“Minor League Baseball is renowned for its creativity in crafting family friendly, affordable environments and we’re thrilled to be its first official ticketing provider,” said Joe Choti, President and CEO of Tickets.com. “Tickets.com is committed to building this partnership from a strong foundation of reliable and secure ticketing technology. We are excited to get started, working closely with Minor League Baseball and its clubs to exceed the expectations of today’s fans for user-friendly, intuitive mobile ticketing options.”

The Tickets.com ProVenue® platform is a full service, integrated ticketing solution designed to enable entertainment and sports organizations to sell tickets to consumers under the client’s own brand. MyProVenue is a next-generation web application, entirely devoted to optimizing the patron’s desktop and mobile ticketing experience. The intuitive interface streamlines everything from buying tickets to managing account preferences. It centers on the patron experience, providing a higher level of flexibility and usability compared to traditional e-commerce platforms and will further benefit MiLB and club patrons.

Tickets.com’s technology infrastructure will also provide a series of features and functionality, including interactive seat maps, ballpark pass subscription ticketing, ProVenue Access Control, ticket forwarding, Apple Wallet and email marketing tool CrowdConnect. These features are designed to further enhance the fan experience by providing flexibility for payment, speeding up access into the ballpark, allowing maximum choice on seat selection and even provide fans secure technology to share or transfer tickets to family and friends.

The new partnership also expands MiLB’s goal to continually improve the services and support it provides to clubs, including co-hosting a new annual ticketing conference – MiLB Ticketing Summit presented by Tickets.com – that will take place later this year. This event will provide a unique opportunity for key stakeholders from all 160 clubs to come together, share ideas and learn as everyone, including Tickets.com executives, shares best practices and the latest technology developments.

# # #

About Tickets.com
Tickets.com is a leading provider of fully integrated event ticketing solutions and services for thousands of top arts, entertainment, and sports organizations worldwide. Delivering the latest in ticketing technology, Tickets.com offers the advanced ProVenue™ ticketing platform, which serves the core of a comprehensive suite of integrated features, products, and services that help clients enhance ticket sales, marketing efforts, and overall customer experience. A wholly owned subsidiary of MLB Advanced Media, LP, since 2005, Tickets.com is headquartered in Costa Mesa, Calif., and has regional offices across the U.S. and internationally in the UK, the Netherlands, Germany and Australia. For more information please visit www.tickets.com/provenue.

About Minor League Baseball
Minor League Baseball, headquartered in St. Petersburg, Florida, is the governing body for all professional baseball teams in the United States, Canada, and the Dominican Republic that are affiliated with Major League Baseball® clubs through their farm systems. Fans are coming out in unprecedented numbers to this one-of-a-kind experience that can only be found at Minor League Baseball ballparks. In 2016, Minor League Baseball attracted 41.3 million fans to its ballparks to see the future stars of the sport hone their skills. From the electricity in the stands to the excitement on the field, Minor League Baseball has provided affordable family-friendly entertainment to people of all ages since its founding in 1901. For more information, visit www.MiLB.com.

How Vet Tix Benefits From The Registered Developer Program

ProVenue’s Registered Developer Program is gaining momentum this 2017 by partnering with The Veteran Tickets Foundation (Vet Tix), which gives event tickets to currently serving Military, Veterans and their families as well as immediate family of troops killed in action.

Our Registered Developer Program benefits both venues and third-party solution providers. We help provide developers with the tools necessary to seamlessly integrate their technology with the ProVenue® platform. Our features include patron management, pricing, ticket forwarding, venue configuration, and delivery management. Our suite of open platform tools allows our developers to do what they do best – innovate!

Working with our Registered Developers provides us with ample and exciting opportunities to be a part of new and innovative services. Sometimes, we get the chance to enable a service that can make a difference in people’s lives. In this article, you’ll learn more about Vet Tix – one of our newer members. By integrating with the ProVenue platform, Vet Tix has been able to automate acceptance of donated tickets, provide tax receipts to donating patrons, and deliver those tickets to veterans via Ticket Forward.

The Veteran Tickets Foundation Has Filled 3 Million Seats With 3 Million Smiles and Memories

Veteran Tickets Foundation (Vet Tix) has surpassed three million event tickets distributed to currently serving military, veterans, military families, and families of those killed in action through the non-profit’s Tickets for Troops program. Since its founding in 2008, Vet Tix has provided free tickets with a small delivery fee to over 550,000 registered/verified VetTixers in the military community to help families strengthen bonds, heal hidden wounds and offer a positive opportunity for reintegration. Vet Tix’s recent annual survey results show just how crucial those reintegration opportunities are for military personnel, veterans and their families, with 35 percent of respondents reporting feeling isolated from personal relationships after military service. Even though 75 percent of VetTixers report they are unable to afford tickets to community events, Vet Tix presents the opportunity to experience such an event without the financial burden. Events range from major sporting games, both at the collegiate and professional level, to family and arts events, to concerts with today’s top-artists to musical productions.

Providing veterans and their families with memorable experiences via event tickets is a way for us to thank the military community for their sacrifices at Veteran Game promotions. Another added bonus is the ability to fill seats that may have gone empty on any given day with happy attendees who show up at a rate of 80% plus and spend money on souvenirs and at the concession stands. Vet Tix is able to handle hard tickets, provide a will call name for pick up at the box office, electronic tickets such as Tickets.com Tickets@Home®, or digitally via a phone or tablet such as Tickets.com MyProVenue MyTickets. Once tickets are received availability of tickets is promoted to a local, verified military and veteran database. Those interested in attending will enter into a lottery for the first opportunity to confirm their ticket requests.

Vet Tix has been creative in their marketing including edgy graphics of their key market segments such as baseball and concerts, their significant social media efforts and recently a public service ad being run by TIME magazine. Vet Tix has also done a variety of in-game promotions including San Francisco Giants themed hockey jerseys worn by the San Jose Sharks prior to a game that were auctioned off in-game. The net dollars generated by the auction were used to buy more tickets with the San Jose Sharks!

Vet Tix CEO Mike Focareto, a Navy veteran. “This milestone would not have been possible without the continuous support from our partners, sponsors and generous team, event organizers, entertainers and individual donors. We celebrate in conjunction with them, as they too play an imperative role in the success of Vet Tix.  Please note we are at only 5% administration costs, so we are a lean national nonprofit based in Tempe, AZ. Our goal is to distribute one million tickets per year to our deserving Veterans and their families.”

Visit VetTix.org to learn more, and follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Navigation Map Design

In today’s competitive market you only get one chance to make a first impression on your audience. Don’t waste it.  From the start, inspire and excite them with a carefully designed and crafted purchase experience.

Here are some tips and tricks for creating the perfect navigation map for your ticket purchase flow.

Orientation
If your venue is complex and large, 2D may be sufficient. However, larger venues may like the 3D view to show different seating tiers. This is for you to decide what works best for your venue to meet the expectations of your patrons.

Colors
Make a statement through the power of color! Use color to depict the character of your venue by including appropriate shades for background and detail areas.

Details, Details
Let us be super clear… Details are extremely important. Be sure to incorporate exits, sight restrictions, stairs, accessible seating, railings, section numbers or anything else the customer would need to know before purchasing their ticket. Make it easy for them to have an incredible experience.

Mobile and Tablet Friendly
We are living in a mobile first world.  Your Navigation Map will appear on desktop, tablet and mobile screens. Please make sure you design and save your files for the web with scalability in mind.

Perspective
Some maps are “viewed” from above with all the elements laid out, while some use a stage or field view looking out toward the seats. You will need to decide what perspective works best for your patrons.

Technical Specs
File Type:                     PNG or SVG
File Dimensions:        1250×800 (minimum)
Background:                Transparent
Orientation:                 Horizontal
Save for:                       Web
DPI:                               72 Pixels/in

Standard and Pre-Rendered Navigation Maps

A Standard Navigation Map is composed of separate layers that are merged when the map is displayed. Some layers are defined as polygons within ProVenue – polygons that define your sections, price scales, and seat maps. A background layer and a foreground layer are created in the design program of your choice and imported as part of the overall design.

Quick Facts:

  • Works in ProVenue, ProVenueOnline, MyProVenue
  • All images need to be saved as transparent PNGs
  • All Assets are uploaded into ProVenue and polygons are created after venue images are uploaded.

A Pre-Rendered Navigation Map is one file that contains the base images and coordinates for all the various polygon shapes for sections, price scales, and seat maps. While these maps offer some advantages, they do not have the same flexibility offered in Standard Navigation Maps. For example, if a price scale configuration changes for an event and the arrangement of price scales needs to be altered, an entirely new Pre-Rendered Navigation Map would need to be created.

It is important to note that no matter how zoomed in your Pre-Rendered Map is, it will never pixelate and the quality of the map will not be compromised.

Quick Facts:

  • Works in MyProVenue
  • File is created in Illustrator and saved as a Scalable Vector Graphic (SVG).

Whether your navigation map needs some tweaks or a complete redesign, we are here to help. Well-designed maps communicate a professional image for your organizations and most importantly, sell more tickets. Contact us to get started on yours: marketing@tickets.com

Registered Developer Program Enables Delivery of New Ticket Availability Application at the Smithsonian

In an extension to the longstanding partnership between Tickets.com and Smithsonian Enterprises, a non-profit division of museum operator the Smithsonian Institution, the organization has become the latest client to benefit from Tickets.com’s Registered Developer Program (RDP).

With over 30 million visits every year, the Smithsonian’s group of museums and galleries remain among the most visited museum in the world.

While admission to the Institution’s museums is typically free of charge, certain venues, events and exhibits include paid admission which has been ticketed by Tickets.com since 2002.

It was the launch of the latest exhibition by world famous Japanese artist and writer Yayoi Kusama that prompted not only a system upgrade from ProVenueMax™ to ProVenue®, but also the roll-out of the Registered Developer Program for the first time at one of the organization’s venues.

By providing access to a variety of data services, the RDP integration allows Tickets.com clients to tap into the knowledge, expertise and experience of innovative technologies to deliver value driven solutions.

By engaging with the RDP, the Smithsonian wanted to integrate a solution that displayed event availability times to walk-up guests visiting its landmark Kusama exhibit at the Hirshhorn Museum.

With high demand expected and only a limited number of walk-up passes available, the Smithsonian built an application utilizing Tickets.com REST Application Program Interface (APIs) to manage walk-up traffic and ensure visitors were provided with accurate, real-time ticket availability.

As a popular venue with multiple exhibitions, collections and programs in place at any one time, it was vital that the application operated efficiently, with minimal manual input required from Hirshhorn staff. This was seamlessly achieved utilizing Tickets.com enterprise APIs.

The application utilizes event and availibity data to display the time availability which is checked in real-time against pre-set quotas. When all time entry time availabilities have expired and/or all passes are sold out the application displays an updated message on the screen. This solution ensures visitors are provided with up-to-date information the minute they arrive at the exhibit.

“The Registered Developer Program allowed us to share information from ProVenue in real-time to our patrons” said Tammy Enright, Ticketing Systems Manager at Smithsonian Enterprises. “With lines of visitors wrapping around the Hirshhorn Museum each day, waiting to get day-of walkup passes, this API was a valuable communications tool for both the public planning their day and the museum staff managing the exhibit.”

“Our work with the Smithsonian is a fantastic example of the true benefits that the Registered Developer Program can bring to an organization” said Joe Choti, President and CEO of Tickets.com. “Through the Registered Developer Program, clients can access a broader range of solutions that can be delivered by best of breed technologies.  Th extension of our ProVenue Platform provides endless and exciting opportunities for our clients and their patrons.”

The application has been in use since the Kusama exhibit opened at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum in February 2017.

Find out more about how your venue can benefit from the RDP

Attend this year’s ProVenue Exchange conference to learn more about the RDP, as well as tips for selecting, working with, and enabling integrations. You’ll also get to hear directly from RDP members about the new and exciting solutions they can offer.

For a list of current program members and Certified Solutions, or to learn more about developing your own solutions, please contact the team at PartnerServices@tickets.com.

UK office news – May 2017

Here’s the latest news from the UK office…

  • Andy Buckland, Tickets.com’s Service Delivery Director, was part of an impressive world record attempt last month, as he joined a team crossing the English Channel in hot air balloons. The cohort of 85 balloons flew from Dover to Calais early on the morning of Friday 7th April, in an attempt to beat the current world record for the largest group of air balloons to cross the Channel, which stands at 49. Less than three hours later, all 85 hot air balloons landed safely in Northern France, unofficially setting a new world record – and getting a fantastic view of the busiest shipping lane in the world! Andy will be taking to the skies again later this year as part of the GBR-1 team competing in the annual Gordon Bennett Gas Balloon event in Switzerland.
  • In March the UK office jumped at the chance to showcase their best baking skills with a charity bake sale in aid of Comic Relief. A number of the team baked cakes, biscuits and treats to sell to colleagues – they even visited neighbouring offices where staff were only too happy to put their hand in their pocket and donate to the very worthy cause. The team raised £112.00 in total.
  • Simon Hicken joined the Tickets.com UK team this month and will be working in our Milton Keynes office as Client Service and Support Representative reporting to Gerard Pryce. Simon brings several years of customer service and support experience with him to assist in supporting our ProVenueDatabox™ and ProVenue® clients throughout the EMEA region.

Introducing the Registered Developer Program

Integrating ProVenue with innovative industry-wide solutions – even if we didn’t build them!

If you’ve been a Tickets.com client for a while, you’re probably familiar with our different acronyms, ‘TDC’ for Tickets.com, or ‘PV’ for ProVenue for example. Well here’s a new one for you – RDP.

Short for the Registered Developer Program, it’s something that you may have read or heard, but one that you’re probably less familiar with. And this is something we’re working hard to change.

At Tickets.com, we’re industry-leading in what we do but we don’t pretend to be experts at everything. That’s where the RDP comes in. The Program allows you to tap into the knowledge, expertise and experience of innovative solutions industry-wide, making your venue’s digital capabilities virtually limitless.

How the RDP works
The RDP provides access to a variety of data services that allow our clients or third party solution providers to integrate with the ProVenue platform. Tapping into these data services allows your in-house or affiliated developers to create solutions not otherwise available from Tickets.com: access control, CRM, dynamic pricing, group ticketing, display boards – the possibilities are endless.

Using our APIs, data feeds, replication, and other services allows Registered Developers to sell tickets, engage with patrons, and provide new insights. As an integrated application, actions taken outside of the system appear as if they occurred directly within ProVenue. Through ProVenue permissions, you retain control over the features and inventory available to the application.

Meeting our standards
We care about the integrity of our clients and our platform, which is why Registered Developer technologies are thoroughly tested by our team before they are given the ProVenue Certified Solution badge. The Certified Solution badge guarantees that the technology seamlessly integrates into the ProVenue platform and only those that meet our standards are granted this designation.

Find out more
For a list of current program members and Certified Solutions, or to learn more about developing your own solutions, please contact the team at uksales@tickets.com.

Tickets.com partners with Caymax Sports to deliver inaugural Cayman Islands Classic

Tickets.com is proud to announce a new partnership with Caymax Sports Ltd., which will see all ticketing for the inaugural Cayman Islands Classic managed via the ProVenue® platform.

Taking place in November 2017 and founded in conjunction with Global Sports Management, the Cayman Islands Classic is a new preseason basketball tournament which will welcome eight top-flight teams from across the US as part of the NCAA Division I preseason tournament schedule.

The three-day competition will be held at the John Gray Gymnasium, a new multi-sport 2,000-seat facility, and will aim to mirror the success of similar tournaments including Hawaii’s Maui Invitational and the Bahamas’ Battle 4 Atlantis. 

The event is also backed by the Cayman Islands government as part of its strategy to attract more visitors to the island, and forms part of its longer-term plans to host a growing number of multi-sport international events throughout the year.

Using ProVenue®, spectators will be able to purchase tickets online and use the MyTickets™ account management platform to manage all aspects of their bookings. 

This will include ticket forwarding and exchange, online voucher redemption and access to targeted promotions and offers.

Through MyTickets™, patrons will also have access to Consign-Back™, the Tickets.com resale platform which allows patrons to re-sell unused tickets through primary sales channels.

Designed to help combat the challenges surrounding the secondary ticketing market, Consign-Back™manages all sales through ProVenue® and offers a secure and trustworthy platform for both sellers and buyers. 

The advanced functionality and patron-centric design of ProVenue® – with reference to its mobile-first approach – were also cited as primary reasons for Caymax Sports’ decision to partner with Tickets.com and ProVenue®.

As part of the support provided to Caymax Sports, Tickets.com will also fulfil all orders with custom-design ticket stock.

“We are excited about our partnership with Tickets.com,” said Caymax Sports CEO Joe Wright.

 “The Cayman Islands Classic will be a world class event and we wanted to make sure that the fans and supporters would have an equally awesome experience with regards to obtaining and managing their tickets.” 

The Naples Players extends Tickets.com partnership with ProVenue® migration

Nationally recognised US community theatre The Naples Players (TNP) has extended its partnership with technology solutions provider Tickets.com.

The new agreement sees the popular Florida venue migrate from its existing system, ProVenueMax™, to ProVenue® – Tickets.com’s most advanced platform that provides clients with a 360˚ view of their patrons’ buying habits and preferences.

Founded in 1953, The Naples Players has become one of Southwest Florida’s most popular theatres and hosts more than 220 performances every year. The venue comprises two theatres: the main stage Blackburn Hall and Tobye Studio, a more flexible space that has supported the growth of a wider breadth of show content over recent years.

Alongside its busy performance schedule, The Naples Players also runs a youth theatre education programme, ‘KidzAct’. What started as a summer program, KidzAct now runs all year round, providing local children and young adults with the opportunity to develop their skills in acting, theatre production and leadership. 

Part of the decision to move to ProVenue® was to support the theatre’s fundraising initiatives. With ticket sales covering just over half of TNP’s annual expenses, donations remain a vital source of revenue for the theatre and allow TNP to continue to deliver professional-standard productions at competitive prices for visitors. 

ProVenue® permits donations to be made online via the organisation’s website, where visitors can also purchase tickets and merchandise. 

The flexible nature of ProVenue® will also allow The Naples Players to engage better with visitors via mobile devices – another reason cited for the system migration and an ever-increasing trend in ticketing. 

Patrons of the theatre will also benefit from the introduction of MyTickets™, an account management platform that allows ticket forwarding and exchange, ticket resale via Consign-Back™, online voucher redemption and targeted promotions. MyTickets is supported by the extensive data capture and analysis features of ProVenue®.

“We are thrilled to be able to offer our patrons world-class ticketing solutions”, said TNP’s Artistic Director Byce Alexander, “enabling our box office to be more efficient, but also allowing our audiences to engage in the theatre in easier and more customisable ways.”

For more information about The Naples Players, visit www.naplesplayers.org.

Roald Dahl Museum & Story Centre moves onto ProVenue®

The award-winning Roald Dahl Museum & Story Centre has become one of the latest UK venues to migrate across to Tickets.com’s ProVenue® platform.

Located in the village of Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, where Roald Dahl lived and wrote for 36 years, the museum has been a Tickets.com customer since 2005 and welcomes approximately 70,000 visitors every year.

Popular with school groups, the museum houses original manuscripts, documents and ‘ideas books’ that detail characters and storylines from some of the author’s most popular stories. It also hosts children’s workshops and events, designed to enhance creativity and writing skills.

It was the growing popularity of the workshops that supported the museum’s decision to move from ProVenueDatabox to ProVenue®. The new system will support the venue’s aim of increasing the number of bookings made online; the museum is also preparing to introduce paperless ticketing, a feature which is also facilitated by ProVenue®.

The impending UK roll-out of MyProVenue®, the platform’s next-generation web application designed to optimise the user’s desktop, tablet and mobile experience, was also cited as a reason for the migration across to the new system.

In addition to online bookings, the museum welcomes a significant number of walk-ups and anonymous sales, where the level of information required from those visitors differs from advanced bookings – the flexibility of the ProVenue® platform has made this process more efficient for both visitors and the museum’s staff.

Since going live with ProVenue®, the museum has already experienced a change in purchasing behaviours, as Anita Richardson, Retail and Visitor Experience Manager, explains: “Our ticketing processes differ to that of a sports venue or theatre, but the flexibility and functionality of ProVenue® meant that the system could easily be adapted to deliver to our requirements.

“In the few months since ProVenue® went live, we have already seen an increase in online bookings which is a very promising sign. Our staff are also finding the system easy to use and the transition from ProVenueDatabox to ProVenue® has been seamless, with the Tickets.com team providing fantastic support throughout.”

For more information about the Roald Dahl Museum & Story Centre, visit http://www.roalddahl.com/museum

The Harlequin Theatre welcomes ProVenue® migration to boost online sales

Longstanding Tickets.com UK client, the Harlequin Theatre, has recently introduced ProVenue® to manage all ticketing requirements at the Surrey venue.

Previously on ProVenueMax™, the Harlequin Theatre will use the new platform to support its digital strategy as Ian Orrick, Front of House Manager, explains: “One of our aims at the Harlequin is to drive more sales through our website and the move across to ProVenue® is central to this.

“Its responsive design makes it easy to view and use on tablet and mobile, and the extended interactive seat selection options will give patrons more choice and flexibility when booking online. As a web-based system, ProVenue® will also permit access for all our staff – something that has previously been limited to certain computers – which will be of huge benefit to the box office team.”

As Tickets.com’s most advanced platform, ProVenue® has been developed with both venues and patrons in mind. The system’s extensive data capture and reporting tools enable venues to design and implement targeted marketing campaigns – another reason why the Harlequin Theatre made the switch to the new system.

In addition, ProVenue® will also enable the theatre to implement patron-centric offers, upsells and retail packages online, as well as support the venue’s longer term aim of moving across to paperless ticketing.

As one of Tickets.com’s longest-serving customers, the relationship with the Harlequin Theatre dates back more than 20 years and remains one of the reasons why the venue continues to work with Tickets.com: “The team are fantastic – extremely helpful, supportive and nothing is ever too much trouble,” adds Ian.

“The sales team understand our requirements and challenges and they’re great in advising solutions that really deliver what we need. The support team too are always on-hand to assist and have been excellent throughout the system migration.”

For more information about the Harlequin Theatre, visit http://www.harlequintheatre.co.uk/.

Back To Top