The latest version of T.Magazine is out now and available to download from our website.
Find out all about our latest products and services, success stories from Tickets.com customers around the world plus all the great work being done in our communities through the Tickets.com T.Cares initiative.
The National Speedway Stadium, home to Speedway Great Britain Premiership club the Belle Vue Aces, is a 6000-capacity stadium with an 1800-seat grandstand that overlooks a 347-metre, FIM-homologated shale racing circuit.
Opened in March 2016 as part of the multi-million-pound Belle Vue Sports Village and wider regeneration project of the east Manchester area, the National Speedway Stadium hosts all home fixtures for the Belle Vue Aces and Colts.
It also plays host to various high-profile national and international events, such as the British Final and Speedway of Nations, to rival other major international speedway venues.
The National Speedway Stadium has worked in partnership with Tickets.com since opening in 2016, with the primary focus of increasing its online ticket sales.
To do this, the stadium implemented ProVenue® to manage all aspects of ticketing, putting the user in complete control with the ability to purchase tickets online 24/7 whilst providing extensive data capture to help the venue analyse trends to enhance customer engagement.
Moving forward, Belle Vue Speedway is looking to grow their fan base and expand their reach to a broader visitor demographic, as CEO Adrian Smith explains: “We want to engage more with families and younger visitors whilst retaining our core audience, and our ticketing experience is central to this.”
In 2018, Belle Vue Speedway introduced MyProVenue™, a next-generation web application built to streamline processes, from buying tickets to managing account preferences, within a responsive framework that works across both desktop and mobile devices.
Combined with the features available in ProVenue®, Belle Vue has enhanced its visitors’ online ticket purchasing experience, whilst driving data, permissions and behaviours through the application.
“To attract a younger audience to watch the Aces, we had to improve our customer experience to make ticket purchasing more accessible, and we saw sales via mobile as a vital means to do this,” explains Adrian.
“Traditionally our audience tends to be older and this is reflected in their ticket purchasing behaviour, with the majority of tickets sold through the box office. The introduction of MyProVenue increases the number of sales channels available and will help us towards our aim of a 50/50 split of online ticket sales versus walk-ups.”
In addition to the benefits experienced through the new technology, Adrian and his team have also praised the ongoing support from Tickets.com: “We have a really strong and collaborative working relationship with Tickets.com.
“They share with us best practice and advice based on their extensive industry experience, whilst working closely with us to come up with solutions to operational challenges.”
In 2017, Tickets.com helped Belle Vue to implement a two-stage ticket sales process to solve issues the club was experiencing as a result of a high number of at-event walk-ups: “We added a ‘best available’ seating option for those turning up on the day to eradicate the queues that were forming as a result of the time taken for visitors to select their seats.
“This has also helped encourage more people to use the online sales channels as tickets bought pre-event still benefit from the ‘select a seat’ function, which has subsequently improved the logistical operation at the stadium,” says Adrian.
Tickets.com have also provided the team at the National Speedway Stadium with key operational support for third party events, including the Speedway of Nations on 5 June 2018: “This was a big event for us and Tickets.com managed all ticketing and fulfilment seamlessly.
“Our technical account manager also spent time onsite with our team and ensured tickets were compatible with our access control system, and we were really pleased with how well it went.”
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/
The Harlequin Theatre and Cinema is a multi-purpose arts venue in Redhill, Surrey, UK, with an auditorium that can be adapted from a 494-seat venue to a 600+ standing capacity space. Alongside is a bijou 100-seat cinema, screening the latest films and event cinema presentations.
The venue is open all year round and with such a variety of performances, it has become a treasured asset within the community.
“We have around 70,000 customers attend events each year, with the total estimated footfall to be double this with many more who visit to use the venue’s facilities,” explains Ian Orrick, Front of House Manager.
“We host around 150-200 live events – including a run of over 40 pantomime performances during December – plus over 1000 cinema screenings each year and building on this, in 2018 we’re embarking on bringing theatre to outside spaces as we focus on engaging the local community even further.”
As a longstanding client, The Harlequin Theatre made the decision to migrate to the ProVenue® ticketing platform to help the venue be more competitive in the ever-expanding digital marketplace.
“We have built up a great relationship over a number of years with the Tickets.com team, whose customer service and market awareness has always been impeccable, and so we had no hesitation in moving to ProVenue®”, says Ian.
“The system’s responsive design allows us to compete more effectively across digital platforms by making us more accessible to online bookers using tablet or mobile, and the interface is also clearer and slicker than anything we’ve used previously.”
As Tickets.com®’s most advanced platform, ProVenue® has been developed with the venue and its patrons at the forefront. It is a fully integrated ticketing solution that allows clients to capture, access and own consumer data, enabling them to build a picture of the buying habits and preferences of their patrons. With the help of the advanced reporting tools, venues can then design and implement targeted marketing campaigns to sell tickets effectively.
In addition to the enhanced digital capabilities provided by ProVenue®, the team at the Harlequin Theatre cite batch printing amongst their favourite features: “The printing feature has meant that our organisation of tickets – and the time spent printing them – has greatly improved, meaning that we are able to better use our time elsewhere.
“As well as batch printing, ProVenue®’s user-friendly interface allows event administration and ticket selling to work in tandem, and with it being a web-based programme we can now work from any computer in the venue”, confirms Ian.
And, with the impending introduction of the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) laws, the Harlequin Theatre continues to be encouraged by the work of the team at Tickets.com®: “Tickets.com® are a great company to have a relationship with and as we move towards GDPR in May, it is reassuring to know that we have such a great team and product to work with.
“During the initial transfer to ProVenue® they were attentive, informative and ultimately very patient. Subsequently, they are always happy to help with queries we have and communication regarding any upcoming upgrades is always punctual and easy to understand.”
For more information about the Harlequin Theatre, visit www.harlequintheatre.co.uk.
Tickets.com is offering all customers an exclusive discount on ticket printers from Boca, the inventors of the thermal ticket printer.
Usually priced at £1,100.00 + VAT, you can save up to £200.00 on Boca printers purchased until 12th April 2018*:
One unit: £985.00 + VAT (per unit)
Two units: £945.00 + VAT (per unit)
Three or more units: £900.00 + VAT (per unit)
(Prices available in euros for customers in Ireland – please contact the team for more information)
This offer is exclusively available on the Lemur 3.25″ reversible adjustable 200 DPI Boca Ticket Printer and the Lemur 2 – 4″ adjustable 200 DPI Boca Ticket Printer.
Click here for full product specifications
For more information or to place your order, contact the Tickets.com team:
E: uksales@tickets.com
T: +44 (0) 1908 232404
* Carriage costs apply
Testimonial: Adrian Terry (Box Office Manager)
The Theatre Chipping Norton is a small venue making big noises since its inception in 1975. The Oxfordshire-based theatre turned arthouse cinema, gallery and concert hall sees over 53,000 visitors per year as a result of its unique and enterprising offering of performances, festivals and workshops. With around 1200 events and workshops in 2017, it is easy to see why they are often the cause of much acclaim in the local community.
The Theatre Chipping Norton started working with Tickets.com in 1994, as Adrian Terry, box office manager, recalls: “We first engaged with Tickets.com over 20 years ago to further our digital and CRM capabilities and help us to better understand our patrons; this has been instrumental in implementing effective CRM campaigns to keep our visitors coming back.”
During this time, the theatre has migrated across from ProVenueDatabox® and ProVenueOnline® to ProVenue®, Tickets.com’s most advanced ticketing platform.
Since ProVenue® was first implemented in 2017, the Theatre Chipping Norton has benefited from MyProVenue™, the web application built on responsive web design to facilitate online ticket sales and patron self-service features.
In addition, the venue also uses CrowdConnect, Tickets.com’s cloud-based email marketing platform with advanced data capture functionality to further support patron engagement.
Like many Tickets.com customers, Adrian has experienced first-hand just how Tickets.com’s technology can support a smaller venue and achieve impressive results: “First and foremost we have a much greater understanding of our client base, which has led to an increase in ticket and sundry sales online through segmented and refined campaigns.
“As a venue we are unique, yet our move to ProVenue has futureproofed our booking tools and established a premium customer service platform that we hope will successfully launch our new seating campaign and the Chipping Norton Comedy Festival, as well as promote the upcoming literary festival.”
For more information about The Theatre Chipping Norton, visit www.chippingnortontheatre.com.
The Tickets.com UK Office will be operating outside of normal support hours over the Christmas holidays:
22nd Dec – Normal office hours
23rd Dec – 24th Dec (Christmas Eve) – Emergency support only
25th Dec (Christmas Day) – Closed
26th Dec (Boxing Day) – Emergency support only
27th – 29th Dec – Normal Office Hours
30th Dec – 1st Jan (New Year’s Day) – Emergency support only
2nd Jan 2018 – Normal office hours
Any request for support during this period must be called through on 0333 2 406010 using the following ticketing product extensions:
ProVenueDatabox® – Option 5
ProVenueMax™ – Option 6
ProVenue® – Option 7
Please note that during this period, support for online page edits and performance acceptances is not available.
Tickets.com strives to make a difference not only in the ticketing industry, but also within the community.
And in recognition of this, Tickets.com launched its T.Cares programme in 2016, a global initiative that sees Tickets.com supporting local community efforts to better the areas where its employees work and live.
In the UK alone, the team has had a busy 2017, from charity fundraising, to taking time away from the office to support local community initiatives. Here’s just some of the projects that the UK team have been involved in over the last 12 months…
Young Carers MK, a charity which supports over 650 children and young people aged 8-19 years old, sets out to helps those who care for a family member with a physical or mental illness, and provides young carers with one-to-one support, information, guidance, and someone to talk to who understands. In October, Tickets.com teamed up with MK Dons & Young Carers MK to give a couple of young carers a memorable experience.
Ben and Valmik, two extraordinary members of Young Carers MK, embarked on a VIP experience at League One side and Tickets.com client MK Dons which included a stadium tour, signed memorabilia and matchday hospitality, plus an opportunity to visit the home changing room to meet the team ahead of their match against Northampton Town – all of which was arranged by Tickets.com in partnership with MK Dons FC.
Speaking after the event, Ben said; “Valmik and I were over the moon when we found out about the hospitality experience at MK Dons, and wow, what an experience! I would like to thank everyone at Tickets.com and MK Dons for providing us with this opportunity.”
Earlier in the year, Tickets.com supported the Milton Keynes Christian Foundation’s Growing People project; a horticultural social enterprise which works with disengaged young people to grow organic seasonal fresh fruit, veg, and flowers for the local community at their Urb Farm based in Wolverton.
The Tickets.com team spent the afternoon gardening, tidying, and providing general maintenance work to support the staff who run the project. Lisa Hodgson, special educational needs coordinator at Urb Farm said: “I just wanted to say a huge thank you for all the work that the lovely team at Tickets.com carried out at the farm.
Everyone involved has made a big difference! We hope the team enjoyed it and that no one was too stiff and achy the next day!”
Tickets.com’s Richard Baldwin also celebrated turning 50 in style earlier this year by completing the Land’s End to John O’Groats cycle challenge and raising over £1300 for mental health charity MIND.
Not forgetting the Comic Relief bake sale that got the team in the kitchen and colleagues – and neighbouring offices – putting their hands in their pockets to donate to the very worthy cause.
For more information about T.Cares and to find out how your charity or project could get involved, visit https://provenue.tickets.com/uk/t-cares/.
2017 has been a busy year for Tickets.com UK and the roll-out of its most advanced system, ProVenue®.
A fully customisable ticketing solution, ProVenue® not only provides industry-leading technology, but also enables venues to capture, retrieve and own their customer data.
Most recently, Wigan Little Theatre, Watersmeet in Rickmansworth and Chipping Norton Theatre have all introduced the new system, having migrated across from ProVenueDatabox®.
Earlier in May, the Harlequin Theatre and the Roald Dahl Museum & Story Centre also moved onto ProVenue®. Since the Harlequin Theatre’s move across from ProVenueMax™, the new platform is being used 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.”
The award-winning Roald Dahl Museum & Story Centre has already benefitted from the flexibility of the ProVenue® platform, as Anita Richardson, Retail and Visitor Experience Manager, confirmed: “ProVenue’s more efficient process for both visitors and the museum’s staff has already increased online bookings which is a very promising sign.”
One of Tickets.com’s longstanding UK clients, Trinity Arts Centre, who has been a customer for over 15 years, moved across from ProVenueDatabox® this year as part of its strategy to drive online ticket sales.
ProVenue’s flexibility was one of the main reasons for the switch and Trinity Arts Centre are already reaping the benefits, as Lisa Weller, centre manager said: “Our customers’ buying behaviours have changed, and so have our technology requirements, so the move to ProVenue® was a natural migration for us.
“We’ve experienced almost three times the number of online bookings over the last couple of months, which is fantastic and exactly what we wanted to achieve with the switch to the new system”.
For more information about ProVenue® and to discuss how the system can benefit your venue, contact the Tickets.com team at uksales@tickets.com or on +44 (0) 1908 232 404.
Tickets.com has partnered with Young Carers MK to give two special MK Dons fans the perfect fan day experience.
The project was part of the T.Cares programme, Tickets.com’s global initiative which seeks to support local community efforts by arranging remarkable experiences for deserving individuals.
The subject of this latest campaign was Young Carers MK, a charity local to the Tickets.com UK offices in Milton Keynes which supports over 650 children and young people aged 8-19 years old. The initiative helps those who care for a family member with a physical or mental illness, disability or drug and alcohol dependency, and provides young carers with one-to-one support, specialist group work, targeted activities, information, advice and guidance, school support, and someone to talk to who understands.
After researching the charity, Tickets.com learnt of a story about Ben and Valmik, who arranged a dog walk and school fancy dress day to raise money for Young Carers MK and Willen Hospice, a local charity that looks after patients with a terminal illness.
“We were really inspired by Ben and Valmik’s generosity and passion for supporting the charities,” said Natalie Jones, Tickets.com’s internal sales manager.
“Like so many other young carers, Ben and Valmik have a lot more to deal with than most people their age and we felt that they were very deserving of a break from their day-to-day responsibilities. When we found out they were both big MK Dons fans, we couldn’t wait to speak to the club and arrange a day that we knew they wouldn’t forget!”
In partnership with longstanding client MK Dons FC, the Tickets.com team set about arranging a VIP experience for Ben and Valmik.
They were invited to attend last month’s match against Northampton Town and before kick-off, were taken on a stadium tour by MK Dons’ all-time leading goal scorer Izale McLeod.
As the stadium filled, the boys enjoyed a three-course meal in the Dons’ hospitality suite before visiting the home changing room to wish the team good luck. They then headed out pitch-side for photos with the team captains and referees.
As the match ended in a tense 0-0 draw, the day was far from over for Ben and Valmik. They were taken behind the scenes to attend the Man of the Match presentation, won by Dons defender George Williams, where they also received memorabilia including a home shirt signed by the pair’s favourite player, Chuks Aneke.
Speaking after the event, Young Carers MK Team Co-ordinator Debbie Norton said; “We would like to say a huge thank you to Tickets.com for offering Ben and Valmik the opportunity to spend the afternoon as VIPs, and also a massive thank you to the MK Dons team.
“It means so much to young carers to be able to get out and enjoy themselves, as often they are reluctant to leave the person they care for. Young carers can become isolated and miss out on valuable childhood experiences so this was a wonderful opportunity.”
Valmik said: “This was a fantastic experience that will stay with me forever. From seeing the club’s all-time scorer Izale Mcleod, to sitting just a few seats away from chairman Pete Winkelman, it was a truly memorable day.”
Ben also said: “Valmik and I were over the moon when we found out about the hospitality experience at MK Dons, and wow, what an experience! I would like to thank everyone at Tickets.com and MK Dons for providing us with this opportunity.”
Natalie Jones concluded: “The work that Young Carers MK does for young people like Ben and Valmik is fantastic and we were honoured to work with them on this project. The boys had a great day and we’d like to extend our gratitude to MK Dons for their hospitality and support in making the experience so special.”
For more information about Young Carers MK, visit www.youngcarersmk.org.
For more information about T.Cares and to find out how your charity or project could get involved, visit https://provenue.tickets.com/uk/t-cares/.