Fastest Concert Sellout in Busch Stadium III History

LOUIS, Mo., April 15, 2016 – The legendary Sir Paul McCartney has done it again. Selling out yet another venue in record time. Tickets for his One on One tour at Busch Stadium, home to the St. Louis Cardinals went on sale to the public on  April 15th. In less than an hour all 41,000 tickets that were made available for the show were gone! The performance will debut a brand new production, utilizing state of the art audio and video technology while employing massive screens, lasers and fireworks to ensure an unforgettable experience from every seat in the house.

“The demand for this event has been tremendous,” said Vicki Bryant, Vice President of Event Services & Merchandising.  “It promises to be a once in a lifetime opportunity to enjoy a music legend in one of the most iconic venues.”

We are proud to be the selected ticketing partner that continues to set sellout records around the world. We look forward to raising the bar even higher by partnering with venues to set the next sellout record.

To all of those fans who were lucky enough to get their hands on tickets – enjoy the show! www.cardinals.com/McCartney  #McCartneyatBusch

Remarkable Products and Updates

MyProVenue™ 

Tickets.com is proud to announce the release of MyProVenue™, a completely new application built on an elegant responsive web design, designed for Internet ticket sales and patron self-service features.  The release was concurrent with releases of our ProVenue® and ProVenueOnline®  products which provide extensive support for the new MyProVenue™ product in addition to other new features.

As a responsive web application, MyProVenue™ provides an optimal experience for patrons on a variety of devices, including phones, tablets, and the desktop.  Our first version of MyProVenue supports single ticket purchases, secondary market purchases through our Replay Ticket Exchange®, and MyTickets™ Account Management features, including viewing tickets, ticket forwarding and posting tickets to Replay.

You will be hearing much more about this exciting new product in the coming weeks and months as we roll out the product to our client-base and as we continue to add more features.

Replay™ Ticket Exchange

On March 1, 2016 Tickets.com was excited to be a part of the launch of the Boston Red Sox Replay Marketplace, a completely integrated secondary market exchange with a number of enhanced features supported through ProVenueOnline and ProVenue including full support for splitting listings on purchase, highly configurable floor pricing, new account credit options, and an automated rollover-to-donation option for listings which expire prior to the event.

A fully integrated secondary market provides Red Sox fans with a safe and trustworthy marketplace for both posting and buying tickets. Fans already familiar with MyTickets, which offer convenient features such as ticket forwarding and ticket printing, are now provided the ability to post tickets from the same interface.  Fans can also be offered incentives through the use of Replay through Red Sox Rewards points and other team-sponsored initiatives.

The capture of seller and buyer information along with all price and service charge information on ProVenue offers the Red Sox a single-source 360 degree view of data, combining secondary market activity data with that of primary market sales.  The customer service screens in Ticket Services have been completely redesigned and optimized for the new Replay features. Users can navigate through the life cycle of a market offer when it is split as a result of a buyer purchasing only a portion of an offer. Listings can also be cancelled from within ProVenue resulting in the listing being removed from the marketplace in real time. 

CrowdConnect™

We are proud to introduce Tickets.com’s new cloud marketing platform, CrowdConnect! We give you the tools to collect, analyze and deliver the most personalized campaigns to your patrons. Never stress again about data costs. Our platform includes UNLIMITED storage. We encourage you to collect as much patron data as possible. The platform offers advanced reporting, marketing automation and dynamic content features. It is no longer acceptable to deliver a generic message to your patrons. You now need to deliver the most relevant message, at the right time, through the right channel on the right device tailored specifically to each of your patrons. This can all be accomplished through CrowdConnect. The easy to use click and drop functionality makes even the most novice user become an expert within hours of using the product.

ProVenue® – New Features

In addition to support for Replay and MyProVenue™, a number of new features are included in the ProVenue® 3.6 release:

  • Extended Seat Definition Ticket Extensions: Our powerful and flexible extended seat definitions now include the ability to create definitions based on elements of a ticket sale/reservation.  The definition can now be triggered by an association with an event, package, price scale, section, buyer type, and/or service charge.
  • Ticket Services: Our Ticket Services portal has been expanded and now includes:
    • Barcode Status: A new barcode status tab provides users with a quick validation for a ticket based on a barcode. An inactive/invalid ticket will provide a user with a simple reason why a ticket is inactive.
    • Seat History Enhancements: Seat history has been enhanced to include complete details on deliveries.

Other new features include a sales rep reassignment utility and a new option to enforce a greater than or equal to quantity for a package exchange.

Talk to your rep to find out how you can start using our products today!

Going Beyond Limits: Client Experiences With ProVenue Upgrades

The Tickets.com® Business Development team enjoyed a busy first quarter of 2016.  Several key ProVenue® clients chose to extend their agreements including ProTix, Cheyenne Frontier Days, and Erie Events.

As a leading regional ticketing distributor based in Oklahoma City, ProTix is one of Tickets.com’s earliest adopters of ProVenue.  Moving forward, ProTix will be implementing the Tickets.com MyTickets™ product suite to better serve their customer base. Cheyenne Frontier Days, another early adopter of ProVenue, is excited to begin using the MyTickets product suite, Email Confirmation functionality, and up-sell opportunities. Erie Events is based out of Erie, Pennsylvania and is the home of the Erie Insurance Arena, The Warner Theatre and the Bayfront Convention Center.  After assessing their ticketing needs, Erie Events chose to extend their agreement with Tickets.com where they will now be utilizing features and functionality that include MyTicketsMobile, Ticket Forwarding and Email Confirmation.

We are pleased to announce that three of our current ProVenueMax clients have chosen to migrate to the ProVenue platform in Q1 2016! The City of Wichita Falls, Ohio University Event Services and California Rodeo will all be migrating to the ProVenue platform to take advantage of the software’s advanced functionality and features.

What’s New in Marketing

There are many new and exciting focuses and ideas arising to action  at Tickets.com. We have aligned our brand to better meet the values of our company mission starting with our new tagline: Experience Is Everything!

Experiences help define us as humans and have the power to create great stories, amazing memories, and life-changing ideas. Our goal is to help you make each and every experience for your patrons a remarkable one.

This is where Team Tickets.com is headed—putting our patrons’ desire to experience at the forefront of everything we do by ensuring the most advanced technological tools because it’s all about less waiting and more living.

We have also introduced a more modern appeal with our new “T.” logo as part of our future forward branding initiatives, and have launched a new marketing platform—CrowdConnect™. Check out more information about CrowdConnect™ in our Remarkable Products and Updates post! 

Lastly, because we believe in the foundation of a solid unified community, we recently launched our community program called T.Cares. This program is on a mission to give back to communities all around the world. Whether it is the veteran who proudly served their country, a child battling a disease or a family struggling financially, our goal is to create unforgettable experiences for those in need. We have several special events scheduled with various venues around the world. Contact marketing@tickets.com to find out how your venue can become part of T.Cares. We look forward to hearing from you!

An Insider’s Look at Opening Day

In what is a holiday of sorts for many, Major League Baseball Opening Day arrived amid festive environments that in some areas subjugated the weather.  

Tickets.com is very pleased to have worked closely with our clubs to ensure that their fans effortlessly entered the ballparks with mobile devices, fan loyalty cards, Tickets@Home printouts, and traditional printed tickets. Months of planning and preparation–including season rollovers and invoicing, special offer preparation, venue modifications, event configuration, system user reviews, reporting parameter analyses, best-practices assessments, staff training, stored-value alignment and access control testing–culminated in early April with the sound of nearly a million “go” beeps emanating from access control scanners and turnstiles across the country. We tip our hats to all those involved in getting our National Pastime off to a great start!

Tickets.com Debuts Apple Pay App Integration

Secure mobile payment built into new app for The Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts

Costa Mesa, CA/Hartford, CT, November 19, 2014 – Tickets.com, provider of state-of-the-art technology solutions to more than 1,000 sports and entertainment clients around the world, today announced it has launched the first venue ticketing integration with support for Apple Pay™ mobile payments solution. A new app, The Bushnell, is now available in the App StoreSM online store and patrons of The Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts (Hartford, CT) may purchase tickets quickly and securely using Apple Pay, making it the first entertainment venue in the world to offer this in-app payment option for ticket purchases.

“The Bushnell is very excited to expand its relationship with Tickets.com by becoming the first performing arts venue to integrate ticketing via Apple Pay,” said David Fay, President and CEO of The Bushnell. “The Bushnell app will extend the capabilities of our recently redesigned website, bushnell.org, and offer our customers a new, fast, and secure option for purchasing tickets.”

The Bushnell leverages the ProVenue® ticketing platform, a proprietary technology solution built by Tickets.com. Through a hosted, open architecture, ProVenue® delivers a reliable and scalable ticket purchasing solution developed from fully integrated and customizable end-to-end services.

“We are proud to debut Apple Pay support for The Bushnell in anticipation of its holiday performance season and a 2015 calendar filled with popular events,” said Joe Choti, CEO, Tickets.com. “This integration is another important development in our on-going commitment to mobile ticketing technology and the dynamic possibilities it presents for our venue clients and their millions of patrons.”

Tickets.com will continue its rollout of in-app Apple Pay mobile payments support to its global client sports and entertainment roster, including Major League Baseball teams through the MLB.com At the Ballpark app. Availability for each venue will be announced as it launches.

About Tickets.com, Inc.
Tickets.com, a wholly owned subsidiary of MLBAM, is a leading provider of fully integrated event ticketing technologies, solutions, and services for thousands of top arts, entertainment, and sporting events worldwide. Delivering the latest in ticketing technology, Tickets.com offers the advanced ProVenue® ticketing platform, which serves as the core of a comprehensive web-based suite of integrated features, products, and services that help clients enhance ticket sales, marketing efforts, and overall customer experience. Tickets.com is headquartered in Costa Mesa, CA, and has regional offices across the U.S. and around the world. The company also sells tickets directly to consumers through its website atwww.tickets.com.

Will Major League Soccer incorporate the Goal Line Technology being used in the World Cup?

When major league sports first started using technology during games, it made people scratch their head and ask why? Sure it might slow the pace down at times but its main purpose is to increase accuracy during games, especially big ones. Technology is becoming more prevalent in major league sports to help make the “tough calls”.

This year in Brazil for the FIFA World Cup™, a new technology is being rolled out called Goal Control-4D. FIFA explained in a press release, “Goal Control is equipped with 14-high speed cameras located around the pitch, with seven cameras focused on each goalmouth.  The ball position is continuously and automatically captured in 3D and the indication of whether a goal has been scored is immediately confirmed within one second to a watch worn by each of the match officials.” According to FoxNews.com, “the cameras operate at up to 500 frames a second to capture a three-dimensional position of the ball. Each goal has seven cameras trained on it at all times. Fixed to a high point in the stadium, such as the roof, two cameras are at the halfway line, another two are placed between halfway and the goal line and another camera is located behind the goal.”

Seems simple enough right? Fox also states, “the cameras are linked via fibre-optic cable to an image processing computer that monitors the movements of every object on the pitch. Specially built detection software is used to filter out players and the referee. Thanks to the flood of information from the cameras, the system can monitor the ball’s position based on x,y and z coordinates and report its three-dimensional position anywhere on the field. Crucially for under-pressure referees, this position is monitored both when the ball is on the ground and when it’s in the air.“

With this new technology FIFA is attempting to eliminate blown calls that could cost a team, and country, the World Cup.  Last Saturday during the France vs. Honduras game, people around the world got a taste of this new technology. The replay showed two different scenarios; the ball hitting the post and bouncing out, and the ball hitting the Honduras keeper to bounce across the line. Goal Control-4D technology ruled the ball bounced off the keeper, France G-O-A-L! The debate was ablaze on social media outlets and it seems like it will continue to be a controversial topic of this year’s World Cup.

Now the question is will MLS be interested in following Major League Baseball’s technology movement by bringing this to regular season games? What do you think about technology entering into the World Cup and do you think MLS will follow? We want to know – leave us a comment!

Don’t miss Major League Soccer’s greatest rivalry when the San Jose Earthquakes take on the LA Galaxy and Landon Donovan tomorrow. Purchase Tickets

Make sure you to follow us on Facebook (Ticketsdotcom) and Twitter (@Ticketsdotcom) for exciting updates and ticket on-sales! Also be sure to check out the San Jose Earthquakes on Facebook (sanjoseearthquakes) and Twitter (@SJEarthquakes)

Image credit: worldsoccer.com

Selfie Nation

Selfie noun, informal (also selfy, plural selfies): a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website

In November 2013, selfie was named Oxford Dictionaries International Word of the Year, in large part to the increased use of the word, a whopping 17,000% since the same time the previous year.  Fast forward to today and more than 73 million photos using the #selfie have been posted on Twitter and Instagram according toUnmetrics.  Selfies have become the norm when promoting yourself or your brand; everyone from athletes to celebrities to your mom and dad are taking part in this pop cultural phenomenon.  Even big brands have taken to social media channels to take advantage of the selfie culture and to increase consumer engagement.

In the digital age, selfies are encouraged everywhere we go.  At your favorite concert or sporting event, snap a photo of yourself doing something exciting and instantly share it with the world.  We have the capability to snap a selfie and capture priceless moments; like this lucky fan did at a Beyoncé concert http://on.fb.me/SfYji8(picture via Facebook/Beyoncé).

And everyone is doing it; including 2013 World Series Champion and MVP David Ortiz, who took a very memorable selfie  http://bit.ly/1kLWQeh (picture via Twitter @DavidOrtiz) with President Barack Obama, during the Red Sox visit to the White House.

Who could forget Ellen’s Academy Award® selfie that took a total of 34 seconds to break the world record for the most retweeted tweet of all time.  She was also the first user to top 1 million retweets for a single Twitter post.  In less than an hour the photo had surpassed 1.3 million retweets and temporarily shut Twitter down.   When it was all said and done, the tweet was seen by 37 million people worldwide, according to Twitter numbers.  http://bit.ly/1dRK33g (picture via Twitter @TheEllenShow)

Finally, how about Tampa Bay Rays reporter Kelly Nash who took a beautiful but dangerous selfie at Fenway Park http://instagram.com/p/YnywPVl8jP/ (courtesy of Kelly Nash via Instagram).

Sometimes random and spontaneous, or perhaps entirely orchestrated, the selfie is here to stay so keep them coming! We can’t wait to see what the rest of the year has in store!

Do you have a favorite? Share it with us on Twitter @Ticketsdotcom or on Facebook – Ticketsdotcom.

What Kind Of Basketball Fan Are You?

As the NBA playoffs heat up, the team at Tickets.com can’t help but debate the classic argument: NBA or college basketball, or better yet, NBA Playoffs or March Madness?  It’s the same sport, played very differently. Whichever you prefer, it’s hard to debate that one is better than the other however in the spirit of high intensity basketball playoffs; for fun, let’s compare.

Making a college basketball team is the pivotal point in a young player’s career allowing them to take what they’ve learned during countless games played in rec and travel leagues, and improve upon their skills.  It is also the place where legends are born, stars shine in high pressure situations and players show what they are made of. During March Madness raw emotion is on display for fans, players and coaches.  A win in the tournament advances your team to the next round and when you’re following your team through the brackets it feels like a personal victory when your bracket soars! The thrill of March Madness is that at any point your team can be eliminated or thrive against all odds creating an instant “Must See” event.

The game NBA players play is a very different game with best in class talent and a maturity that only comes from being the star or player under pressure over and over again.  Each player on an NBA roster was the best player on their college (or in some instances high school) teams.  They get paid to play night after night and to bring home a championship.  The NBA also drafts international players which help the league draw fans from all over, including celebrities and other high profile people who clamor for courtside seats and a chance to be part of the action. In many cities NBA basketball is an obsession.

From the fans perspective both games are evenly matched and you’d be hard pressed to convince a die-hard Knicks fan that watching the local college basketball team would be the same or vice versa; so let’s talk numbers.

College hoops start in the fall and hits its frenzied climax with March Madness where 68 teams battle it out during a single-elimination tournament played out over 30+ games.  Brackets are busted, Cinderella stories emerge and likely and unlikely heroes have the opportunity to show their grit in front of a global audience.  In 2013, the NCAA Tournament averaged 10.7 million viewers per game.  The Championship Game – Louisville Cardinals vs. Michigan Wolverines pulled in 23.4 million viewers. [Source: CBS Corp.]

The NBA Playoffs on the other hand is a four-part, best-of-seven elimination tournament among 16 teams between the Eastern and Western Conferences, ultimately deciding the final four teams who will play in the conference finals.  Battling it out the last two teams standing play a final best-of-seven series to win the championship.  The 2013 Playoffs averaged 17.7 million viewers per game while the Championship Game – Miami Heat vs. San Antonio Spurs captivated 26.3 million viewers. [Source: NBA.com]

Strictly looking at the numbers, the NBA is the winner but you can’t put numbers to a fans passion for their team so we want to know what you think.  Comment below or use #FAN @ticketsdotcom and tell us, which do you prefer: March Madness or the NBA Playoffs?

Tickets are available for NBA Playoffs here.
Image credit: wallethub.com

Looking Up

I recently watched the video “Look Up” (with more than 30 million views on YouTube in a week) which claims that technology is corrupting our country, our relationships, our children and that we are missing out on life by always looking down at our devices.  While we can all agree that people need to “look up”, engage and be present, there is a fine line between using technology and being completely consumed by it.  In truth, technology is a way of life personally and professionally and there are plenty of benefits that go along with this progress.  For instance, the freedom and mobility we have now would have been unfathomable twenty years ago when phones were still attached to the wall by long cords and you heard a dial tone before you connected to the internet.   Responsible technology consumption doesn’t limit interaction, it enriches it.

Our lives are enriched by the content and information available at our fingertips.  According to an article published by Science Daily (May 22, 2013), more than 90% of all the data in the world has been generated over the last two years.  Every 60 seconds there are 571 new websites created, more than 204 million emails sent, etc., etc. (source: www.domo.com).  That kind of immediate access and information sharing didn’t exist ten-twenty years ago.  Today the internet allows you to find the answer to any question in a matter of minutes, often time seconds.

Traveling to a new city you have never been to and you need a car or a taxi? Don’t worry; there’s an app for that. Need directions when you’re lost? Yup, there’s an app for that too. Not to mention apps that fully integrates your experience at stadiums, arenas and ballparks.  With the ability to check-in, upgrade your seats, pay for parking, order food or even distribute tickets to guests who haven’t arrived yet, technology makes attending live events easier than ever before.

Communication with friends and family, sharing photos or ideas and organizing events has never been simpler with Face Time, real time, Skype and a million other ways to stay connected.  Corporations also benefit by embracing technology to better communicate with their employees, clients and prospects, promote products, advertise and share news in real time.

The benefits of technology far outweigh the negatives.  It has forever changed the way we live and it is here to stay.  There is value in “Look Up” as a reminder not to let technology control or overtake you but instead embrace it and let it make your life richer and easier.  Disconnect every once in a while from it all, go outside, enjoy time with loved ones.  Encourage your kids to play with other kids and not just with a tablet or a console. Teach them to use technology responsibly, to enrich their lives while showing them the importance of human interaction.  Embrace life to its fullest but allow technology to be there when you want it.

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