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/.

The UK team took some time away from the office last week to support the Milton Keynes Christian Foundation’s Growing People project as part of the UK T.Cares program.

A worldwide initiative, the T.Cares program sees Tickets.com employees better the communities where we work and live, by supporting local community efforts with raising funds for various charities and providing community service.

The latest organisation supported by the UK team is the Milton Keynes Christian Foundation. Their Growing People project is a horticultural social enterprise, which works with disengaged young people to grow organic seasonal fresh fruit, veg, salad and flowers for the local community at their Urb Farm based in Wolverton.

Natalie Jones, internal sales manager at Tickets.com, was part of the committee that organised the day. She said: “Initiatives like Urb Farm really do make a difference to our local community and we were only too happy to dedicate our time to support the project.

“A few members of our team have previously attended open days at the farm and experienced the fantastic work that the Milton Keynes Christian Foundation does to support those in need, so it was a great fit for our T.Cares program.”

The Tickets.com team spent the afternoon of Friday 22^nd September helping out at the farm, gardening, tidying, and providing general maintenance work to support the staff who run the project.

Lisa Hodgson, learning tree / 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. Those were all jobs that have been on our ‘to do list’ all season but we just haven’t had the time, so 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!”

For more information about the Milton Keynes Christian Foundation and their work, visit http://www.mkchristianfoundation.co.uk.

To learn more about T.Cares and to make suggestions for communities and projects to be considered as part of the program, visit https://provenue.tickets.com/uk/t-cares.

It’s been a busy few months for Tickets.com UK with a number of clients going live with ProVenue®.

As Tickets.com’s most advanced system, ProVenue® is a fully customisable ticketing solution that not only provides industry-leading technology, but also enables venues to capture, retrieve and own their customer data. Click here to find out more.

The latest venues to introduce the system include Wigan Little Theatre, Watersmeet in Rickmansworth and Chipping Norton Theatre, all existing Tickets.com clients who have migrated across from ProVeneDatabox™.

These latest signings are in addition to the Harlequin Theatre and the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre, both of whom moved onto ProVenue® in May and have already seen online ticket sales and bookings boosted by the introduction of the new system.

Trinity Arts Centre in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, is another longstanding UK client that recently launched ProVenue®. The popular theatre, which hosts live music, productions, stand-up comedy and cinema, has been a Tickets.com customer for over 15 years and migrated across from ProVenueDatabox™ as part of its strategy to drive online ticket sales.

“We’d been using ProVenueDatabox™ for many years but as our customers’ buying behaviours have changed, so have our technology requirements, so the move to ProVenue® was a natural migration for us,” said Lisa Weller, Centre Manager at Trinity Arts Centre.

As part of the system upgrade, Trinity Arts Centre also introduced MyProVenue™, Tickets.com’s next-generation web application, to optimise patrons’ mobile ticketing experience. The new interface streamlines everything, from buying tickets to managing account preferences, within a responsive framework for mobile and tablet.

And since the introduction of MyProVenue™, Trinity Arts Centre has reported a significant increase in online sales, as Lisa confirmed: “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 migration across to the new system.

“This has meant not only an increase in revenue for the Centre, but a much more efficient process for our Box Office team, who have been very well supported by Tickets.com throughout, ensuring minimal disruption for both our staff and our customers.”

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’s Richard Baldwin has completed the notorious Land’s End to John O’Groats cycle challenge, cycling an average of 96 miles a day for ten consecutive days!

Arriving at the finish line on Saturday 2^nd September, Richard – Tickets.com’s Manager, Product Management EMEA – made the journey back home to Milton Keynes the following day and even cycled to the office on Monday – quite the effort!

The route covered many picturesque locations including Dartmoor, the Wye Valley and the Lake District. Day Eight presented the most challenging ride, up and over the Cairngorm Mountains in Scotland with an elevation of 2420m (7939ft) – what Richard wasn’t told was that the second summit, the Lecht, was in the top ten toughest cycle climbs in Britain! Luckily the weather was forgiving though, with only one hour of rain for the duration of the trip.

Richard took on the feat after recently turning 50 and wanting to experience the ‘ultimate physical challenge’, he took the opportunity to also raise money for the mental health charity MIND. The trip itself was completely self-funded, with all donations that Richard received going directly to the charity to fund their support services for people with mental health issues.

After finishing the challenge, Richard said, “I will probably never push myself to this extent again, but I am delighted to have completed the trip and raise money for a fantastic charity that has helped my family in the past. I’ve also created some lasting memories and had fantastic support along the way. To everyone that has donated, I just want to say a massive thank you!”

At the time of writing, Richard’s Just Giving page had raised an amazing £1,359.43, 34% over his original target of £1000. The page is still live and taking donations so if you would like to contribute, please click here.

We would like to say a big congratulations and well done to Richard from everyone at Tickets.com on a phenomenal achievement!

The INTRUST Bank Arena is a multi-purpose facility and second largest indoor Arena in the state of Kansas. Featuring 22 suites, 40 loge boxes and more than 300 premium seats, the venue has a capacity of more than 15,000. The venue hosts 100+ events every year. Additionally, the Arena serves as the home venue for the Champions Hockey League’s Wichita Thunder and Champions Indoor Football’s Wichita Force.

What makes INTRUST Bank Arena unique is its full service in-house ticketing system, Select-A-Seat. In addition to the Arena, the system manages ticketing for a number of local venues, including the 1,200 seat Orpheum Theatre, Scottish Rite Temple, Wichita Grand Opera, and the U.S. Baseball Park. The system also manages a variety of large events, such as the Miss Kansas Pageant and the National Baseball Congress Tournament.

The ease-of-use, flexibility, and functionality of ProVenue® are key features in managing the variety of events held at INTRUST Bank Arena and other venues using Select-A-Seat. As Matt Hackler, Ticketing Client Representative for Select-A-Seat at INTRUST Bank Arena, explains: “Before migrating across to ProVenue®, we reviewed options from other ticketing providers and felt that the Tickets.com® system was not only best suited to our current requirements, but would be able to meet the ever-changing requirements of our clients.”

The technology provided by Tickets.com® has also underpinned the Arena’s Digital Initiative: “Our ticketing system has allowed us to make a number of significant steps forward in our digital strategy,” confirms Hackler.

“The white-label solution that Tickets.com® provides has not only enabled us to implement the technology as part of our Select-A-Seat in-house system brand, but its open architecture means that we can integrate it with other systems, including TixTrack – which provides automated historical reporting. This has been a great source of information for not only us, but our promoters, too.”

Hackler recalls one particular event where the partnership with Tickets.com® delivered: “In 2015, we welcomed Garth Brooks to INTRUST Bank Arena and we needed to ensure we could sell a high volume of tickets and quickly.

“We started working on this with Tickets.com® almost a year in advance of the on-sale date and together we created a plan that managed every detail; from the flow of information and messaging to how we would deal with the amount of orders we anticipated to take via phone – the Tickets.com® team even stepped in to support us with this. Our extensive planning and partnership with Tickets.com® meant that we were able to sell more than 65,000 tickets in one hour and successfully execute the ticketing for six sold-out shows – the promoter even referenced how good the sales conversion rate was!”

Service Delivery Director Andy Buckland recently represented Great Britain at the 61^st Coupe Aéronautique Gordon Bennett (The Gordon Bennett Gas Balloon Race).  Often referred to as ‘the Olympics of ballooning’, the Gordon Bennett Gas Balloon Race was initiated by adventurer and newspaper tycoon James Gordon Bennett Jr. in 1906.

The objective of the race is simple – fly the furthest straight-line distance from the launch site without landing. This year’s start point was in the Swiss town of Epagny, where 22 teams representing 13 countries set off on the evening of Friday 8^th September. The teams then had until Monday morning to travel as far as possible.

Andy took on the role of Crew Chief for his fourth year with the GBR-01 team, the only British team taking part in the 2017 race. They set off from Epagny at 19:30 CEST on the Friday and maintained flight for an impressive 37 hours and 41 minutes before landing in Burztynowo, Poland at 09:11 on Sunday. Their flight path saw them fly north east out of Switzerland and into southern Germany, before heading north through Czechia and into Poland. Their final distance of 1139.29 km put them in a record best equalling ninth place overall.

Andy said afterwards, “Representing your country in any competition is a proud moment and is guaranteed to bring out the patriot in all of us. I think we can be proud of our performance as a team and use this experience to help with going even further next time around.”

The winning team was from France who made it all the way to Võru, Estonia to be crowned new World Champions.

Everyone at Tickets.com would like to congratulate Andy and the rest of the GB team on their impressive performance!

For more information on The Coupe Aéronautique Gordon Bennett (The Gordon Bennett Gas Balloon Race) please click here.

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.