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.

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.”