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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.

CRM Integrators Who Are Leading the Industry with Tickets.com Technology

Tickets.com celebrates our Registered Developers – some of the brightest and most innovative minds in the technology, marketing and ticketing space.

A powerful Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform supplies you with the insight you need to deliver the right message to the right patron at the right time. We are proud to recognize three CRM integrators who are leading the industry with Tickets.com technology.

Learn how these talented innovators can help you reap the rewards of sustained relationships.

KORE Solutions can help your team not only reach ticket sales goals, but deepen your fan relationships, putting you in a position to secure more season ticket, suite, and sponsorship sales and increase lifetime value of your customers. KORE gives you an accurate, 360-degree view of ticketing and sponsorship within your native CRM to help you be more agile and strategic in decision-making and more effectively spot opportunities. Gain a more accurate view of your entire pipeline to better manage prospects and deals in progress. Drive greater team productivity with more agile processes and more effective execution of campaigns. Find new ways to delight ticket holders with the most accurate, complete picture of each customer in your database. Optimize processes for repeatable success with tracking and monitoring tools. Learn More: koresoftware.com



Fan Manager enables organizations to target, activate, and monetize their fan-based data intelligently. Its centralized, cloud-based software platform provides unified access to audience information, workflow triggers, and performance measurement across all customer channels.

Founded in 2012, Fan Manager helps dozens of professional sports and entertainment organizations optimize their engagement efforts across the full customer journey. The company is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. Learn more: fanmanager.com


MTP Software is a leading provider of hosted software solutions for sports and entertainment.

MTP Software’s flagship product, SCORE CRM is a fully hosted customer relationship management suite that brings the Sales Office and Box Office together through seamless, bi-directional integration with Tickets.com Provenue.  The result is a CRM solution that provides unprecedented productivity and visibility at an affordable price.

The SCORE CRM suite is a complete CRM solution which provides patron relationship management, real-time dashboards and analytics, social selling, loyalty tracking, email marketing, sponsorship asset inventory management, sales staff gamification, ticket redemption tracking, automated nurture emails, progressive profiling, VIP tracking and much more. Learn more: mtpsoftware.com/Products/ScoreCRM

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 allow Registered Developers to sell tickets, engage with patrons, and provide new insights. As an integrated application, actions are 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

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 solutions, please contact the team at PartnerServices@tickets.com.

Four Proven Methods of Digital Marketing

Our philosophy of marketing begins with its power to connect people with experiences. That power evolves from understanding the demands of today’s customers. Through a variety of marketing techniques and unique storytelling, we can directly connect you to the right patrons, at the right time, on the right device through the right channel.

Experience Is Everything!

Your patrons’ experience drives everything we do. It’s all about less waiting and more living. That’s why we provide venues and patrons with the most advanced digital marketing tools. We put together a list of the four most effective digital marketing techniques that your venue can take advantage of with a little help from Tickets.com.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM):

Did you know 7 in 10 live event attendees use search engines to research an event leading up to the occasion? (Statistics provided by Google, Inc)

Search Engine Marketing allows you to serve ads to patrons who are actively searching for specific terms related to your venue or upcoming shows and events.

SEM rewards you with new user acquisition and a healthy ROI. It’s every marketer’s best tool for capturing demand and driving conversions.

Remarketing 

96% of consumers leave a website before converting, and nearly 50% typically visit between 2-4 sites before making a purchase. (Statistics provided by Google, Inc)

The Tickets.com remarketing solution helps you to close this loop, and drive more sales by serving ads to previous site visitors across both Search and Display.

Simply place a single tag across your entire site and begin the process of reaching users who have already expressed an interest in your venue.

Similar Audiences (aka Prospecting)

An extension of remarketing, Similar Audiences helps you find users who share characteristics with your site visitors.

The Tickets.com look-a-like algorithm analyzes existing remarketing lists and scans the web looking for new users exhibiting similar behaviors.

Get started with Similar Audiences and drive sales from new, prospective customers today.

Paid Social Media

With 2.3 billion people using social media today, Tickets.com micro-targets patrons and potential patrons through geographic, demographic and special interests that represent your event and your brand. Increase your ROAS by targeting the right patrons.

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.

Together, let’s create a new experience today.

 

T.Cares Gives A Young Cancer Survivor The Opportunity Of A Lifetime

The T.Cares program, embedded into the culture of our company, is dedicated to making meaningful impacts on communities worldwide by working with nonprofits, like the Young and Brave Foundation, by creating extraordinary experiences at live entertainment events for individuals and families facing hardships.

No matter how strong of a person you may be, there’s nothing that can fully prepare you for cancer. However, there is the strength and support of others surrounding you that can make you feel like you can take on any challenge that comes your way. Over three years ago, Eli was diagnosed with cancer at the young age of two. He was diagnosed with B Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia after dealing with erratic fevers for about a month, excessive bruising and finally difficulty breathing and extreme fatigue.  He endured 3 ½ years of chemotherapy and was declared cured in July of 2016.

Though Eli and his family have been enduring one of the most difficult experiences of their lives, The Young and Brave, a foundation that is rooted in and dedicated to love, have been an indelible life-changing support to Eli and his family. What’s even more exciting, they opened the opportunity for the Tickets.com team to be a part of it as well.

YB_MedievalTimes-4

The Experience
T.Cares partnered with The Young and Brave Foundation to bring Eli and his family a different kind of experience at Medieval Times.

According to Eli’s family:
“Since his treatment, his immune system is pretty low. He tends to get sick easy and has a hard time fighting off any kind of bugs or viruses. We don’t like to make plans or tell them about anything exciting until the day of or before to prevent heartaches. It was a total surprise for him and his brothers and it made it so much more special of a day.

We arrived at Medieval Times early before the show and met some amazing people. We were informed that they were going to be treated to a special experience and that was an understatement. The staff was so nice and made us feel right at home. The boys were given a tour of the castle and got to meet “real live knights”. They were able to come down into the arena where they were given some beneficial fighting tips, they loved that of course (I mean, what brothers don’t like to swing swords at each other?) and got to see, touch and hold real weapons used during the tournament. They were also given the honor of choosing their colors and received matching shields and swords.

Eli chose the red knight, Andrew the yellow and Daniel the Black and white knight. Eli, we have called “our little lion” since the beginning of treatment because that kid was so brave! He never fussed or fought any of the Doctors or Nurses, not even when getting poked for labs or chemo. We had no idea, but the red knight’s symbol is a lion, so perfect! They cheered on their knights from the stands and at the end of the night, the red knight won! Eli was so happy! After the show, the knights greeted the guests and took pictures with the kids. Eli saw his red knight and ran into his arms yelling, “We won!” The red knight didn’t have to match his reaction and he went out of his way to do so… It literally made ours and Eli’s night!  All of the knights were so kind and willing to play along with our three rambunctious boys. It meant so much! We are so blessed to be loved by The Young and Brave Foundation. Thank you so much for an unforgettable experience you are some very loving and wonderful people!”

YB_MedievalTimes-1 YB_MedievalTimes-2

At Tickets.com, we believe that experience is everything, especially one that is full of excitement, and nothing makes our team more complete than knowing that we were able to provide someone with an experience that they will never forget.

Not only was the night of jousting enjoyable to Eli and his family, but it was a night to remember for all of us. Ed Gow, Vice President of Client Engagement at Tickets.com said: “I had the pleasure of spending the evening with Eli and his family as he and his older brothers Daniel and Andrew received a behind the scenes look at Medieval Times.  It was heartwarming to watch the three of them receive one-on-one battle training from the Knights on the floor of the arena and their awe as they saw the sparks fly (literally) up close.  We had a chance to meet the beautiful Spanish horses and were treated to a great dinner served Medieval Times style.”

YB_MedievalTimes-6  YB_MedievalTimes-3

We can’t wait to be part of the next experience!

More About The Young and Brave Foundation
Cancer affects nearly everyone these days, but those under the age of 30 are the unexpected ones. That’s who we are built for. Cancer is going to be the fight of any one’s young life. We know this, and we are here to help. In The Young and Brave Foundation’s words, We believe in you, we believe in LOVE, and we believe in your right to fight like hell!

More About Medieval Times
Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament is an interactive dinner theater for all ages. Housed inside an 11th-century castle replica, the experience features medieval style games, sword fighting, jousting, and horsemanship. Medieval Times holds approximately 4,000 shows across nine venues nationwide throughout the year and has served over 60 million guests since 1983. The action-packed live show makes each Medieval Times experience unique and exciting. Guests are encouraged to participate by dressing up in medieval wear, cheering for their favorite knights, and booing the villains. 

Knowledge Is Power! Highlights From Our Latest Releases

Tickets.com is thrilled to introduce the many new features available in recent releases. ProVenue 3.8.00, ProVenueOnline 63.0, and MyProVenue 1.9 include exciting new enhancements and features, all designed to deliver an optimal user-experience! What are we most excited about? We’re glad you asked. The following are highlights of some of our favorite new features:

ProVenue

  • New Transaction Summary, Transaction Detail, and Transaction Export reports allow authorized users to report on a patron’s transactional history
  • ‘Recent Orders’ and ‘Recent Patrons’ popups, available from any screen in ProVenue provide convenient new ways to return to recently accessed patron accounts and orders
  • A Rollover to Single Event feature provides the ability to roll seats from an event or Package Event List to a single inventoried or non-inventoried target event
  • New Regional Control Groups provide the ability to restrict the sale of event and package tickets by geographic region
  • “View/Restore Barcodes” functionality allows a user to restore an inactive barcode to the current active barcode for one or more tickets
  • A new “Skip Navigation View” setting will now bypass the Navigation Map for single seat map venues
  • Users now have the ability to open a cash drawer either manually or automatically from ProVenue
  • Three new Portal Roles and enhanced Organization-based security offer new self-service capabilities for clients sharing a single ProVenue instance

ProVenueOnline

  • Improvements in the selection and de-selection of events for Flex Package sales
  • Option to suppress seat and row designations for General Admission and Standing Room Only seats through MyTickets
  • New ‘greater than or equal’ setting for the number of seats replaced in a self-service exchange
  • Consign-Back offers, if unsold, automatically change from ‘pending’ to ‘expired’

MyProVenue

  • Addition of new seat map selection features:
    • Full selection of seats from Seat Maps, allowing patrons to navigate to individual Seat Maps to select seats
    • For single seat map venues, patrons are directly taken to a Seat Map skipping the need to interact with a Navigation Map
    • The interactive Scalable Vector Graphics map behavior has been improved to better handle mouse-clicks in areas on the map where text labels are present
  • Display of service charges in the cart, confirmation screen, and confirmation emails is now entirely driven by self-service setup in ProVenue, including the ability to group charges by Service Charge Group
  • A new Public Section Code provides more flexibility in how a section is displayed/labeled
  • Ability to display promotions configured in ProVenueOnline on the Event List
  • Price range displays have been enhanced in the Filter Options to improve user experience
  • Ability to select different Event Lists for the same client system across multiple venues

Thinking Future, Thought Leadership and Talking To Millennials

The Tickets.com Business Development Team had a dynamic 2016 renewing clients, signing new venues, and representing Tickets.com at industry conferences around the nation. We are extremely enthusiastic to welcome the Cincinnati Reds, Aberdeen Ironbirds, El Paso Chihuahuas, Round Rock Express, Akron Rubberducks, Memorial Hall and the Minot Rodeo to our family.
 
We are also proud to announce that a large number of our clients including University of Vermont, Theatre Memphis, Morgan Library, Alabama Theatre, City of Wichita Falls, among many others renewed their contracts, several of whom migrated or are currently migrating from our legacy platforms to ProVenue. These venues see the significant impact through continuing their relationship with Tickets.com and are taking advantage of our latest technologies. 
 
Tickets.com Chief Technology Officer, Derek Argobright, was a featured panelist at the annual FutureTix conference held in Las Vegas. Derek spoke about the growing effect that millennials have on the ticketing industry, ways to proactively entice this generation through new technologies, and how to stay relevant with the largest consumer generation in history.  Want to learn more?  Contact us or join us at ProVenue Exchange in St. Petersburg, Florida. 

T.Cares in Australia Helps Raise over $100,000 For Salvation Army

Wollongong’s Santa Claus Pub Crawl is in its 23rd year, and fittingly, took over 23 venues in the city for an epic Christmas-themed jaunt on Saturday the 10th of December. Funds raised from wristband sales, raffle draws and donations go toward the Salvation Army for projects in the Illawarra area, south of Sydney and the Disabled Surfers Association South Coast Branch. The event raised over $100,000 for these charities and was attended by around ten thousand people all dressed in costume, as Santa, Mrs. Claus and other holiday themed attire.

The event is recognized as “the longest continually run Santa Pub Crawl in the world”, and they proudly claim to have never had a major violent incident in the pub crawl’s history. Founder Neil Webster has a personal interest in this statistic – the event started 23 years ago, but it was in 1997 when Webster himself was the victim of a serious alcohol-related bashing on Christmas Eve in 1997. He said he then rejigged the Santa pub crawl to help promote a positive, safe culture around nightlife, and claimed there had never been a major violent incident in the pub crawl’s two-decade history.

Webster added that having everyone dressed in silly costumes probably helps this safety record. “It’s hard to get into a punch-up when you’ve got 5000 Santas standing behind you,” he laughed. “Everyone is like part of the same team, it shines through. It breaks down a lot of social norms. Normally you go to a pub, you usually don’t talk to people in other groups, but here, everyone is your friend because you’re all here for the same cause. You have little discussions about costumes.”

“Those barriers of talking to a stranger are out the window. Everyone is your friend. We’ve lost count of the number of people who met at the pub crawl and are now together or married. It’s those barriers breaking down.”

Tickets.com has supported the event since 2010 and provides event management advice and ticketing services.

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