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We’d like to welcome Brian Ellis to TicketBiscuit! Brian comes to us from Vertigo Software in Point Richmond, Califormia, joining the team September 29 as a Senior Software Engineer. Brian has several years experience in everything from Sharepoint to Silverlight. He is a Microsoft Certified Database Administrator, a Scrum Alliance Certified Scrum Master, and a University of South Alabama Research Scholar. Brian has spent his career making software better, and we are excited about him joining the team.
Check out Brian’s Linked In Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/cisellis
Our very own Chief Operating Officer John Burdett was quoted in the online edition of the Wall Street Journal today, in an article about recent rankings of Executive MBA Programs. You can find the article here:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122244975223379303.html
Congrats John!
"Sorry Guv Nah."
I guess the Bobbies in Britain really do believe that the Flipmode Squad is dan-ger-ous. Pollstar reported yesterday that Busta Rhymes was detained and refused entry into Britain. Here’s the link to the full article. Busta was in Britan to do a charity concert with Orange RockCorps. Remember them? I blogged them a few weeks ago (link).
According to the Pollstar article,
Rhymes, 36, was detained at London City Airport by immigration officers, who said their refusal was based on “unresolved convictions” in the United States.
Inside sources say that the “unresolved convictions” had to do with his flagrant abuse of the English language and androgynous fashion choices.
People, in general, hate convenience fees. Being in the ticketing business, that’s something we hear on a daily basis. Ticketmaster may not have introduced the concept of a convenience fee but they certainly are the preeminent harbinger of hated fees in most peoples’ minds. So if so many people hate the fees, why not get rid of them? Well, Ticketmaster is now a publicly traded company. Getting rid of fees would destroy their entire business model, and executives would probably spend some time in prison. Not good. Even with the ascendance of Live Nation as a formidable competitor to Ticketmaster, fees will be a part of the equation – we are stuck with them.
The problem with fees arises with the perception that the Internet is free, therefore all strictly internet based transactions should be free. If I can order tickets with MY computer over MY internet connection and print them out with MY ink, what am I paying you fees for?
Okay, so fees are hated. But, can ticket sellers do anything about convenience fees? YES. Savvy ticket sellers will make them transparent. Solutions like ours allow venues, promoters, and artists to roll the fees into the ticket price and appear invisible to the customer. Will customers complain of higher ticket prices? Temporarily, but right now folks are used to paying more for everything – you needn’t look far to find another doom and gloom story about the economy. The risk is that a price bump will impact sales, but you can likely look at past sales data to mitigate that risk. The “no convenience fees” approach can even be an effective marketing tool, since it is so rare. Your web sales will DEFINITELY increase, sales through your more expensive channels (phone, walk up) will decrease, and in the end, you will make more money.
Interested in trying it? Give us a shout and we’ll show you how.
Jeff and I are in Colorado Springs, Colorado today at the Association of Railroad Museums annual conference. We flew out here to introduce our latest product, WhistleTix. WhistleTix is a ticketing solution built for railroad museums and tourist railroads. If you’ve never visited Colorado Springs, you owe it to yourself to visit at least once. The scenery is simply gorgeous – here’s a shot of Pikes Peak taken from the window seat:
So what’s different about WhistleTix? WhistleTix has enhancements that allow trains to change train car configurations on the fly, and has a streamlined user interface to make it easier on volunteers to use the point of sale system. Those features are in addition to all of the great standard features in the core TicketBiscuit system.
You can read the full copy of the press release here.
We had a great time yesterday. Jeff and I met several interesting railfans and train characters, and we’re looking forward to the remainder of the conference. Here’s Jeff hard at work, and a sweet shot of our new tradeshow display in action:
The Biscuit Team (or at least a couple of us) are packing up and heading to Colorado Springs, CO this week for the Association of Railway Museums (ARM) Conference, where we will be hosting a seminar on automated ticketing and mingling with the hardcore railfans. We’ll be blogging from the event AND we’ve got some special news in store for later this week, so stay tuned.
- Pikes Peak in Colorado Springs
It’s been a while since we talked about BattlePass, our first product line extension in the history of the company. BattlePass is doing extremely well, with new MMA Promoter clients being added daily. We launched a myspace page shortly after we released the product, and quickly made “friends” with Dana White (head of UFC), Chuck Liddell, and many other icons of the sport.
Check out our myspace page by clicking here
Speaking of Liddell, did anyone see the fight this weekend?
ouch.
Ah, the secondary market. We primary market innovators honestly get a little chuckle when the industry giants drop the ball like our good friends over at TicketsNow (aka Ticketmaster) did this week.
According to several ticket brokers, TicketsNow was forced by the United States Tennis Association (USTA) to temporarily suspend selling tickets for the event earlier this week after there were complaints from angry fans who did not receive their tickets. The company fixed the problem, but then hastily crafted a new policy that it would not allow same-day ticket sales for the remainder of the tournament and would only allow tickets to be sold 24 hours in advance.
Not a good thing when one of your big clients forces you to stop selling tickets. In other news, the price of NFL football tickets is on the rise. According to a recent study by Team Marketing Report, the average ticket price increased by almost 8 percent to $72.20. The two most expensive teams? The New England Patriots (of course) and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (wait, what?)
Myself? I am a college football fan. The NFL lacks soul. Discuss.
If you weren’t living under a rock today, you probably heard that Google released a new web browser called Chrome. Initial reviews of the web browser have been extremely positive: here’s what TechCrunch and Scoble had to say. We’ve been doing some testing at The Biscuit and TicketBiscuit seems to run extra fast in Chrome.
Give it a try and let us know what you think. Post your comments here or send us feedback at support@ticketbiscuit.com. As always, thanks for using The Biscuit!
Clay Aiken is gay. And the sky is blue.
September 24, 2008 in Commentary, celebrity news | Tags: celebrity news, Commentary | by ehoush | No comments
Only because I promised a long long time ago to occasionally write about celebrity news do I mention this. Clay Aiken, in the latest edition of People magazine, has affirmed that yes, he is gay. Now this will come as no shocker to 99.99% of the population over 16 years old, but I can imagine his revelation has broken the heart of many a “clay-mate.”
Why would he do this (this is where I tie this thought to ticketing). Ticket sales for his concerts had been on a downward trend since 2006. He’s recently announced that he’s re-joining Spamalot on Broadway. His career has morphed and his new career will not suffer from this revelation. In fact, it will likely bolster his Broadway fan base significantly. Smart money says his handlers finally gave him the go-ahead for Clay to be Clay.
Ok so Clay was no shock. But I thought this would be a good time to look at five other celebrities who are probably gay, but just not at the point in their careers when they can reveal it yet.
1. Shepard Smith (broadcaster) – The rumor mill was hot a few months ago that Shep is gay, but the most telling evidence is that when asked about his private life in a Playboy magazine article, Shep responded that he doesn’t” talk about those things.” Really? Seems like pretty straightforward question: “Do you prefer males or females?”
2. Britney Spears (singer) – She’s kind of a train wreck but seems to be getting her priorities together as of late. Unlike Lindsay Lohan, who is using who-cares-if-they’re-true rumors of her sexuality to stoke the ashes of her dwindling career, Brit will come out soon and announce that she does, in fact, look forward to a lifetime of “putting a Madonna” on more females.
3. Justin Timberlake and The rest of N Sync (singers, actors) –Come on guys, Lance came out, you can too. Lance Bass came out in a People magazine interview in 2006 and enraged the GLBT community with his use of the term “straight acting gays.”
4. Matthew McConaughey (actor, musician)- Wow, I will catch some flack for this one., but let me present my case. First, he’s not married. Sure, he’s dated the likes of Sandra Bullock, Kate Hudson, and Penelope Cruz. He’s even got a baby with a Brazilian supermodel. I have one word for you : beards. Let’s not forget also Matthew’s much publicized naked bongo party in Austin. What was not publicized as widely is that he was dancing around naked playing the bongos with a dude (Cole Hauser). I have a lot of good friends, I play a mean bongo, and I have a few drinks from time to time, but there has never been a time when I thought the three should mesh into a naked dancefest.
5. Tom Cruise (actor) – So much effort has been put forth into convincing the world that Tom is not gay, we have no choice but to believe otherwise. From the barrage of gay-related lawsuits, to the twisted bizarre marriage to Katie Holmes, the evidence is significant. Ask yourself this: why was it easy to believe Tom was a vampire but it is so hard to believe his marriage is real? Answer: His acting was better in the vampire movie. I have thoughts on why Tom can’t come out, but won’t say them for fear of offending (why start now, right?). I will say that I think it has nothing to do with his career as an actor. And I will leave it at that.
I could go on- there are probably three or four noted country singers, a few pro football and basketball players, and more than one prominent political figure we could add to this list. Who do you think will be next?