You are currently browsing the monthly archive for March 2009.
A colleague forwarded me this article today – apparently Spirit Airline is considering making customers pay for the privilege of booking tickets anywhere other than their ticket counters in airports.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123604492886515417.html
Wow. Spirit must have some Ticketmaster folks on its board.
This is effing hilarious, and a good example of why the air travel industry is in such dire straits. I assume that Spirit Airlines either has paid up front costs for their reservation system or pays an annual licensing fee, but I doubt the cost ties directly to usage volume. I further suppose that the costs incurred by having ticket counter agents and space at airports exceeds the costs of the online reservation system.
So the airline is, in effect, penalizing consumers for utilizing a more efficient means of transaction. WTF? I can follow (but not necessarily agree with) the thinking behind charging fees for checked baggage or in flight refreshments. These things drive up costs. But not online booking.
What if other industries followed suit? Fees for online banking? For booking hotels online? For using the drive thru at restaurants? For pumping your own gas?
The parallels to live entertainment are obvious. I have often wondered why so few promoters and venues choose to flip the common fee arrangement on its head. That is, charge fees for a box office (ticket counter) sale but offer incentives (no fees) to purchase online. We have a couple of clients who do business this way, and their online sales represent over 90% of their total ticket sales. Self Service is more efficient.
If customers and computers are doing the work, it frees up your resources to grow the business. Our system is one of the few ticketing systems out there with the flexibility to allow venues and promoters to set the fee structure that their customers see (completely independent of the per ticket fees we charge for providing ticketing services). In essence, it empowers businesses to encourage the self service option.
It’s time for more businesses to embrace a shifting paradigm. Encourage the efficient transaction and grow your business the right way, instead of taking the easy route and squeezing your customers who self serve.
Oh, and Spirit, if you guys want to REALLY grow revenues, you should try an online check-in fee, a boarding fee, or even a “seat bottom cushion flotation device” fee.
Geez.
Why the Ticketmaster – Live Nation merger will get approved, and what to expect.
March 3, 2009 in Commentary, ticketing news | Tags: house, Hurwitz, IMP, JAM, live nation, merger, Mickleson, senate, ticketing, ticketmasster | by ehoush | 1 comment
Last week both the House and Senate committees grilled panelists including Ticketmaster CEO Irving Azoff and Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino about the impending merger. Bill Wyman (@hitsville), myself (@ticketbiscuit) and a handful of others covered the events via twitter. You can check out the live stream here and here.
The Senate session was brutal. Seth Hurwitz of IMP Productions and Jerry Mickleson of JAM laid into the behemoth companies like cold assassins, and both Azoff and Rapino stayed on the defensive most of the time. The overwhelming feeling coming out of this session was that the merger would be very bad for independent promoters.
My favorite part of this session was when one audience member said to a panelist (probably Hurwitz) – ‘Dude, you were under oath!” After the cameras had quit rolling but the mics were still on. One telling moment was when Mickelson approached Azoff after the hearings in a sort of détente manner, assuming him that the testimony was not a personal attack. It is clear where the power is currently, and the consequences of upsetting the forces that be (see Pearl Jam).
Then came the House session, and it looked like Rapino had taken a crash course from Dale Carnegie. He was much more polished and convincing, helped somewhat by the undereducated committee and their softball inquiries. Robert W. Doyle, a partner with Doyle, Barlow & Mazard in DC had some excellent sound bytes, but despite his eloquent words and pointed delivery, I came out of this session pretty convinced that the merger will pass muster and Live Nation Entertainment will be born.
My favorite part of this session was when Peter Luukko (President of Comcast-Spectacor) was attempting to show that because he has his own in-house ticketing system, that Ticketmaster does not have a stranglehold on the primary market. Upon continued grilling, he revealed that his ticketing system is Paciolan, owned by Ticketmaster. Of course, the panel didn’t pounce on this, to my dismay.
Notably missing from both sessions were the voices of the artists, venues, and fans. Because of the softball treatment from the committees, and due in part to the absence of these voices, I think the merger will happen. Here’s what to expect:
A question I get often is: what does this mean for us (TicketBiscuit)? From a business perspective, the news of this merger has had positive effects. Venues and promoters are looking for options. They see that this much centralization of power is not good for the overall ecosystem. With our Music Liberation Fund, we’re removing the risk of switching away from Ticketmaster. And, we’re the only ticketing company continuing to invest, daily, in tools that help our clients sell more tickets. It’s always been our position to compete well, execute flawlessly, and do the right thing for our clients. And we’ll do that, merger or not.
Spread the Biscuit Love:
Like this: