RSS Feeds are now active on all accounts!

This week we activated RSS feeds for all client accounts. You can access the RSS feed for your account by customizing the following address:

http://www.ticketbiscuit.com/eventlist.rss?ack=ACCOUNTKEY where ACCOUNTKEY is the part of your TicketBiscuit URL immediately following www.ticketbiscuit.com. The TicketBiscuit URL can be found in the backend under Account > Account Details at the bottom right of the page. 

For instance, if the ticketbiscuit URL is www.ticketbiscuit.com/workplay, the correctly formed RSS address is http://www.ticketbiscuit.com/eventlist.rss?ack=workplay

For those of you who are new to RSS, it’s basically a simple way for your ticket buyers to subscribe to your upcoming shows as they are activated in the system – they can be automatically notified whenever you put tickets on sale. Learn more about RSS by watching this video, it does a pretty good job explaining the benefits.

Some tips:

• Put an RSS icon in the header of your website and link it to your RSS feed. Savvy web surfers will know what to do. You can find some RSS icons here.
• Publicize the availability and address of your RSS feed via your newsletter.
• Use services like rss2twitter , twitterfeed, and ping.fm to automatically update your twitter or myspace pages with your new events.
• Sign up for a feedburner account at www.feedburner.com and import your RSS feed into it. Then, you can get detailed statistics on how many people are reading your feed.

For help or questions about RSS, contact our support team.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 28, 2009 – LOS ANGELES, CA, – The Jon Lovitz Comedy Club opens its doors this weekend, and Co-Owner Frank Kelley isn’t shy about his aspirations – he wants to have the top club in Los Angeles. The idea, according to Kelley and Lovitz, is to offer an alternative to the dimly lit showroom and common black-box stage – “the club will be bright and tropical,” according to their website.

But building a unique club with marquee talent is only part of the equation when the pockets of Americans are feeling the pinch, and most are making cuts to their discretionary expenses like live entertainment. Clubs like Lovitz’s may be competing with literally hundreds of other entertainment events on any given night. To get and keep the attention of potential ticket buyers, Comedy Club owners like Lovitz and Kelley are increasingly turning to Social Media. From Twitter to Facebook and YouTube, the comedy industry is realizing that the online space is a fertile environment for nurturing their fan base.

TicketBiscuit , a ticketing system provider headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama, offers several features that help comedy clubs promote their events via popular social networks. Lovitz and Kelley became TicketBiscuit clients earlier this year.”When Jon and I decided to open our own club, I knew what I needed my ticketing system to do to help run the business. TicketBiscuit is perfect for us.” One of the most popular features of TicketBiscuit is the ability of the system to instantly post event details to a client’s Facebook Page and keep them updated. Another feature, Promotozoa, enables web visitors and ticket buyers to share event information quickly across over 30 popular social networks and web sites.

TicketBiscuit CEO Jeff Gale says that the company will continue to find ways to make its ticketing system help clients sell more tickets and foster online fan interaction. “Businesses are beginning to learn more and more about the importance of social networks and how to build community – our system makes that process much easier.”

Another Los Angeles club, the World Famous Comedy Store, recently became a TicketBiscuit client as well. Marketing Director Alf LaMont says of the relationship: “TicketBiscuit blew us away. The marketing tools they provide really help us sell more tickets. From Facebook integration, to the automatic website updates, to the built- in email blast engine, to the mobile phone ticketing– TicketBiscuit was the obvious choice for us.”

About TicketBiscuit: TicketBiscuit, founded in 2001, provides proprietary, web-based ticketing systems and box office software to over 400 venues and 200 clients nationwide, including over 20 of the nation’s top comedy clubs. Learn more at www.ticketbiscuit.com.

This is the second article in a series where we pick the brains of live entertainment promoters to discover their tips and techniques for staying successful amidst worsening economic times. If you’ve got some good tips you’re willing to share, please email Eric Housh or DM @ticketbiscuit.

Sequoia Slentz is an independent promoter that does events all over the country through his company CleanBox Entertainment. He is the booking agent for the “Killer’s of Comedy” which features comedians from the Howard Stern show.  Sequoia also books all of the West Coast Shows for “The Fab Faux,” a Beatles tribute band featuring Will Lee from David Letterman’s show and Jimmy Vivino from Conan O’Brien’s. 

I caught up with Sequoia the first time on January 20th, four days before the scheduled Fab Faux show at the Orpheum in Los Angeles. “At this point last year, I had sold this show out- 1400 tickets – without spending a dime on advertising,” he told me, continuing, “this year, I’ve done it all – radio, mailers, you name it, but to no effect.” Four days left until show time, and Sequoia had almost half of the house left to sell.

This tale is all too common lately- promoters struggle to sell tickets in the face of an economy that has forced people to eliminate line items from their budgets. Line items that are typically seen as discretionary, such as concert tickets, are often the first things to go.

The next time I talked to Sequoia was last Thursday, January 29. The Fab Faux show did not sell out, but he did move enough tickets to make money. I asked him to share his secrets for success.

Negotiate, Negotiate, Negotiate!

The thing about the economy is that it impacts almost everyone, and that includes venues, radio stations, hotels, and many other businesses. This opens up incredible opportunities. “The idea is to spread the deficit around. Radio stations need to sell ads. Hotels need to fill rooms. Venues need shows. We all need each other, we gotta help each other out,” Sequoia states. He advises to negotiate with the venues for discounted rates, and with radio stations for discounted air time or ticket giveaways. “Radio stations have an incredible amount of inventory, and they’re willing to deal to sell them all.”

Working with Hotels was effective for Sequoia as well. As part of his effort to increase sales, Sequoia struck a deal with the Kyoto Grand Hotel to offer discounted tickets to hotel visitors. After the deal was sealed, he was approached by four other hotels wanting to ink similar partnerships. “If these guys have empty rooms, they’re losing money – so again, you can help each other out.” He says to also negotiate for inclusion in email blasts sent from the hotel, venue, or radio stations to their respective customer or fan lists. “It’s free and easy – most of the time they will be glad to.”

Being creative also helps. For this last show, Sequoia approached a Professor of the Music Institute and convinced the professor to give his class extra credit for attending the show and writing a paper on it.

Use the Tech Tools

Sequoia uses email marketing religiously. “I’ll use it to communicate with my lists, and I used promo codes to give folks the opportunity to buy tickets at a discount price.” While promo codes are a very effective way of generating sales and tracking marketing effectiveness, Sequoia cautions against the “double pitch.” “If I send an email out on the on-sale date, and someone buys a ticket at full price, then I send that person another email closer to the date announcing half price tickets, one of two things will happen. Either they will become trained to wait for the discount, or worse, they will get mad and not buy any more tickets at all. Both are bad, obviously.”

He says the way to avoid the double pitch is through careful customer management or third party surplus ticket sellers. “I used a surplus seller for this show and it ended up putting an additional $3k in my pocket at the very last minute. I was very happy with it.” Surplus sellers have opt-in databases of people who agree to be notified when discount tickets become available, so the dangers of discounting are mitigated.

Pay attention to the details

“The littlest mistakes can kill your operation. In 2008, I put the tickets for the Fab Faux show on sale in early October, and the show sold out without me spending a dime in advertising. This year, I put them on sale a month later- in November.” While this may sound harmless to the lay person, Sequoia says it was probably a key factor in the slow sales. “Sure, all of the bad economic news was weighing on people’s minds, but also, in November people are thinking about Thanksgiving, and Christmas, and travel, and mentally budgeting. The entire frame of mind changes.” He advises that promoters pay close attention to on-sale dates and times, and the trends of how the tickets move. “I’ve already put the tickets for the October 2009 Show on sale,” he added.

Stick it out

Business will continue to be tough for promoters, with recent estimates saying that the economic recession will last well into 2010. But while the business is admittedly tougher, Sequoia says it’s actually good for his operation. “We’re learning a lot and having to become better and more creative. Not all promoters will come out of this, but if you can stick it out, you will be positioned securely.”

Visit CleanBox Entertainment on the Web

CleanBox News Blog

This is the first article in a series where we pick the brains of live entertainment promoters to discover their tips and techniques for staying successful amidst worsening economic times. If you’ve got some good tips you’re willing to share, please email Eric Housh or DM @ticketbiscuit.

While many concert promoters and live entertainment acts are struggling with the fallout of the economic recession, Josh Gair of Impact Entertainment Services in Orlando, Florida, says people are attending events more than ever. The key, he says, is using technology in a smart way to spread the word and reach fans. This approach, he says, helps him fill the house and keep costs down.

Using the Tools

“I use every free tool that I can, anything to help spread the word,” Gair says. “If we book a celebrity for an event, I’ll immediately post it to twitter and facebook, and encourage my network to re-tweet. A lot of times, I will get direct messages back from leads that often turn into business.” Gair is a poster representative of a movement that is rapidly gaining steam amongst live event promoters – acknowledging the importance of internet-based networking tools and using them to find audiences. Gair argues that it’s pretty much a necessity in today’s game. “I think that those who aren’t leveraging these tools are just too busy doing the business to slow down and realize the potential,” he states.

But that oversight may prove costly. In a recent interview with John Gerome, Gary Bongiovanni of Pollstar indicated that though the2008 numbers were good for the live event industry, they don’t necessarily predict a rosy 2009. He indicates that most of the tickets for events in the winter season were actually sold well in advance, before the whole economic picture was understood. So in short, staying profitable in the live entertainment industry in 2009 will require some innovation.

“It’s key to know your audience and figure out how to connect with them;” Gair explains, “our target audience is a content-hungry generation. Our blog gets about 300-400 hits per day, and it is translating into real leads.” He explains that a lot of industry blogs fall short because they are all about self promotion and hold no value to the reader. “I write stuff that I would want to read,” he adds. Good content is only a part of a bigger system, involving cross promotion across several web properties and physical pieces of collateral. “When I publish a blog, I’ll post a notification to twitter and my facebook groups, and start a discussion in the LinkedIn groups I am a part of. The only thing I haven’t done yet is YouTube, but it is in the works. And of course, my web info is on my business card as well.”

But Gair’s approach extends far beyond internet tactics, as he considers PR to be a crucial aspect to a successful event as well. “Never underestimate the value of free press,” he states, “at a recent event we had a celebrity performer do an impromptu unannounced mini-show in the city. It was incredibly effective at generating buzz and free media for our event. Think of tactics that will go viral, that will get people talking.” The only common e-tactic that Impact doesn’t use is email. “It’s just so impersonal, there’s no air of exclusivity to it. It has no personality. People want to feel special, bottom line, and email doesn’t accomplish that.”

With Social Networking and Internet tactics, Gair says it’s key to go into it with the right mindset. “You don’t do it to make money. But after a while, if you keep giving, you will get things in return. That’s our strategy.”

About Impact Entertainment:  Impact Entertainment, based in Orlando, Florida, has been enhancing events with premeir talent, top quality entertainers, and celebrity appearances for over a decade.   

Visit Impact Entertaiment on the web

Impact Entertains Weblog

Josh Gair on Twitter

Josh Gair on LinkedIn

A few days ago I wrote a post about the concert industry being in recession. I probably should have said ticketed events in general, because the emails I received shortly afterward certainly would indicate that the current economic climate is impacting more than music shows. Museums, comedy clubs, theatres – the impact is universal across the board.

It’s pretty common behavior. Times get uncertain and people start cutting back on expenditures. Dining out, live entertainment, the movies- these are pretty much seen as expendable line items on personal budgets once the belts tighten. Recessionary times don’t have to mean that business grinds to a halt though. You can still fill the house and invest in your club’s marketing during down times, as long as you spend wisely. The secret is to choose techniques that will create fans of your club or promotion, not just the performer or entertainer who happens to be there. Here are a few tips:

1. Get social. If you don’t have a Facebook page, get one. Offer incentives to locals who become fans on Facebook. Print your facebook profile address on your tickets and link to it from your website. Once fans sign up via Facebook, you have a fast, easy, and free way to connect with them (and for them to connect with others). Here is an app which will allow you to create an easy to remember facebook profile address. Also consider signing up for a Twitter account.
2. Get charitable. Consider hosting a free concert or event with the price of admission being donations to a local charity. A friend of ours named David Oblas recently held an MMA fight in Georgia where the only price of admission was a toy for Toys for Tots. It was a raging success, and several people attended the fight who had never been to a fight before. And of course the press loved it. So let’s see- Dave got new fans, great press, and tons of community goodwill. How much is that worth to you?
3. Get data. Roy Englebrecht has sold out fights in southern California for over 20 years, yet barely invests in advertising at all. How does he do it? At each event, Roy has contests for cash prizes. In order to win, all you have to do is fill out a form with your name, address, and email. At each fight Roy gets about 1000 of these forms. So while the contest may cost Roy 100 or 200 dollars, he gets the contact info of 1000 fight fans in the local area in exchange, and is able to communicate directly (and freely) with them in advance of his next fight. Consider this: if you are NOT capturing your customers contact info, you are leaving money on the table. Your online ticketing software should be able to capture this for you. If not, it may be time to find one that will.
   

Do you have any tips for weathering economic tempests? If so, weigh in in the comments section.

Back in July, when the IPhone 3G launched, I wrote about the future of Mobile Ticketing. In October, Juniper Research released a study estimating that by 2013 over 400 million users worldwide will choose to purchase tickets over their mobile device. I think that number will be higher, partially because of the ongoing convergence of mobile devices and the PC, partially because of the increasing proliferation of cell phones, and partially because today, TicketBiscuit released our Mobile Ticketing software, and made it available to all of our clients free of charge.

Wait, what? Oh, yes. TicketBiscuit becomes one of the first ticketing providers in the nation to release this technology, and the absolute first to make it free.

For our clients, this means that they get a mobile optimized version of the TicketBiscuit powered pages on their website.

For our clients’ customers, this means they can now buy tickets using their cell phone, or handy, or celly, or piece, depending on where you’re from.

Check out the video release below.

If you want to see the mobile software in action, point your smartphone to any of these sites and click the “buy tickets” link

www.exitin.com

www.thebottletree.com

www.minglewoodhall.com

or check out any of our other clients’ websites. If your favorite club isn’t feeling the TicketBiscuit love yet, send them our way.

I recently started subscribing to the Lefsetz Letter. Bob Lefsetz (the author) has been publishing his thoughts for 25 years. He addresses the issues that are at the core of the music business: downloading, copy protection, pricing and the music itself. To say he is an expert is a bit of an understatement.

Anyhoo, Bob’s latest post is one that I think all owners of venues should read. In it, he talks about the perceived value of admission and tries to get you thinking about what it is, exactly, that keeps folks coming out to see shows at your place. Here’s an excerpt:

Music needs to be a good value.  It hasn’t been a good value for in excess of a decade.  Ever since Robert Sillerman rolled up the regional promoters into SFX.  Now prices are high.  It’s like sports.  But music ain’t sports.  And I won’t go to a baseball game on a whim anymore.  Used to be $3 and you sat in the upper deck or bleachers and got fucked up and who gave a shit about the game.  Now, you’re pissed if you go and the game is shitty. Because you paid a fucking fortune!  But, at least the teams are classic, they don’t change.  We’re trying to break acts in the music business.  We can’t overcharge.

We need some innovation.

Bob has some interesting thoughts on how to increase perceived value and pack the house without giving away tickets. Check out the full post here, and if you are in the music industry, you should mos def subscribe.

We never stop innovating to help our clients sell more tickets. That’s kind of become our motto here lately. We’ve been quietly building the Facebook integration for a few weeks and beta testing it to the hilt, and I am happy to say our super genius dev team has done it yet again.

Now, when you set up an account in TicketBiscuit, you can automatically publish your event to your Facebook page. If you update the event, it will be updated on Facebook as well. There is simply no easier, quicker, or cooler way to connect with your fans and keep them in the loop.

I know what many of you are thinking: “I don’t have time for some kid’s toy!” But think again. Rapidly approaching 100 million registered users worldwide, the Facebook community is expanding into all demographic categories. Those 25- 40 year olds with deep pockets? Over 11 MILLION are registered on Facebook in the United States alone. That will probably be 12 million by the end of the month. The takeaway is that this ain’t just a kids toy. It is a serious marketing tool and can reap mucho benefits. (UPDATE: read this blog post if you’re still not convinced)

Check this page out to learn more about Facebook Pages. Here’s another overview page about the other business products you can get.

If you’ve already set up a Facebook account and want to get this feature hooked up pronto, give us a call.

(Full Press Release: TicketBiscuit Ticketing System adds Automatic Facebook and Eventful.com Integration)

Yesterday we continued our absolutely frenetic pace of innovation and released what I feel is probably the coolest TicketBiscuit enhancement since print at home tickets. It represents a HUGE step forward in ticketing, and will definitely help our clients sell more tickets.

You can now publish your events AUTOMATICALLY to Eventful.com

You may have remembered our tip on how to sell more tickets from a couple of weeks ago- when we introduced a lot of you to Eventful.com. For those of you who missed the post, Eventful.com is an event aggregator site- they maintain a comprehensive listing of local events in cities nationwide. It is a very cool service and as of last count had upwards of 7 million users.

Well, thanks to our team of super genius developers at TicketBiscuit, we’ve now made the process of adding your event to Eventful.com as easy as clicking a button.When you set up your event, it will be automatically populated to Eventful and kept up to date as you update it in TicketBiscuit.

Seven MILLION more sets of eyes. Zero additional effort.

We’ve got more innovations like this in the pipe coming your way soon, all geared toward helping you have more successful events and helping you sell more tickets. If you have ideas or enhancements that you feel would be useful to your business, we’d love to hear them. Just drop us a line and let us know.

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.