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TicketBiscuit is going international! We’ve partnered with Tixsa to revolutionize the way tickets are purchased and delivered in South Africa. We’ve licensed an enhanced version of TicketBiscuit to be the backbone of Tixsa’s ticketing operations.
Tixsa launched just last month, and is already making waves with acquisitions of high profile clients like the Voortrekker Monument, Café Barcelona, and the Alexander Theater.
The South African ticketing landscape is currently dominated by Computicket, but Tixsa Managing Director Michael Canfield says there’s ample opportunity. “The venues and promoters here frankly didn’t have a solid, reliable, inexpensive alternative to Computicket in the past. With Tixsa, now they do. The value to the venues and promoters is that Tixsa will empower them to sell tickets online through their own websites and mobile optimized sites instead of sending all of their customers to the ’800 pound gorilla’ – they can cultivate true relationships with their customers, sell more tickets, and make more money.”
Tixsa is using the “800 Pound Gorilla” analogy in a series of hilarious commercials. Check out the first one below:
TicketBiscuit CEO Jeff Gale says the relationship between the two companies began as a simple email conversation with fortunate timing. “Tixsa contacted us just as we were compiling our international growth strategy,” he recalls. “South Africa was getting a lot of attention due to the 2010 World Cup, and the Tixsa team was ready to take advantage of that momentum. It has been a great learning experience for us, going from initial contact to product launch in just under three months.”
Canfield says that Tixsa evaluated several US ticketing companies before pursuing TicketBiscuit as a partner. “We knew that in order to gain a foothold here, we absolutely had to choose a company that had a proven software solution, was innovative and flexible, and had best-in-class reviews from its client install base. TicketBiscuit is all of those things and more; of all the companies we looked at, they stood alone.”
New program from BattlePass.com offers up-to-date event listings and money for MMA bloggers and website owners.
(OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE) BattlePass.com today announced the launch of a new affiliate marketing program that pays website publishers for referring ticket-buying visitors to the BattlePass.com website. Under the program, affiliates will be paid 35% of all net revenues collected by BattlePass.com for events ticketed through the BattlePass web site.
The program, the first of its kind for combat sports and MMA events, is also one of the first affiliate marketing programs to make real time RSS feeds available to website owners. By signing up with the affiliate program and implementing the BattlePass FightFeed®code, website owners can benefit from valuable, dynamic, and accurate content – the most comprehensive list of MMA fights and combat events on the internet – and make money for click-throughs that result in ticket sales. Publishers may also choose to carry provided graphic banners or text links to refer traffic to the BattlePass.com web site.
Signing up for the BattlePass affiliate program is free.
“The BattlePass affiliate program is going to be a win for everyone,” CEO Jeff Gale commented, “Website owners now have an easy way to monetize their sites and add a great section of relevant and updated MMA and combat events from the BattlePass FightFeed. MMA fans get better awareness of fights and events in their area. And promoters can now instantly list their fights on BattlePass.com and have them spread across the BattlePass network of affiliates, exponentially increasing the exposure and credibility of their events.”
For details on the BattlePass Affiliate Program and instructions on how to sign up, please visit http://www.battlepass.com/battlepass/affiliate.aspx
About BattlePass.com: BattlePass.com carries the most extensive list of combat and MMA events and ticket information on the web today. Promoters can list their fights on BattlePass.com and the BattlePass affiliate network for free. Additionally, promoters can get free ticketing and event marketing by signing up with BattlePass Pro, the only ticketing system custom built for MMA and combat events.
Wow. As we took the covers off of BattlePass Pro, our newest MMA Ticketing product earlier this week, we’ve seen the combat sports community react in an overwhelmingly positive way. It feels cool to launch a new product built specifically to the needs of the community of fight and combat event promoters, and we’re excited about the new partnerships and relationships we’ll form as a result of it. If you haven’t checked out BattlePass Pro yet, read the press release here and check out product details here.
Oh, and we’re offering free hard tickets to all promoters who sign up with BattlePass Pro this year, so if you’re in the market for a ticketing solution, check it out.
Because the TicketBiscuit core audience differs somewhat from the BattlePass core audience, we’ve decided to give BattlePass it’s very own blog. Starting now, we’ll carry all BattlePass-related news on http://buzz.battlepass.com. Not only will we feature product news and updates, but we’ll also feature in depth reviews and previews of fights that we ticket. It should be a very cool platform to expand the audience and awareness of our promoter clients, so be sure to check it out.
Buzz.battlepass.com will carry all BattlePass related news from now on. Check it out!
Through the Music Liberation Fund, a TicketBiscuit initiative promoting music independence and diversity, TicketBiscuit will make a donation equal to all ticket fees from Georgia Theatre booked shows.
TicketBiscuit CEO Jeff Gale commented,”Wil [Greene] has been a great client, and we have enjoyed the privilege of working with the Georgia Theatre. The Music Liberation Fund exists to preserve independent venues like this, and we’re happy to help; we look forward to the day when the doors reopen.”
In addition to the benefit show on the 23rd, TicketBiscuit will donate ticket fee proceeds from the Perpetual Groove show on June 20 at the Classic Center, the upcoming Very Disco and Jenny Lewis shows on June 25 and July 1 at the 40 Watt, and The AthFest Shows at the Morton Theatre June 26 and 27.
More Information on these upcoming shows can be found at http://www.georgiatheatre.com.
For More Information on TicketBiscuit, visit www.ticketbiscuit.com or www.musicliberationfund.org .
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Ticketmaster working to outlaw presales in Florida and Minnesota: Contact your legislators!
March 30, 2009 in Commentary, ticketing news | Tags: florida, grateful dead, legislation, minnesota, presales, scalpers, secondary market, ticketing, ticketmaster | by ehoush | Leave a comment
A twitter friend brought this to my attention last week. I was at the beach getting some much needed R and R but felt that I should weigh in on it today.
According to this article by Al Branch over at Ticket News, Ticketmaster is advancing bills in Florida and Minnesota that would effectively give them greater control over concert presales. You can read the full text of the article here. Now, just the fact that Ticketmaster is lobbying in support of legislation on the ticketing industry should be enough to scare you into action, but if not…
I visited the websites for both the Minnesota and Florida Legislature to get the text of the actual bills- you can view them by visiting the links below:
Minnesota HF 819: Internet Sale of Event Tickets
And
Florida CS/ HB 1287: Resale of Tickets (summary and full text)
Interestingly enough – there are two other bills making their way through Florida as well – SB 1962 (summary and full text) and SB 2074 (summary and full text).
For those of you uninterested in navigating the legalese, I will simplify the gist of the legislation:
Ticketmaster is making a power grab to limit ticket presales and re-sells unless authorized by the primary ticket seller – in many cases, Ticketmaster. So Ticketmaster, in the midst of trying to establish a monopoly on the national scale, is now simultaneously looking to eliminate competition in the presale space and eliminate the reseller market altogether.
For those of you who aren’t savvy in this space, “presales” are tickets that go on sale before they are made available to the general public, often going on sale to, for example, fan clubs. They have been an established component of the concert industry for decades, but now Ticketmaster wants them stopped. Check this language in Florida HB 1287: “requiring that a person or entity that offers to sell or resell over the internet tickets to specified public entertainment or amusement events of any kind may not offer tickets for sale until such tickets have first been offered for sale via an event-provider –authorized outlet or offering.” The Minnesota bill has a similar anti-presale tilt: “The initial seller shall not divert tickets from the initial sale to be sold in any other manner.”
In other words, if Ticketmaster doesn’t feel like allowing a presale in Florida, it won’t happen. In Minnesota, it will be ILLEGAL to have presales.
There is also language in these bills that prevents or limits tickets from entering the secondary market. While in theory (and to the average state legislator) this sounds great, it sets a dangerous precedent. Some of you may recall many moons ago when I blogged about the Seven Principles of the Ticketing Industry. Principle four is what we see in action here- “Where there are nuisances, there are regulators.” It is dastardly (and again, should cause concern) that the very same company causing all of the nuisances is the one driving regulators to action. Of course, the well paid Ticketmaster lobbyists are keeping the true grim future scenario out of the minds of the regulators deciding the fate of the issue, as seen in Florida, where the bill has passed unanimously through two committees so far. If successful, Ticketmaster will both outlaw presales and resells, gaining a pretty tight death grip on the large entertainment venues of Florida and Minnesota.
So, if you live in Florida and occasionally buy tickets to live events, read HB 1287
(it won’t take long) and get in touch with the members of the General Government Policy Council Pronto. They are listed here: http://www.myfloridahouse.gov/Sections/Committees/committeesdetail.aspx?CommitteeId=2469 . At least contact Representative Troutman and let him know that this legislation deserves further scrutiny and revision. Ditto for you Minnesotans: http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/members/hmem.asp
The answer to scalping is NOT to limit presales or introduce harmful regulation into this industry. The bottom line is this: scalping takes place because the face value of some tickets is significantly lower than the market value. Until all parties involved can agree on how to make these two values close enough at onsale to discourage scalpers, the practice will continue.
In related news: The Grateful Dead may have introduced a solution to this problem. What do you think?
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