According to Pollstar’s numbers, the concert industry made more money this year than it did last year, but sold fewer tickets. You can find the WSJ Article here.

What does this mean? Promoters raised prices. Now, how much of the 3% decline in ticket volume is related to the economy versus the almost 8% rise in price is related to the economy is anyone’s guess, but I think this picture could get a lot bleaker if the industry doesn’t come to Jesus. Quick. And I’m not talking about incorrect ticket pricing (this time), although I do still believe the industry is stuck in the dark ages on that front too.

It’s about embracing technology. Tech enables you to do things faster, cheaper, and better, but the concert and live entertainment industry has been slow to really embrace what tech can do for them. Trust me. Some folks are just anti-change (some of our clients are this way).

I read today that the Seattle Theater Group is dumping Ticketmaster in favor of one of our competitors, Tickets.com (too bad, STG - allllllmost a win). The most telling quote in the development is from STG Executive Director Josh Labelle:

“We look at Tickets.com as a technology company, less so as a ticketing company.”

YES, YES! Ticketing is just the beginning. Technology is the evolution. Venues, Promoters, and Artists have to start asking about how the technology in their partnerships (especially ticketing providers) is helping them reach more fans and sell more tickets. We’ve been innovating in this space for years and have tons of tools for integrating into the leading social media networks. I’m not sure how much more simplistic it can be: entertainers generate fans; ticketing companies should be able to connect to those fans, and help those fans reach and connect to each other.

I spoke with a young lady in the promotions business a couple of months ago who was using TicketWeb / Ticketmaster for their ticketing operations because of their “marketing” features. I showed her on paper how she was literally costing her company over a million dollars a year, ticketing fees that her customers are currently paying to TicketWeb that her company could keep if they went with an alternative provider.

What could you do with $1 million additional advertising? To cap it all off, with just a little effort, this marketing moron could have created her own online community around her act and had a marketing machine that was several times more efficient and long lasting (their show is targeted at kids, and several studies show that moms in general are very active online). FAIL.

Until the concert (and live entertainment) industry embraces the technology to improve their operations, they will have to continue to raise prices in order to deliver growth. And eventually (read: THIS YEAR) the customers will have enough and they will collectively say, “No, thanks.”

Today TicketNews posted a story about the soft rollout of Live Nation Ticketing, signaling that the giant’s move away from Ticketmaster is still on course. Since Ticketmaster has extensive long term contracts in the industry, the move will take time. As one Live Nation insider put it, it won’t be like “flipping a switch.”

So Live Nation enters the event ticketing space. As a competitor of ours, I had to go check out their system. Live Nation partnered with German-based CTS Eventim to develop the interface, and on the surface it is clean and elegant. They even have a java powered seat selector like the one we feature, although ours is a bit easier to use, I think (of course that assertion is free of bias).

The event I checked out was a Temptations concert in New York. On a $66 dollar ticket the fees were over $15. High, sure, but being in New York there are probably facility fees and parking fees rolled into that amount.

Then I went through the purchase process, and was forced to create an account and provide personal info (including phone number?!?!?!) before I could complete the purchase. This is where we start to see the cloak lift, and as the industry moves away from ticketing fees as a primary source of revenue we can see that they have their intentions aimed squarely at advertising.

Look at the event page- There is a prominent Citi Cards ad. The venue is The Capitol One Bank Theater at Westbury. Rest assured after you buy tickets you’re going to get pummeled with direct mail and email from “Live Nation Partners.” The beast feeds the beast.

I’m glad Ticketmaster now has a big name competitor, but I hardly think this is good for the business. The “360” or “all inclusive” deals that Live Nation and Ticketmaster have been making recently are engineered to squeeze every last cent out of the live entertainment marketplace. Exploit the big acts and venues at the expense of the customer.  Only play our acts on the radio. Sell your CD in Wal Mart. It will be a semi-profitable bloodbath between the two companies for a while, until the mass public finally realizes they’re being force fed garbage like the Pussycat Dolls and starts to embrace real music again. 

Real music won’t be dead. It will be at venues like WorkPlay, or Minglewood Hall, or Exit In. It will be at the local 1200 seat clubs being created passionately by folks who are actually good at it, listened to by folks who appreciate it, and yes, bought by those who value it.

The future of the business looks a bit like the past.

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.

I found some very cool news in my inbox this morning. One of our newest BattlePass clients, Xtreme Fighting Championships, has inked a very cool deal with MTV.

XFC President John Prisco and crew put on shows in Tampa to crowds averaging over 10,000, making him the largest regional promoter in the United States. In this deal, the XFC will host tryouts for the MTV reality show “Made”, the winning contestant will then train at the XFC training facilities, and the newly made fighter will debut on the April 18 fight card in Knoxville, Tennessee. The “made” episode will air in 2009.

John is a savvy promoter, so say the least. I encourage anyone in the marketing or public relations fields to read his Anatomy of a Fight Promotion series on mmajunkie.com. His strategy is pretty straightforward: tell an honest story, tell a compelling story, and aggressively court the “free” media to help you tell your story. This MTV deal is evidence of that strategy in action. How much free community exposure will John’s operation get when MTV comes to town and hosts tryouts? How much free national exposure will the XFC brand and franchise-able training facilities get when the show airs on MTV?

John knows the difference between commercials and media – commercials create awareness, media creates action. Oh, and media is a LOT cheaper.

This is where Elite XC got it wrong. They spent too much money too quickly and failed to establish a brand that could compete with the UFC. I don’t know if Prisco is interested in competing per se with the UFC, but it is apparent he has the foundation and skills to carve out a significant share of the market for the sport. And we’re in his corner.

For those of you in the Birmingham area, be sure to pick up a copy of today’s Birmingham News. It features a story about the Biscuit on the front page of the Money section.

http://www.al.com/business/birminghamnews/news.ssf?/base/business/122770359357760.xml&coll=2

They even included a sweet shot of Biscuit partner Bruce Ayers, owner of the Comedy Club at the Stardome, and a bearded Jeff Gale, CEO of the Biscuit. Thanks to Roy Williams for showing us some love.

This week, Jeff and I had the distinct pleasure of traveling to Southern California to promote BattlePass and our new relationship with Roy Englebrecht Promotions. As you may remember from an earlier post, Roy is one of the nation’s top promoters, and has been promoting fights in California for almost 30 years. Next year marks the 25^th anniversary of his Battle In the Ballroom Series, for which we will be the official ticketing provider. Anyway, from this past Friday until Monday, Roy held Fight Promoter University Five, a four day seminar and experiential learning curriculum targeted at wannabe promoters. Since Jeff and I were very interested in establishing relationships with these guys, we decided to sit in on Roy’s classes.

Boxing and MMA Promoters have gotten a pretty bad rap recently, thanks largely to the antics of Don King and a few other shady characters. What I learned, though, is that promoters like Roy adhere to a few solid business principles that make them successful. Here are ten that I picked up this past weekend, that seem to drive Roy and his team.

1. Always pay attention to details. The professionally printed fight card won’t make people buy tickets, nor will the police beacons above the ring poles. But, they do convey a sense of uniqueness and professionalism. These sorts of subtle clues can influence your credibility in a big way. Which leads us to #2:
2. Credibility is everything. You have to cultivate relationships in business in order to last. The degree to which you can make and keep commitments and continuously deliver a phenomenal product at a great value is directly related to your longevity.
3. Have fun. Though Roy got a bit stressed immediately before the fighter weigh in, he always looked in control and like he was loving it. As the night unfolded, Roy took on the persona of a master puppeteer, as his meticulously crafted show unfolded to the delight of the sold out crowd. He was entertaining 1500 people, and having a ball.
   

   Yours truly with Michael Buffer. "LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLE!"

4. Bartering is good business. You have something of value. You need something of value from another businessman. In a world where cash is king, the act of bartering buoys many a small business. Roy is a mastermind at the act of trade. Professionally printed fight cards? 20 seats. Fight Staff? Internship credit at the local junior college. Even Richard Schaeffer, the CEO of Golden Boy Promotions (on it’s way to becoming the largest fight promoter in the country), stressed the importance of bartering. Many of their sponsorship deals for their upcoming MMA fight have some sort of trade aspect to them.
5. Do good. This one is pretty self explanatory, but for Roy, it is central to his character and his operation. If you do good, good things happen. Not just to you, but to the people around you, your sponsors, your fighters, employees, and so on.
6. Empty seats breed empty seats. Roy will barter huge blocks of seats in exchange for products or services. While the exchange itself is valuable, there is also value in his attendees’ perception of a full house. It’s like verification that they are doing the popular thing. If you went into a restaurant at lunch hour and the place was empty, how confident would you be in the quality of the meal? In a more generic business sense, find out how much of your product you can afford to give away in order to establish a sense of presence in the market.
   

   The "Winterfist" Fight sold out completely.

7. Try some crazy ideas. Jeff and I got pretty tickled hearing about some of Roy’s ideas. The most memorable was one where he set up a barber’s chair in the back of the boxing arena and ran a hair cutting promotion in the middle of a boxing match. For every crazy idea that didn’t work though, Roy had ten examples of things that did. Never be afraid of risk.
   
8. Know who your customers are. You don’t sell out 19 straight shows on accident. Roy spends no money on radio, TV, or print advertising either. What he does do is create exciting incentives for every show attendee to provide their name and contact information. Roy used a cash prize promotion, a pretty straightforward idea. But, he incorporated principles of showmanship (calling out the winner and inviting them to a ringside seat for one bout) and instant and visible gratification (the winners were paid, in the ring, in front of everyone) to make it almost impossible to resist.
   
9. Great people make a great operation. As part of the curriculum we got to watch one of Roy’s MMA fights. There were seven incredible bouts, many by fighters making their professional debut. Roy’s matchmaker, Arnold Berger, has a huge future in the business. The degree to which he spends his time and effort really getting to know the fighters was evident in the quality of the matches. The two hour show never got boring, even in between the bouts, thanks to Mike Hart, the ring announcer. Mike carried on a conversation with 1500 people with a smooth as butter style. And don’t even get me started on the ring girls. Roy hires right, period.
   
10. Passion breeds achievement, achievement breeds success. This sounds like one of those cheesy inspiration posters, but it is nonetheless true. Only through the continuous relentless dedication of themselves to producing top quality shows has Roy and team been able to enjoy the success they have. You can’t fake it in that sort of pressured environment. Without passion, you burn out quickly.

    

    Jeff and “Razor” Rob McCullough

Check out Roy’s website at www.battleintheballroom.com.

We’ve said this since, oh -2001. Why do companies break the ticket fee out in a line item to consumers? I’ve blogged about it on several occasions, but our general feeling is that “convenience fees” are hated by customers. I personally helped work the call center for an event recently, and more than one person expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that fees were charged at all.

Now, the company who trained consumers to hate convenience charges by systematically defrauding and flogging them for the past two decades has decided to swipe a page from our playbook. You can read the article here, but basically, TM is trying an “all in” ticketing price. The article implies that this was the idea of Irving Azoff, the high powered new CEO of Ticketmaster Entertainment who joined the company when Front Line Management merged with Ticketmaster earlier this year. They will test the strategy on the upcoming Eagles concert tour.

I tried to buy Eagles tickets for the “Hell Freezes over” tour back around 1994, Tickets were $90 for nosebleed seats at BJCC. I can imagine once you factor in all of the TicketMaster fees this time around you may drop two or three benjamins to see Glen, Don, and the crew phone in your favorites.

Regardless, this is a good idea. I have no doubt that Ticketmaster will see better numbers with this experiment, and this may become their standard operating practice in the future.

So let’s see- in the past couple of months Ticketmaster has:

• Merged with FrontLine Management in a copycat strategy to address LiveNation
• Renamed the company to reflect the acquisition
• Named a new CEO, and
• Changed their ticketing strategy

Seems like straw-grasping to me. In their quarterly revenue report, Ticketmaster showed that revenues dropped 76% from the quarter earlier. The economic downturn is hurting them (as it is most live entertainment businesses) and they are trying to respond. Will any of their responses benefit musicians or music fans?  Probably not.

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)

New research released by Juniper states that by 2013 there will be 400 million people using their mobile phones to buy tickets. This makes a lot of sense and seems like a logical next step in the evolution of mobility and Internet transactions. When I worked at Intel, they called the phenomenon “convergence” - that the line between computers and cell phones would gradually blur. Couple this with the fact that people are increasingly willing to purchase online, and voila- the boom of mobile ticketing.

As I have stated before, major roadblocks in the proliferation of this technology are bar code reading issues, lack of reader infrastructure and availability of near field communications (NFC) handsets.

Here’s a link to the full article just in case you’re made of free time, but the salient points are these:

• Mobile will catch on in Travel first, followed by live entertainment and then sports.
• Total gross mobile ticketing transaction value will reach $92 billion by 2013.
• The Far East & China region, together with Western Europe and North America will represent in excess of 80% of this global gross transaction value by 2013.
• Mobile ticketing must “make life easier” for users. In this respect, NFC, with its convenience, is a crucial development.
• NFC will reach its tipping point over the 2011 to 2013 period (meaning that my prediction of 2009 may have been a little aggressive)

What do you think? Would you be comfortable purchasing tickets over your mobile phone?

I started using Twitter about a month ago. For those of you unfamiliar with the service, it is essentially a microblogging tool, where you post updates of 140 characters or less.  This guy explains it pretty well:

The updates can be silly, informative, or completely random. I started twittering to connect and network with others sharing similar interests, and hopefully promote TicketBiscuit without being caught. You can check out our twitter feed here.

So, one month in, I am approaching my 40th post, I’m ranked somewhere in the high thirties / low forties on twittergrader, and I feel like I’m getting to know the tool better. Mark Krejci introduced me to several cool twitter tools like twitterfon, twitfire, and twitterfeed which have made my twefforts easier, and I’ve picked up a couple of other tips as well (thanks to whoever suggested tweet later ).

But, there is still room for innovation (of course). Since Twitter exposes an API I am sure that we’ll see several new tools pop up over the next couple of years (at least until the next hot thing comes along).  So, all you developers out there, here’s my wish list:

Bitter: Picks up when @replies are getting testy, announces “twitter fight” to the twuniverse, battle ensues for the amusement of all.

Etiquette-r: Detects when you’re using bad twetiquette (I literally can make up these words all day long), suggests corrections. I seriously could use this.

Toggler: Allows you to maintain separate universes of twitter friends and seamlessly toggle between them, displaying your replies and posts only to the group you choose. I guess you could always create two accounts, but then you would have absolutely no free time. 

Critter: A twitter for pet enthusiasts. Can’t you just see the joy in terabytes of microblogs about what Fluffy did today?

Sidesplitter: Short jokes. One Liners. Knock Knocks. 140 characters to make me laugh.

Porntwitter: (forgive the 100% un-clever name, it’s in beta) Not really interested in using it so much, but interested in how it would be executed. This, again, is just a matter of time. I mean, there are porn blogs, right?

Who-Gives-A-Shit-Er: Automatically filters out the truly idiotic / repetitive / annoying posts from the twitterverse.  I’d probably be the first victim.

It is highly likely that these tools exist as I write this, and if so, please let me know. Do you use twitter? If so, weigh in on what you would or do find useful or amusing.