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4.1 Business Models of Different Roles

4.1.4 Ticket Sellers

Ticket sellers are organisations that offer ticketing solutions to event providers and different ticket purchasing options to consumers. The main value propositions of actors in the ticket seller role for event provider is the complete ticketing solution offering including support for advanced booking and sales with seating possibility, multiple distribution channels and sales offices, IT system and equipment supporting sales in venue and sales data, and reliable ticketing reputation and brand. Value propositions for consumers include the ease of purchase with online sales and sales offices with several payment options, possibility check availability of tickets and seats, and user support when needed.

Key partners of ticket sellers include ticket sales office partners, ICT providers and important event providers. Ticket office partners are especially important, if the partner has a large network of sales locations. This is the case with one of the interviewed ticket sellers and the other ticket seller currently has only several individual stores that sell their tickets. One of the interviewed ticket sellers has developed their ticketing system in-house, but they still have an ICT partner that developed their online service. The other ticket seller has no in-house IT personnel and development work is done with an ICT provider. However, this ticket seller has strict control over the design and specification definition. The partner’s main role is the concrete execution. Important event providers can be key partners, if they are either a very good reference for potential event provider customers or if they are large customers with several venues and many events.

The two interviewed ticket sellers have some different key activities, but both consider sales, planning and marketing as key activities. One of the ticket sellers even considers sales and marketing as the most important development area in their

business especially towards event providers. The other ticket seller considers active participation and close monitoring of the event scene as highly important activity, in which the whole personnel participate. Then other important activities include customer support, which both ticket seller offer, handling payment transfers and pricing. Customer support is offered by a dedicated telephone number by both ticket sellers, but one of them has outsourced this to a call centre service provider.

Handling payment transfers is an important activity, because most of the revenue that comes from ticket sales is distributed to event providers. Then one of the ticket sellers considers pricing as an especially challenging activity due to the intensified competition in the ticket sales market.

Key resources are personnel and the IT system also for ticket sellers. One of the ticket sellers demands keen personal interest to events from all of its employees, which, according to them, makes their staff more motivated. The ticketing system is a core resource for both ticket sellers. Developing the ticketing systems has required significant investments and they are constantly being further developed. Then other key resources include different networks, such as the network of event providers and sales office network, and the brand for the more established of the two ticket sellers. One of the interviewed ticket seller describes ticket selling as a relationship business to the event provider side and they have very close relationships to many event providers in their core event segment. However they emphasise the importance of treating all event provider customers with equally excellent service with personal contacts and meetings instead of mass seminars. It is also critical to participate in the industry’s networking events, where you can find out about the latest trends in the event field. The other ticket seller considers excellent customer references to be the best selling argument, when the ticketing solution is sold to event providers. This ticket seller also has different service levels for event providers with different needs. The basic service covers advance sales through all the ticket seller’s channels and the premium service adds support for on venue ticket sales including equipment such as IT and ticket printers. Customer relationships towards consumers include mainly customer support and social media presence. However, one of the ticket sellers considers telephone customer service as having such importance that the CEO and the sales manager regularly answer these calls.

Both ticket sellers offer the same main sales channels, which are online, sales offices and on venue sales. Additionally they offer advance booking by phone. Even though the channels offered are similar, there are differences how their customers use them. The customers of one ticket seller buy most ticket on the venue, then the sales offices and the website is only the third most use channel. Their customer end-up in their website mostly from event providers’ websites or from Google searching with event names. The customers of the other ticket seller purchase ticket most from the online channel and then the sales offices come second. Their customers go to their website most often directly or by searching the ticket seller’s name and then come the event providers’ websites, Facebook and Google searching with other words than the company’s name. Tickets can be delivered electronically by e-mail and SMS or they can be picked up from the sales offices, or delivered by post. One of the ticket sellers said that there is demand for physical ticket, because they are considered as

memorabilia, and many customers do not settle for only an electronic ticket. The target customers in both the event provider and the consumer side differ

significantly. Of course, the top consumer segments are highly dependent on to what kind of events are you selling tickets. The first ticket seller is mainly serving small and medium size events and considers big events as a challenging segment, because they do not provide marketing support and their sales office network is not sufficient. Local theatres with regular events are an important segment for this ticket seller. The other ticket seller focuses on popular music events in all different genres. Non-music events, such as theatre and sport, are only small part of their event offering. They serve all types of music events including festivals, concerts, and clubs, which all have differing needs with varying ticket purchasing behaviour.

The cost structure of ticket sellers is also dominated by personnel costs and then IT systems have required significant investments combined with constant development needs is another big cost group. Sales and handling payment transfers are activities that are labour intensive activities that create costs. Additionally, one of the ticket sellers has significant costs related to the outsourced telephone customer service. The scalability of ticket seller’s costs is limited and mainly only ticket sales have good scalability. Higher ticket sales volumes would increase personnel needs in ticket office sales, customer support, sales and marketing, and handling payment transfers.

The revenue streams of the two ticket sellers have some differences. The first ticket seller’s main source of revenue is charges, which depends on the chosen service level, from the service contract with event providers. This service charge is the only cost for event providers and there is no fee for each sold ticket. Revenue also comes from providing ticket printers and ticket paper rolls to event providers that have the premium service. Then finally ticket buyers are charged a small fee for each ticket bought. The other ticket seller’s main source of revenue is sales fees from both the event provider and the ticket buyer for each ticket sold. The fees are allocated equally that half of the revenue comes from event providers and the other half from ticket buyers. Then they also have revenues from marketing services such as marketing design and advertising in their website. Income from the telephone customer support only covers the costs of the service.

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