Where do we go from here?

 The recent merger of Ticketmaster, the world’s largest ticket agent, and Live Nation, the world’s largest concert promoter, marks the start of a new era. The consequences are likely to affect ticketing practices and to help usher in new players and the next generation of ticketing innovations. Part of the motivation for the merger appears to be to prevent secondary market re-sellers, such as StubHub, from capitalising on the disparity between traditional fixed prices and market demand. By controlling the acts, ticketing, and venues Live Nation Entertainment (LNE) will be in a better position to keep ticket re-sales and secondary market profits in-house. This will require the wholesale introduction of e-tickets and mobile-phone tickets across all Live Nation venues and any other venues hosting LNE acts, which should spread to European venues and even to those serviced by Ticketmaster’s primary market competitors.

 LNE has also publicly declared its intention to introduce dynamic pricing ¹, in order to remove the disparity between fixed prices and market demand (and generate the revenue levels normally associated with the secondary market through primary market sales). There are other companies such as Digonex and Qcue already specialising in dynamic pricing for sport in the USA. This could prompt the wholesale introduction of market-led pricing across entire entertainment verticals.

Mobile ticketing has been held back due to the lack of common protocols between mobile handsets, networks and live entertainment providers. The secondary market may have inadvertently fuelled its introduction, though the lack of common protocols will remain. So if mobile ticketing is to be extended beyond the major venues, then ticketing system suppliers will have to develop universal mobile applications that can bring all of their in-house functionality, including select-a-seat, out onto any mobile platform or handset.

‘Middleware’ will enable disparate mobile and other mass-market retail services to connect to any other venues’ systems. This will not be a web-based service that works to the lowest common denominator of systems’ limited APIs, but a comprehensive service that brings operations out onto online, mobile and affiliate distribution platforms. Middleware applications were first deployed within the banking and communications industries to link different organisations’ systems together (e.g. for the Link ATM network), but improved technical and commercial conditions would now justify its deployment across the live entertainment industry.

The next big thing is ticketing via social networking sites. This will be a harder nut to crack and will require an enhanced level of flexibility from ticketing systems in order to bend sales and marketing practices to the principles behind Facebook, Twitter, etc. Some systems have made initial steps in this area.

Flexibility is going to be the key requirement in the future. So when you are assessing future solutions, make sure your ticketing system supplier provides fully integrated universal mobile applications and dynamic pricing/price breaks/discounts/packages as standard. But also look for inter-connectivity and in-built middleware capabilities, and the ability to accommodate the demands of social networks and mobile marketing. If they don’t, please drop me a line.