[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Online event ticketing was not always a part of an entertainment event experience. Remember “back in the day” when eventgoers would wait in line at the box office for tickets to a concert or festival? Event organizers would print out paper tickets, pack and ship them to box offices and venues. The process was expensive and time-consuming, and there was no accurate way to track who was buying your event tickets or gather any further data or contact information from your targeted consumers. Fast forward to the creation of the smartphone, and the development of technology and apps. Now you can not only make the ticket sale process simpler, and easier for you but for your consumers as well. That’s where online ticketing systems come in.
What Are Online Event Ticketing Systems?
Online event ticketing applications are platforms that allow you to sell your event tickets over the Internet. These platforms permit your eventgoers to purchase a ticket utilizing nothing more than their smartphone or computer. The ticketing application will then automatically send your customers confirmation emails, as well as your customized event ticket. By employing ticketing software like the service TSE Entertainment provides, you can create a dedicated ticketing website/page for your event. Robust ticketing platforms provide tiered ticketing (general admission, VIP, reserved seating, etc.), various payment options, ticket sales notifications, real-time sale summaries, customer order analytics, mobile tickets compatibility, and much more. These features help your event and ticketing process run smoothly while capturing data for future event marketing.
Pros of Using Ticketing Systems
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- Expanded Audience Reach
- Easy Ticket Tiering and Staging
- Seamless Check in
- Data Collection and Analytics
- Future Marketing to Past Attendees and Look-Alike Audiences
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Expanded Audience Reach:
One of the biggest benefits of using online ticketing software is the expanded reach it offers. Most leading online ticketing software packages provide social media integration and email promotion capabilities. Such integrations allow you to promote your event to a wider audience. Online ticket software can even help you promote word-of-mouth advertising by allowing customers to share their ticket purchases directly on their social media accounts. These integrations provide the ability to promote the sharing of discount codes through email and social media, permitting you to create incentives, such as providing discounted tickets, and the chance to win VIP passes, to help promote sharing.
Easy Ticket Tiering and Staging:
Furthermore, most online ticketing applications allow you the ability to “tier” your event tickets. There are a variety of ways that you can stage tickets including sending out your ticket availability in “batches,” increasing your ticket price with each “batch.” Increasing prices as you get closer to your event creates a sense of urgency and encourages consumers to purchase their tickets sooner. You can also tier your tickets by offering a variety of ticket types and price points to attract more customers. This can include offering more than a standard general admission ticket. Other, more expensive, ticketing tiers can be for reserved seating, VIP package, backstage access and other amenities that add extra benefits for the purchaser.
Other uses of ticket tiering examples include target discounts for students, children, members of the military, etc., as well as group discounts. Of course, there’s also offering reduced prices for bulk ticket purchases. Robust ticketing applications will allow you to offer an unlimited number of different ticket options.
Seamless Event Check-In
Online ticketing systems can save everyone time by making it easier for your guests to register for the event in advance and check in at the venue. This means no more long box office lines. Your event’s check-in process will simply involve each guest scanning their QR code or barcode using your online ticketing system’s app.
As people arrive and scan their QR code or barcode, your online ticketing platform can provide collected data in real time (providing you have an Internet connection) into how many people have arrived at your event, and who was a no-show. Without an Internet connection you won’t have real time data, but the data is captured for future use. You can then utilize this information to send out targeted emails, with a “thank you” to those who attended, and a “sorry we missed you” email to those who didn’t.
Online Ticketing Is Also About Collecting Data
Data Collection and Analytics:
Online event ticketing platforms typically offer data analytics and collection, permitting you to track each consumer who purchased a ticket to your event, allowing you to utilize the ticketing platform feature of mass email communication, to send out event reminders, updates on future events, cancellations, announcements, and website redirection. In addition, the real-time data collection done by these services can help you track your event’s ticket sales and registrations, helping you to measure your event ROI (Return on Investment) through the number of tickets sold per day, no-show percentages, ticket turnover per ticket tier, and more.
Future Marketing to Past Attendees and Look-Alike Audience:
In addition, these data collection capabilities also allow you to gather targeted information about your attendees that can help further your event marketing strategies, such as demographics, permission-based contact information, and more. Most ticketing software even allows you to collect custom data about your guests. This can help you cater your next event to a specific target audience, as well as permit you to send out follow-up information or invitations to your next events.
Online Ticketing Benefits Consumers
With online ticket sales, your consumers can book according to their convenience, allowing them to book various seats or tiers of tickets. Furthermore, the automated online booking process allows your consumer to choose their preferred date, time, and options without any human errors. In addition, online ticketing platforms offer ticket buyers the option to pay for their tickets in different currencies, with a variety of payment options offered, including credit/debit, Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, and Stripe. Some systems even allow consumers to reserve tickets and pay at the venue when they arrive. Allowing multiple payment options decreases the chance of potential consumers abandoning the purchase of tickets because the payment method was too inconvenient.
Online ticketing can help promote a smooth buying process. Nowadays customer satisfaction starts long before the event itself. It can begin as early as when your customer goes to buy your event’s tickets. Most consumers, particularly eventgoers for live entertainment, expect a seamless and simple buying process. Using the right online ticketing service can increase the simplicity of the process and overall customer satisfaction.
Reaching customer service for a question is just a click and an email away, making the process easy for ticket buyers. It also means venue staff is not tied up answering phone about questions from those in the ticketing purchase process.
Cost Savings Through Online Event Ticketing
Utilizing online event ticketing software can even help save your venue money in the long run. Think about the costs involved with using paper tickets for entertainment events. Here are just some of the areas where a venue can save costs with the right online ticketing application:
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- Printing
- Ticket Distribution
- Ticket Selling
- Customer Service
- Collecting Funds from Various Ticketing Locations
- Box Office and Check In Process
- Bookkeeping and Accounting Fees to Reconcile Sales
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Consider Your Needs Before Deciding on an Online Ticketing Service
Many online ticketing companies offer many more services than ticketing and check In. For some the ticketing is a drawing card to get you to use their other services. Be aware of that as you go about looking for an online ticketing service to meet your needs. Sometimes a simple solution that does what you want and no more is the best one.
Online event ticketing software can greatly increase the marketing, efficiency, and customer satisfaction of your next event. If you are looking for a robust, easy to use platform with box office design, etc. as part of the package, consider TSE’s Online Ticketing Service.
While TSE is a full-service entertainment agency our ticketing service is stand alone. That means you get what you need and no more. Whether your venue is small or large, TSE’s ticketing platform will fit your needs. Did we mention it is also very affordable?
To learn more about TSE’s own online ticketing platform and the features we provide click here.
Online Ticket Sales – TSE Entertainment
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