When you go to a rock concert, you might not know that a ticketing business helped the event organizer create tickets, setup the ticket purchase flow, and accept the digital tickets at the door.
Businesses and events of all sizes often rely on ticketing companies to help them manage everything to do with tickets. This way, they can focus on food, venue, entertainment, marketing, etc.
With massive layoffs in the event industry lately, many workers with years of experience in events and helping independent event creators are suddenly without work. Whether you already an established ticketing company or you’re looking to explore a new business opportunity, we’re diving into everything you need to know about preparing for when events come back.
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Poised to help event managers charter post-COVID-19 events
Let’s focus on the future in which undoubtedly, events will return. When this happens, events managers will need help knowing what they need to do to satisfy government regulations while keeping their customers happy.
Ticketing businesses will become trusted sources of information and support for event managers. We have implemented the health crisis learnings to provide you with the opportunity to grow stronger and create a sustainable ticketing future.
Oxynade by SecuTix launched a special + Aid Package + to support the recovery of the Ticketing Industry and to work with existing and new customers on a sustainable ticketing future. This + Aid Package + includes the free use of the Oxynade by SecuTix top-notch SaaS Ticketing Platform until April 2021.
If you are currently thinking about starting your own ticketing business, here are some insights.
A ticketing business helps their clients handle every aspect of managing tickets. This can mean everything from the configuration of seat maps over designing ticket layouts to determining team hierarchy by using sub-accounts and team members.
As Nico Pham of Snapticket explains it, “We provide operations support. Most of our organizers are not skilled in ticketing. We create your event, we do all of the configurations. You just only have to care about the event itself, do the promo, and we take care of all of the ticketing stuff.”
A ticketing business is not a ticketing broker. A ticketing broker might be a popular blog or digital publication that sells tickets for events. For example, a techno music site might sell tickets to techno concerts and festivals anywhere in the world. Meanwhile, a blog that covers local news might only sell tickets for events and destinations in that location, such as zoos and theme parks and other family-friendly events.
A ticketing business is not a blog or podcast that earns revenue from selling tickets. Rather, a ticketing business is a service-based company that helps its client's setup ticketing for their own events.
Examples of ticketing businesses
If you want to explore ticketing businesses further, it helps to have some examples to check out. Here are some ticketing businesses that serve clients large and small.
These companies work with many different types of event organizers, from global pop superstars to small businesses looking to get the word out about their products or services.
Why do events managers and businesses need help with ticketing?
Even when working with an easy-to-use ticketing platform, setting up ticketing does require some level of technical savvy. There are endless options for selling tickets online, but most businesses benefit from selling tickets on a platform that fully-features their brand. Meaning, instead of buying from Eventbrite or something similar, the customer experience looks like the customer is buying from the concert or small local business.
This is great for the event organizer because it inspires trust with the customer, so they experience a higher level of sales. This is especially important for small businesses and non-profits, whose event-goers want all of the money to go to that organization, not some giant tech company.
But to set up a fully branded ticketing purchase flow, the business needs to either manage custom development or they need a white-labeled ticketing software that makes it easy to add their custom branding.
Of course, the most affordable option is to choose ticketing software with white labeling. But this is just one example of the complexity of setting up ticketing.
Small businesses and musicians and other event organizers simply don’t have the time or the expertise to deal with setting up ticketing. They need a consultancy to help them so they can focus on what they do best.
What do ticketing businesses offer their customers?
Of course, different ticketing businesses will take a different approach to how they serve the needs of their customers. A ticketing business that serves local businesses might have a different set of offerings than one that works with festivals.
That said, there are two core things that ticketing businesses provide:
- Ticketing technology: Platform that the ticketing business uses to set up ticketing or they give to the client and train in how to use it.
- Consulting services: Strategy and done-for-you services such as pricing optimization and purchase funnel setup.
Let’s take a deeper look into these two key components.
Ticketing technology
A best-in-class ticketing platform should have the following features.
- SaaS, cloud-based: A ticketing platform that utilizes cloud computing will allow both employees of the ticketing business and team members of the event organizer to work on ticketing setup from any connected device.
- Seat maps: While not a necessity for all types of events, many events will require the creation and management of seat charts.
- Simple to use and self-service: It’s smart to have a ticketing platform that can enable some work from the client, in case there are clients who want to lower the cost of the consulting fee by doing some of the work themselves.
- Digital tickets: The ticketing platform should enable the sale of digital tickets, as opposed to paper tickets.
- White labeling: You’ll need to be able to easily change the style and logo of the purchase flows with no custom development work.
Consulting services
These are the consulting services that many ticketing businesses offer their clients.
- Full-Service-Agency: The main thing you’re offering is the full service and management for ticketing and all or the majority of the ticketing configuration.
- Training for ticketing technology: Depending on the needs of the client, you might need to train them in some aspects of your ticketing technology, whether that is fully set up, small customizations, or generating sales reports.
- Event day support: Even if you don’t offer on-the-ground support for events, your customers will expect you to pick up the phone before, during, and after the event in case they run into any technical trouble.
- Ticketing strategy and pricing: Your clients will come to rely on you for strategic help with what kinds of tickets they sell and how. For example, Nico Pham of Snapticket told us a story about how Snapticket helped a popular German beer fest earn more revenue and increase attendance by pre-selling pitchers of beer instead of just promoting free tickets for the event, which is free to enter but charges for the beer.
- Seat map creation: While the ticketing platform you use will help you implement your seat map, you’ll need to strategize its creation for your client. This means choosing the pricing for different groups of seats.
Benefits of running a ticketing business
Now that you understand what a ticketing business offers its clients, let’s dig a little deeper and explore the benefits of running this type of company.
No large upfront investments
One of the best things about this type of business is that you can offer technology and technology services without actually having to build a SaaS platform. By partnering up with the best-in-class ticketing platform Oxynade by Secutix, you can offer highly valuable technology and consulting without actually having to hire any software developers.
Easy to serve different types of events
There’s so much opportunity in this industry. Most event organizers are still doing things the hard way:
- Not utilizing technology and still running everything with paper tickets
- Using big-name online ticketing platforms with no custom branding and that charge a high processing fee
- Attempting to manage ticketing themselves and wasting too much time on it when they should be focused on event planning and marketing
There are so many types of businesses that are struggling with this, meaning that ticketing consultancies can pick the niches that interest them the most: small local boutiques, artists, musicians, museums, non-profits, food festivals, etc.
How to increase the success of your ticketing business
In order to run a successful ticketing business, you need to do two key things:
- Choose a niche and market that needs your services: Do market research and speak with businesses in your area to understand which ones are still struggling with inefficient or expensive ticketing operations.
- Be prepared for when the event industry re-opens: Learn what you can do to help events managers post-COVID-19 so you can include this in your service offering and become a trusted resource.
Learn how to strategically and technologically prepare for when the event industry re-opens. In our upcoming webinar, we’ll cover how to use our platform to implement seat separation, best practices according to the WHO, and other post-COVID-19 measures that will affect the events industry for many years to come.