9 MIN READ

Powering Better Customer Experiences with Event Ticketing Software

Learn how event ticketing software from AudienceView empowers event producers to streamline operations, engage audiences, boost sales, and create unforgettable experiences.

There’s more to event programming than simply selecting a date and securing the venue. Whether you’re tasked with staging an unforgettable theatre, cultural, educational or sporting event, great event producers – and those who are involved in the ticketing software selection process – start the day with a fresh mug of coffee in hand and a relentless passion to create the best experience possible. TheBeginning with choosing a venue with a unique heritage – especially one that supports your neighborhood, town or local economy – the best events are fuelled by the desire to engage an audience before the rise of the stage curtain and beyond the final bow.

Successful events need to attract and engage their audiences. Behind the scenes, promoters can spend months mapping out audience buying journeys, defining ticket prices, filling seats, fundraising, and crafting strategies that boost sales and improve the experience – all while mastering the event ticketing software that powers it all.

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What is Event Ticketing Software?

Event ticketing software is a digital platform that helps event organizers and event producers streamline event promotions and efficiently manage the ticket selling process. These solutions are web-based and often offer automated features for:

  • Ticket sales
  • Fees
  • Dynamic Pricing
  • Event reporting and analytics
  • Inventory and attendee tracking
  • Customer relationship management (CRM)
  • Email marketing integration
  • Payment processing
  • Branding
  • Fundraising

All internal and external customer data is integrated into a single database, enabling event producers to create better experiences for clients instead of spending time on data entry and navigating complex legacy systems. 

Adding an event ticketing software into the sales and marketing process helps event producers stay organized and focused on their audiences. Insights gained from the software empower event producers to make better decisions that drive audience engagement and grow relationships. When you’re curating that kind of experience, no off-the-rack event ticketing software will suffice. Host your ticketing on a flexible platform that’s tailored to your event and powered by business intelligence. Here’s how.

Night at the Event Ticketing Booth

It’s no surprise that leading theaters and performing arts centers turn to AudienceView for support. AudienceView is the white-label event ticketing platform for the rise and grind crowd of the entertainment world that keeps your brand front and center while supporting customer experience and patron acquisition strategies that meet short- and long-term goals. 

At AudienceView, our roots are in the performing arts, and we understand that performing arts venues and their patrons have a unique set of needs. Managing and growing a business in this industry requires a seamless ticketing experience for patrons and insights into buying behaviors for event managers. AudienceView’s CRM-centric event ticketing software puts theatre-goers front and center by making it simple to capture, analyze and act on data that influences business before, during and after the event. 

AudienceView’s event ticketing software provides full control of business operations to users, which eliminates the delays from third-party vendors when simple changes are needed such as building shows, updating seating charts or changing prices. Once you get your audience through the door, you need to nurture and grow those relationships. Software like AudienceView Professional includes audience segmentation and automated marketing solutions that integrate with popular email marketing platforms to streamline and strengthen communication campaigns and push out marketing initiatives to contacts in your database. 

The software captures the entire sales lifecycle from start to finish and drills down into performance metrics like ticket sales, revenue, daily payouts, attendance, donations and patron behavior that capture insights for future experience optimization. The data can then be sliced and diced into cumulative, monthly, weekly or daily views making reports easy to pull and share with key stakeholders. 

 Know Your Patrons 

Your patrons are as unique as your venue, and great event producers are always looking for ways to get to know them better. The Athenaeum Theatre, Chicago’s oldest, off-loop theatre, has been an active AudienceView user for many years. The Athenaeum Theatre uses our event ticketing software technology to increase audience and donor engagement as well as revenue. Within the first four years of use, the theatre has seen a 94% lift in paid attendance, individual gifts grow by over 5x and overall donations and grants increase by 17x. 

  • Audience segmentation was used to manage the theatre’s different customer groups and cross-market to them to fill more seats. Using a CRM that connects with ticket sales and fundraising data provided the organization with the detailed ticket buyer and donor profiles needed to run successful campaigns that resonated with patrons and increased demand.  
  • Promo codes were used to track ticket sales and entice buyers to attend more shows, turning one-time gifters into Medici-status donors. 
  • Deep links embedded in emails took patrons to additional discounts and programming, streamlining the purchasing process and generating more conversions. 
  • Standardized reporting continuously monitors progress for comprehensive year-over-year reporting on buying behavior, patterns and campaign success used to improve the event experience, turning non-donors into recurring donors. 

Create Sold-out Experiences 

The Hale Centre Theatre, a performing arts center in Sandy, Utah, lives and breathes the experience. Their vision is that every patron should feel like family, and they put their patrons front and center by creating an environment for patrons to share their enthusiasm and experiences at the theatre. 

Built with moving stages, flying apparatuses, great seating and prices, the venue was designed for attendees of all ages. Automated thank you emails are sent out after shows, encouraging attendees to share a video clip of their event experience with their friends. Founder’s Club members are treated to a meal before a production. 

The Hale Centre Theatre partnered with AudienceView to power the ticketing and marketing operations behind these experiences that led to an incredible 751 out of 751 sold-out performances in one year. 

  • Flexible subscription packages converted one-time buyers into loyal patrons by delivering the flexibility to pick and choose show dates, times and seats that work with their busy lives. That means taking Dad out to a Friday night show on his birthday and Grandma to a Sunday matinee. Subscribers can also easily switch their tickets to a new date up to 48 hours before a performance. 
  • Competitive pricing models make the theatre experience more accessible with the functionality to easily add-on donations, as well as adjust youth rates, provide complimentary or discounted tickets to cast, crew, employees, teachers, first responders, active military members and other people who might be underserved.
  • Enhanced audience engagement enables the theatre to continue building relationships with customers long after the final curtain call through automated thank you emails that keep the conversation going. 

Keep Your Customer Data Clean

Patron campaigns are only as good as their last performance, so keeping your database clean is a critical component to driving success. When most of the world went virtual in 2020, it’s no secret that the performing arts industry was hit hard. The pandemic didn’t stop Baruch Performing Arts Center from leveraging the AudienceView platform to create engaging virtual experiences. 

Their events were free to attend and were promoted through a series of pre-show emails and email confirmations to distribute the event link. A donation option is suggested at checkout that allows patrons to select how much they’d like to give. Although nothing replaces the intimacy of attending an in-person performance, this was a successful strategy to generate revenue while still delivering a great experience during challenging times. The AudienceView platform connects ticket sales, fundraising data and donor profiles in a single place, eliminating duplicate profiles or rogue data from skewing your campaign’s performance. AudienceView simplifies de-duplication and patron tagging, which are both crucial parts of collecting clean data.

Attractive Event Ticket Selling

Attractions, like museums, also had to pivot business strategies in 2020 to provide virtual experiences. From exhibits to immersive events, timed entry ticketing, merchandising, brand and messaging all needed adjusting to attract visitors during challenging times. The Mark Twain House & Museum was one of the first museums to safely reopen after shutting down in March 2020, having to close again during the holidays, and continue to ebb and flow with the health and safety rules and regulations to keep all visitors safely engaged. 

By partnering with AudienceView, the museum flipped the script by offering virtual holiday events when traditional programming was not an option. Virtual visitors could also take a free 3D house tour online with an option to make a donation to support the attraction through difficult times. From awareness to checkout, the entire customer journey is supported while attractions across the world move from in-person to virtual, or some combination of the two.

Graduate to a Better Event Ticketing Experience

Whether you’re hosting a commencement, graduation, sporting, performing arts or student life event, it’s important to choose an event ticketing software with a suite of functions under a single platform or work hand-in-hand with a partner like AudienceView to create an à la carte solution. 

All departments across a campus – from athletics to performing arts and student life – using the same event ticketing solution allows pertinent information to be integrated or siloed as needed. Permissions settings for different users provide the access to complete tasks within their purview while still building out customer profiles. 

  • Students gain immediate access to offers and promotions without having to switch systems or logins.
  • Organizations gain real-time access to event performance and attendance tracking, including head counts and entry times. 

AudienceView technology comes with the highest levels of PCI compliance. Payment integration with preferred payment gateways, ERPs, on-campus payment cards, and Apple or Android Pay make it easy for students or customers to purchase and institutions to comply with regulators. 

The Richard and Karen Carpenter Performing Arts Center, a 1,051-seat venue located on the campus of California State University Long Beach, aims to provide engaging artistic, educational and cultural experiences that enrich lives, promote learning and serve as a gateway between the University and greater communities. Using AudienceView Professional, the Carpenter Center has increased its average annual online ticket sales revenue by 41%, experienced over 6x growth in average annual online donations and streamlined marketing operations and reporting that saves employees hours in manual effort each week. 

Quarterback Your Collegiate Event Ticket Sales

When your event ticketing software is connected to your CRM and customer profiles, marketers can better target campaigns to drive additional revenue generation. Segmenting your audience by past purchases behavior, habits and interests allow for more targeted campaigns, such as game-day emails to remind fans of the event and push out promotions for in-venue experiences like photo opportunities and merchandise. If each fan in a 70,000-seat stadium spends $5 more on game day, that’s $350,000 in additional gross revenue.  

During the COVID-19 pandemic, collegiate sports organizations across the world shifted from filling seats with live event attendees to cardboard cutouts. Marist College Athletics Program set out to engage their audience and generate revenue while keeping everyone at a distance by launching a fan cutout program.  Marist built and managed the entire process using AudienceView Campus’ user-friendly core features, eliminating the need for third-party vendors or software costs and donated a percentage of the proceeds to the cost of COVID-19 testing of their student-athletes.

Rock Your Event Ticketing Sales

Whether your events are virtual or in-person, AudienceView amps up the live music festival and club experience from start to finish. As the world evolves, your event ticket selling model should too. 

The Colour of Music Festival (COMF) highlights black classically trained artists and gives black composers a platform. Their mission is fulfilled through this annual gathering of top black classical musicians that have been trained at some of the most prestigious music schools, conservatories and universities in the world. Over nine years, it has expanded in scope by adding six new locations. In response to the uncertainty of the pandemic, COMF had to quickly make and support the decision that the show will go on as a series of virtual, live-streamed performances over five days. 

Seamlessly Promote Your Show and Sell More Tickets

From beginning to end, venues using AudienceView event ticketing software can engage customers throughout the entire buying journey. Organizations can scale inventory up or down as needed and provide custom packaged deals such as group tickets for virtual events or early access seating dynamically. Once a customer selects their offering, they can create upsell touch points to add merchandise, give a one-time donation or schedule recurring donations at checkout. 

After checkout, keep the conversation top-of-mind with automated confirmation, pre-event and post event emails with personalized branding. These emails are a great opportunity to build trust and rapport with your customers while also serving them useful information such as maps and directions to the venue and links to relevant content. With AudienceView’s built-in CRM capabilities, venues can track attendance, sales revenue, ticket purchases, donor activity, pledges and soft credits to continue personalizing offers and messages that sell more tickets. 

Get Event Ticketing Software That Powers Better Customer Experiences

When choosing an event ticketing software that empowers your audience to reserve a seat and express patronage with a generous donation, it is important to select one with the capabilities to track, monitor and optimize the actions that will help your business move the needle. By understanding your organization’s mission and goals, AudienceView event ticketing software is designed to support the entire venue – not just its event ticketing process. 

Partner with AudienceView to design an event ticketing process that wows attendees from start to finish. Request a demo today to get started.