While traditional, in-person, day-of box office ticketing is still prominent, it has become clear in recent years that ticketing has entered a new era of technology and customer experience. The COVID-19 pandemic expedited the adoption rate for many holdouts that were not yet comfortable buying tickets online and on their phones. The takeover of smartphone technology has accelerated the use of mobile ticketing and online phone purchasing. As a result, we’re seeing fewer instances of eventgoers fumbling with print-at-home tickets and using digital tickets on their phones instead.
This evolution has required the adaptation of the ticketing experience and the continued innovation of high-quality ticketing platforms. To remain relevant, organizations of all kinds, from performing arts to sports to higher education, need to invest in the best ticketing platform for their needs. But how can you tell what kind of platform is most beneficial for your organization and what are the features of the best ticketing solution?
What is an Events Ticketing Platform
The events ticketing platform is the central hub of the digital ticketing revolution. A box office ticketing platform is a digital solution that empowers ticketing professionals, executive directors, fundraisers, and marketers at live event organizations to design, execute, and monitor their ticketing processes, including selling tickets online.
Regardless of whether you sell tickets online, at your venue, or both, an events ticketing platform provides the resources, insights, and technology to implement and execute streamlined ticketing and sales processes from a centralized location. There is a spectrum of solutions, so it’s important to understand the variety of features available to decipher which kind of ticketing solution is right for your events.
Features of the Best Events Ticketing Platform
There are a wide range of factors that contribute to a great ticketing platform. Understanding these important features will be essential in selecting the best platform for your business or organization.
Streamlined box office ticketing
An essential feature of the top ticketing solutions is a streamlined box office ticketing platform. Ticketing professionals know that an intuitive software that’s easy to learn on the back end and easy to use on the front end makes all the difference. A software allows box office staff to process walk-ups quickly with a few simple steps and eliminate long lines. Not only should it expedite in-person purchases, but with the increase in online ticket sales, it also needs to provide a user-friendly customer experience on both desktop and mobile devices.
Fully customizable and configurable to your needs
The needs of every organization are different, and your ticketing solution should be flexible to the nuances of your industry and business. Whether your business supports multiple resident companies or you’re a college campus with a variety of ticketed events, you need to be able to configure your platform to your unique needs. The right system can expand into an experiential, museum, sports, or attractions ticketing platform to be inclusive of the requirements of your organization.
In addition, many ticketing softwares promote their own brand throughout the ticketing interface. Instead, your brand needs to be front and center throughout the entire buying process, rather than hidden under the brand of the vendor.
Designed for your industry
Some organizations in specific industries can benefit from a ticketing program that is designed with their areas of business in mind. For example:
- Performing arts organizations have a number of elements of the ticketing process that could be streamlined through a theater ticketing platform, including flexible subscription packages, targeted marketing campaigns, memberships schemes and more.
- Colleges and universities could benefit greatly from a campus ticketing platform that can integrate all campus events, such as theater and intercollegiate athletics into one control center.
- Museums and attractions also have unique factors that could be improved through an attractions ticketing platform, such as frequently changing exhibits, cultural community engagement, and timed reservations.
CRM integration and customer engagement
Your events ticketing platform should work for you, to tailor the customer experience to everyone’s preference and keep them coming back. A good ticketing software will include an integrated CRM tool, capturing all relevant data connected seamlessly to ticket sales to better engage with your customers.
Marketing
As mentioned earlier, the face of the events ticketing platform should be your brand, rather than the ticketing vendor. With the right platform, you’ll have complete control over branding and marketing to ensure your customers are engaged with your brand throughout the entirety of the purchase experience.
However, the right platform will go beyond branding. Using the CRM data mentioned above, a ticketing platform should also offer integrated email marketing, remarketing and targeting capabilities to facilitate ongoing engagement with fans and customers.
Fundraising
The fundraising capabilities of your ticketing solution should cater both to the important supporters you already have, as well as prospective donors. To foster positive relationships with recurring donors, your ticketing software should utilize giving histories and patron profiles to engage with donors personally, recommending new causes and recognizing high-level donors.
In addition to existing contributors, the platform also needs to be able to cultivate non-donors to become recurring donors and advocates for your organization. Utilizing collected donor data and giving history of existing members, your ticketing software can identify and nurture new ones to grow your donor base.
Reporting
Your events ticketing platform should empower you to continue to improve ticket sales, marketing efforts, and customer engagement by offering reporting and insights. A good ticket reporting program will provide automated, digestible reports across departments and be able to access real-time audience insights, encouraging you to make timely, informed decisions for your event marketing campaigns.
What Is the Best Events Ticketing Platform for My Organization?
Understanding the above important features of a box office ticketing platform, we can now use this information to decipher which kind of platform is best suited to the unique needs of your organization.
Size & sophistication
The size and level of ticketing sophistication of your organization can play a major role in the right kind of events ticketing platform for you. For example, large organizations with a tech savvy approach to operations may benefit from a more robust, fully automated and customizable platform that centralizes all ticketing, marketing, and customer engagement. On the other hand, small-to-medium size organizations with a more traditional approach to ticketing may require a smaller scale, yet still fully integrated, solution that facilitates customer engagement and boosts revenue and fundraising.
Industry
Certain business sectors may benefit from a ticketing solution that is designed uniquely for a specific industry. For example, higher education institutions typically have a very complicated ticketing process. Tickets to academic or campus-related events are typically separate from athletic events. Some events on campus require proof of college identification during the ticket purchasing process. Colleges and universities can benefit from a campus ticketing platform that is tailored to a diverse customer population of local residents and students, integrates unique ID authentication, and collects all event information in one centralized location.
Bring in the experts
Even after breaking everything down, it can still be daunting to determine the best kind of ticketing platform for your organization. The experts at AudienceView can utilize important information about your business and combine their knowledge of the live events industry to assess the right platform for your operational needs.
How AudienceView Revolutionizes the Ticketing Platform
The ultimate ticketing platform solutions from AudienceView are designed to not only address each element of the best platforms above, but to take them to the next level with easy-to-use, highly integrated technology.
AudienceView Professional
As the go-to ticketing, marketing and fundraising software that hundreds of organizations count on, AudienceView Professional is reliable, easy to learn and use and can handle every ticketing process, from the largest on-sales to engaging with your customer base. AudienceView Professional is an all-in-one ticketing solution that promotes audience engagement, boosts revenue and fundraising, and offers CRM and marketing integration.
AudienceView Unlimited
For the organizations with more robust ticketing requirements, AudienceView Unlimited offers full customization with game-changing automation. With this ticketing platform, you can achieve more in less time, while gaining the necessary insights to curate any experience or attraction imaginable. AudienceView Unlimited comes fully equipped with 100% control, extensive customization, personalized customer relationship management, real-time reporting and insights, and in-depth marketing solutions.
AudienceView Campus
Designed with athletics, performing arts and student life ticketing in mind, AudienceView Campus was developed on a college campus to meet the specific needs of the higher education market. This campus ticketing platform is continuously tested and enhanced to ensure its features are connected with evolving customer populations while fulfilling the specific ticketing needs of colleges and universities. AudienceView Campus is designed with school-authenticated integration, flexible payments, user permissions, and differentiated ticketing processes for athletics, performing arts, and student life populations, while being centralized for back-end users.
Choose the Right Events Ticketing Platform with AudienceView
In an entirely new world of ticketing sophistication, it can be challenging to know which are the best ticketing features and how to determine the right platform for your organization. At AudienceView, we’ve revolutionized the ticketing platform, offering the perfect ticketing solution for every organization regardless of size, sophistication, or industry. To learn how AudienceView can improve your ticketing experience and discover the best ticketing solution for your organization, take a free product tour.