In many ways, Simon Mabb presents the argument that one of the oldest businesses, insurance, may actually help the primary ticket marketplace. Everything else in the world has insurance behind it, including airline tickets, yet entertainment tickets do not generally. Mabb talks about how the coverage can help fans recoup their investment, as well as drive revenue streams for venues, ticket platforms and organizations through micro purchasing of insurance plans. Mabb discusses his efforts thus far in the United Kingdom, as well as his aspirations to bring insurance to entertainment ticketing aboard. Twitter: @SimonMabb
By listening to this episode, your network may have just tripled. University of Miami sports marketing professor Windy Dees discusses the program's marketing campaign, and subsequent advertising push, which illustrates networking and connections available for incoming students. Dees talks about the seriousness of actually having professors who are actively engaging in the marketplace in order to help their students land internships and jobs, along with building a credible course curriculum that goes indepth and researches various issues within the sports industry. Dees also covers her reliability to prospective students on social media complete with Drake and Honey Boo Boo gifs, how she laughs at her ratemyprofessor.com 3.9 rating and reviews, and why she's the most competitive supermarket onion weighing champion that you'll ever come across. Twitter: @GetDeesTweets
When it comes to pricing, Mark Stiving is one of the people willing to explore every component of how to drive customers to buy. Stiving readily admits he does not understand why the secondary ticket market manages to exist aside from venues and teams not taking the pricing seriously, laying down details of different pricing modules that could work. Stiving discusses whether dutch auction pricing has any merit aside from going out of business sales, and how dynamic pricing could be broader, especially when considering weather. Stiving talks about his own research, meeting a product expert of an old industry in Las Vegas, and what it taught him about pricing overall. Twitter: @MarkStiving
If you’ve ever tried to buy a ticket to the hottest concert, only to find all of the presale numbers gone within seconds, you may have Lowson to blame. Lowson ran Wiseguy Tickets, a ticket scalping operation, until 2009, when the FBI raided his business, charging him with wirefraud, after he generated over $25 million in ticket sales during the 2000s selling tickets to Bruce Springsteen, the Yankees playoff games, and personally being responsible for U2’s drummer publicly apologizing for the 2005 Vertigo concert’s ticket availability not going to their actual fans. Lowson says he’s now on a mission to change the industry, to get rid of his own ticket bot creation, as well as expose some of the inside practices that Ticketmaster, AXS and other ticket companies are utilizing to sell less than 1 percent of the tickets to the general public. Lowson also discusses why the BOTS Act of 2016 signed by then-President Obama has little teeth, especially when most of the bot operators are now located outside of the United States. Twitter: @Tixfan007
Allen Schlesinger swears that he hasn't made a cold call in 5 years, utilizing LinkedIn's Sales Navigator as well as various online tools to get to the decision-maker faster. Schlesinger describes how he has made his successful sales methodology grow while at the Austin Spurs, becoming the first NBADL rep in the league's history to sell over $500,000 in season ticket sales. Schlesinger talks about seeking out alternative information, such as home-buying, political contributions and LinkedIn mutual connections, in order to discover just who he should be talking to about purchasing Austins Spurs ticket packages. Twitter: @ATXSpursAllen
Jack Lucas' podcast episode is bittersweet, as he is retiring after 30 years of operating one of the more successful ticket start-ups in United States history, TicketsWest. Lucas mentions how a 1987 phone call changed his life, while he was teaching music in the Spokane public schools system, and with it brought several facets of electronic ticketing to the Inland Northwest. Serving also as president of West Coast Entertainment, Lucas covers his involvement in bringing Broadway to Spokane, as well as his involvement with Gonzaga basketball, Washington State University and Eastern Washington University.
Ian Taylor presents the narrative on how data in ticket sales revenue generation is utilized in the United Kingdom and European marketplace. Taylor speaks expansively on the inclusion of trackable information on customer behaviors, along with using traditional terrestrial media methodology in order to create more ticket buyers. Taylor speaks about his work at bigdog, which helps Feld Entertainment's events in the UK; specifically brands such as Marvel Entertainment Live shows, toward new and consistent audiences. Twitter: @iantix
Julian Jenkins comes on the podcast to examine whether sports clubs truly understand their fans' KPIs or only the ones that the organization thinks the fans desire. Jenkins shares his two decades worth of knowledge as CEO of European football clubs, as well as his understanding of the digital space. Many times, as Jenkins is mindful of, the top brass don't value digital for revenue generation as much as they should. Jenkins talks also about broadening the discussion when it comes to digital metrics. Twitter: @Julianj1973