Sears Centre’s In-House Tickets

The Sears Centre in the Chicago ‘burb of Hoffman Estates is doing its own ticketing – in line with a growing number of venues across the nation – but officials at the 11,000-capacity venue plan to build more facilities and take their ticketing with them.

Like New Era tickets (and its various branded offshoots), management for the Sears Centre went with software and service products developed by Paciolan when the time came to adopt a ticketing system independent of Ticketmaster.

In doing so, the Sears Centre becomes one of the first non-Ticketmaster-serviced venues in the Chicago market.

Steve Hyman, executive director of CCO Entertainment, which manages the Centre, told the Daily Herald the company wanted to avoid the cost of employing an outsider.

“The primary advantage is this: I don’t want to have a third party involved in what I can charge for a ticket.” Hyman said. “If you’re growing your company, you have to have control of it.

“We went this way because we wanted to control our own destiny and prices,” Hyman continued. “I think our ticket fees will be lower.”

Independent ticketing services aren’t always able to offer lower fees than Ticketmaster, evidenced by a recent Philadelphia Daily News study following the onset of ComcastTix in that market.

Still, Hyman told the Herald his company intends to continue to develop its ticketing service, and will coordinate with developer Ryan Cos. to build and manage venues elsewhere that also use the service.