Ticketing Addressed In The Netherlands

A panel of industry experts discussed the future of ticketing at the second edition of Fast Forward in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Feb. 23. 

– Fast Forward Amsterdam
The conference

Ticketmaster’s Sarah Slater said it is important to reach fans “where they’re at” and make it as easy as possible to buy a ticket. This is why Ticketmaster has opened its API to third-party developers such as Spotify and Facebook enabling their users to buy tickets without first being redirected to a Ticketmaster site. 

In the experience of Mark Minkman, the director of legendary Amsterdam club Paradiso, artists wanted to increasingly sell tickets directly to their fans. Matthijs Boom, the artist manager on the panel, confirmed: “It is very important to collect as much data as possible from your fans,” he said, “to know the ticket sales in different markets.” 

This would help to better plan pre-sales. Minkman added that the industry could use its data better, and said it was sometimes hard to get hold of it in the first place. Spotify, for example, wasn’t as open with its data since growing to the world’s biggest on-demand music subscription service. 

“We’re in this industry for the bands and their fans. So we need to do everything to facilitate the relationship between the bands and the fans,” Minkman said. 

Moderator Jon Chapple of IQ Magazine wanted to know about the future for paper tickets, to which Gareth Deakin of Out & About Consulting replied that the future of tickets “will be completely mobile in the end. It’s just the easiest way.” 

Especially if one took into account all the things digital tickets facilitated in terms of collecting and utilizing data. Other panelists were convinced that superfans would always want a tangible souvenir to touch and put up on a wall. 

Dynamic pricing was touched upon as well. Slater reiterated Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino’s position of pricing the house right, meaning that artists and promoters should charge more for the best seats in any given venue, which Ticketmaster facilitates through its Platinum ticket category. 

This would not only take the wind out of the secondary market, because it decreased the possible margins for touts, but also allow artists to price inferior seats lower. 

Slater believes that even festivals will be dynamically priced in the future. The dynamic pricing proponents on the panel also remarked that the practice already worked in football and the aviation business. 

Deakin, however, pointed out that these weren’t really comparable as none of them sold out in a day or mere minutes. Minkman is not a fan of dynamic pricing. He like to keep prices low, period, “to enable even people with a low income to enter the venue.”