Vasco Rossi’s ‘Largest Concert In History’ Wins At Ticketing Business Awards

Vasco Rossi’s anniversary concert at Modena’s Enzo Ferrari Park July 1, which sold just over 220,000 tickets, was awarded at this year’s Ticketing Business Awards for its sales and marketing campaign.

Francesco Castaldo/Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images – Vasco Rossi
Performing at Enzo Ferrari Park in Modena, Italy.

Promoter Big Bang and ticket agency VivaTicket, both owned by Italy’s ticketing and access solutions provider Best Union Group, moved 225,173 tickets in total, of which 5,000 were given out for free. Silvano Taiani, CEO of Best Union, told Pollstar the concert grossed €15 million ($18.5 million).

Italian superstar Vasco Rossi is a big opponent of secondary ticketing, and he worked with Best Union to ensure his fans got their hands on tickets.

Taiani explained the different measures taken: “Ticket sales were nominative, the name of the owner of the economic transaction was printed on each ticket, with a limit of two transactions per person, each consisting of a maximum of six tickets. Random checks and targeted checks were carried out throughout the sale, both online and at the points of sale, and tickets not compliant with the ticketing policy were canceled. Operations that did not comply with the guidelines were immediately reported to [Italy’s  copyright collecting agency] SIAE and to consumer associations, and legal action was taken for fraudulent purchases.”

He added, “We decided to divide the sale into different lots. Two days were dedicated to the fan club and three days to free sale. No difficulties were found during sales.”

Francesco Castaldo/Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images – Vasco Rossi
Best Union Group moved 225,173 tickets for the concert, which grossed €15 million

The Ticketing Business Awards honor companies using online tools and digital connectivity in a smart way with the so-called Impact Award. This year’s winner is a partnership between Nimax Theatres UK and TixTrack from the US, who’ve created a new ecommerce website for Nimax.

Laurence Miller, commercial director of Nimax Theatres, said the new site “has led to a genuinely massive increase in the share of business coming to the venue, which assists with customer service, customer satisfaction and revenue management.”

He added, “With the View-from-Seat and Select-a-Seat modules, we are able to provide a very special customer experience to enhance their seat-buying. Together with being the first West End chain to offer Apple Pay on mobile, our customers can fully complete transactions in less than 30 seconds.”

The Disruptor Award went to Switzerland-based Ticketfrog, which sells ad space on its tickets and, as a result, doesn’t charge the usual fees.  

The company claims it services 500 events and sells 100,000 tickets a month.

“Ticketfrog makes it affordable for any kind of event to use a professional online ticketing service, including payment, mobile scanner, hall plan creator, integrated marketing tools and sales statistics,” the jury’s reasoning reads.

See Tickets Fan-to-Fan resale platform was given the Guest Experience Award. The company’s CEO Rob Wilmshurst said, “The launch of Fan-to-Fan is us nailing our colors to the mast and saying that we don’t believe anything to do with the secondary market is fair to fans and that’s why we have never been involved in it.

“Fan-to-Fan is a completely customer-focused platform – we have committed extra customer support resources to manage it and it’s free to list tickets, too. We think fans deserve a safe space where they can buy and sell amongst each other without the vastly inflated prices imposed by the secondary market.”

See Tickets, which is owned by French media giant Vivendi, just entered into an agreement with LiveStyle, which gives See Tickets the ticketing rights for the U.S. festivals and events promoted by LiveStyle and its subsidiaries.

Event Genius Pay won the Production Innovation Award for its cashless event solution. The list of events that used this solution include Annie Mac’s Lost And Found Festival in Malta, as well as UK festivals Frobidden Forest, El Dorado and Southport Weekender.

Robert Kearins, bar manager at El Dorado Festival, said the cashless payment systems provided by Eventi Genius were “stress-free. Once they’d bought their first drink, customers understood how it worked and no one had to wait long to get another. Without having to wait for customers to fumble around for cash or wait for the card machine to connect, my staff could serve at twice the speed and made fewer cash-handling mistakes.”

Tiqets was crowned ticketing business of the year. The Dutch start-up provides last-minute tickets for museums, tours and activities through its online platform and mobile application, which is available in seven languages. Customers receive a barcode for their reservations. “This connection of traveler to ticketing inventory is changing our business,” the jury’s reasoning reads.

– Ticketing Business Awards
All winners 2018

Other winners include Tech4Team from France for its Arenametrix data analytics tool. Ashish Hemrajani, co-founder & CEO at BookMyShow in India, was named executive of the year.

Sports Ink Associates MD Paul Williamson was honored for his outstanding achievement. His career spans 20 years in ticketing across numerous high-profile events, including London World Athletics Championships 2017, London Olympic and Paralympic Games 2012, World Track Cycling Championships London 2015, Glasgow Commonwealth Games 2014, Cricket World Cup Australia/New Zealand 2015, Rugby World Cup 2015 and Rio Olympic Games 2016.

“The ticketing industry has been fortunate to have someone with the wealth of experience and ability that Paul Williamson has provided over the past two decades,” commented the judging panel. “Ticketing is one of the most visible, most discussed and most emotional topics around sports and live entertainment: headline news when it goes wrong, but a forgotten aspect if all goes well. Teams, venues and sports event organizers can rest assured that when Paul is at the wheel, they have done their best to mitigate risks, maximize revenues and reach their target audience. With this Award, we recognize Paul’s achievements and success to date. Long may they continue.”