INTIX 2025 Recap: AI All The Buzz, But Not Just A Buzz Word

Last week’s INTIX conference in New York was hailed as its best-attended yet, with organizers saying registration totaled 1,500 for the popular conference produced by the International Ticketing Association featuring three days of panel discussions, workout sessions, venue tours and networking opportunities.

Taking place at the New York Hilton Midtown in Manhattan, conference attendees were buzzing about upcoming onsales and eager to get to work, share advice and solutions and meet up with old friends as part of a tight-knit but under-the-radar community that handles an important sector of the events industry.

Sessions included a keynote discussion between Ticketmaster North American managing director Marla Ostroff, who stressed the importance of relationships and accessibility, and the USTA’s Daniel Zausner, where attendance at the U.S. Open has risen from 400,000 to more than 1 million thanks largely to increased investment in its host venues and amenities — including a popular signature cocktail resembling a tennis ball known as the Honey Deuce, which sold 600,000 units during the Open last summer.

INTIX, like other tight-knit trade organizations, is not only about the present and future but celebrating the past and acknowledging mentors and pioneers of the business. This year’s awards luncheon included The 2025 Spirit Award (Margo Malone, San Francisco Giants), True Tickets Young Ticketing Professional (Hatty Simpson, Nimax Theatres), OUtstanding Ticket Office (Chapman University Ticket Services), Outstanding Ticketing Professional (Marcy Edenfield) and the prestigious IMPACT Award, which went to Jane Kleinberger, who helped found Paciolan in 1980 and served as the ticketing industry’s first female CEO. She retired in 2019.

The event’s Welcome Lunch included the 2025 VenuesNow Ticketing Star Awards, an annual honor given to a handful of ticketing professionals as nominated and voted on by their peers and featured in VenuesNow, Pollstar’s sister publication. This year’s class featured two 40-year veterans who got their start at the Meadowlands in New Jersey — Prudential Center’s Rick Katz – “he never goes outside!” someone joked during the event, and Alan Kass of MetLife Stadium, who received a rousing applause and whose venue recently announced hosting four Beyonce Cowboy Carter tour dates this summer, along with other hot tickets like Oasis reunion shows and Shakira Concerts.

The conference, like many industry trade confabs, includes knowing nods to the good old days, war stories (like a last-minute Frank Sinatra no-show at the Meadowlands leaving many disappointed female fans waiting in the rain and potentially ruining their fur coats) and decades-long business relationships.
However, in a tech-heavy, ever-changing sector of the industry such as ticketing, INTIX is heavy on workshops, brainstorming and news you can use, attracting tech vendors, brokers and a host of others looking to share data and make money.

AI has been all the buzz in the tech world for the last year — leading to previously relatively unknown tech company Nvidia becoming the world’s most valuable company last summer, now with a market cap of $2.85 trillion —but in the live events and ticketing world specifically, has become much more than a buzz word.

“What we are really talking about is machine learning, a specific subgenre of AI,” said Derek Zhou, who heads SeatGeek IQ, the ticketing company’s data division, which provides tools to help venues and promoters set ticket prices for events. He was speaking on a panel discussion dedicated to AI and ticket pricing.

“I think what you hear out in the news most of the time today is generative AI, where the idea is to predict what the most likely next thing is usually in language,” added Zhou. “When we’re talking about machine learning, what we’re saying is most likely outcomes and competence. So within pricing, within ticketing, what we’re saying is not, hey, let me ask ChatGPT what the price is, but rather let’s ingest all the information (available) as data.”

Delanie Nicosia, vice president of event booking for the Dallas Cowboys, said AI technology can go a long way toward helping determine which potential concert or event would generate the most interest among ticket buyers, especially in the case of having multiple holds for a particular date.

She said she and her team are encouraging outside promoters to look at the data and trust the process when it comes to AI.

“When a promoter comes in and wants to do an event at the stadium, we always say, ‘You know, there’s this incredible tool,’ as we’re educating people walking through it,” she said, noting blockbuster events at the stadium such as the Jake Paul and Mike Tyson boxing match in November. “Then, it’s case studies and more explanation and then letting them know that, obviously it’s ultimately their decision to make but really telling them, ‘You can trust it, you should try it. It will maximize your revenue.’ Then it feels like we’re back to selling and marketing. But it has been great for a lot of promoters, so (the conversation) has become easier and quicker.”

As digitized ticketing has allowed for not only the ability to adjust pricing more quickly , machine learning tools like SeatGeek IQ help event organizers and ticketing professionals more quickly determine where pricing should be or is headed — at any time of the day or night, rather than at the mercy of the box office staff.

Another practical tool that AI is giving way to is on the sponsorship and partnership side, actually sending thoughtful and relevant sales pitches to potential clients — something humans don’t always have time to chase.

“There’s a program out there that’ll be messaging coming from an AI perspective, where you’re getting a sponsorship pitch email in the voice of your brand that goes out, and they get back appointments,” said Fred Mangione, a consultant with extensive experience at organizers including the New York Kets, Barclays Center and FIFA Women’s World Cup. “You don’t have to get rid of (a team of) six people, … but it’s a different approach to penetrating the market, and you’re getting leads.”