High-quality Ticketing Presented in the Simplest Way

Catch up on what's happening in the Tix world.

Today, box offices at theatres and organizations within the Performing Arts and Culture need a wide range of software solutions to manage live events, whether during an event itself or online to enable sharable promotions, digital purchases or track ticket sales and other analytics. 

Two of the most significant software solutions to gain importance in recent years, outside of your core ticketing solution itself, are customer relationship management (CRM) for ticketing sales and a content management system (CMS) for event promotions.

Here, we take a closer look at these systems and why they are increasingly important, not only to your box office team but marketing and sales strategies as well. 

What’s the Difference Between a CRM and CMS?

First, it’s important to define the difference between a Customer Relationship Management solution, CRM, which enables the collection, management and segmentation of your customers' purchases and interests, and a Content Management System, CMS, which lets you create, manage and publish promotions and marketing assets for your events, update your websites, and can integrate with a CRM to communicate with various audience segments such as donors, patrons, customers and potential new audiences. 

In most cases, if you’re not already using CMS and CRM systems, you likely track sales and create your promotions in spreadsheets, word docs or within an email program.  Your team may have a loose understanding of who your donors and returning audiences are from their years of engaging with your community (and your spreadsheets). This can be a great temporary approach but it doesn't provide purchase behavior analysis, data security nor the ability to effectively communicate with customers across your owned marketing (i.e. your websites, social media and newsletters). 

In other cases, if you are using various CMS and CRM systems, they may be expensive to license, cutting into your event returns and operational costs, and often have limited, if any, integration to each other or to your box office operations software. 

In either scenario, your team’s valuable time and resources are then used inefficiently, manually exporting customer data between systems, which leaves lots of room for error, data breaches, duplicating email outreach or missing valuable promotional opportunities.

With the right ticketing CRM, events organisers, promoters, and venues can get more done in less time, and work more efficiently and effectively. Likewise, leveraging a CMS to create and distribute venue, organization, event and donor marketing assets, from one place, frees your team to focus on relationship building and executing exceptional events. 

Why your Performing Arts and Culture organization needs a Ticketing CRM?

Carnegie Mellon University’s Master of the Arts program recently wrote an article on its Arts Management & Technology Laboratory blog about the use cases and increasing importance of CRM to Performing Arts and Culture organisations, particularly with regard to better understanding your donor portfolios (and increasing digital giving), as well as event sales and nurturing the interests and development of younger generations of future givers for the health and wellbeing of your organisation.  

While creating promotional materials, social media campaigns and updating website copy is generally left to the creative talents of your marketing team and the event’s promoter, the box office team is becoming increasingly responsible for promotions and audience communications, as they generally have more direct insights, and a clearer picture, through their box office software, into who is buying event tickets and why.

In the case of venue bookings, having a greater understanding of the types of events that sell among your venue’s demographics-- by analysing historical and aggregated data from your Google Analytics and Tag Manager, Facebook Pixel, Twitter Conversion and services like Markethype.io-- can better inform event production decisions, “on-sale” promotional strategies and surface the characteristics of an event experience that makes a patron decide to purchase their tickets.  This creates new, otherwise untapped marketing opportunities like bundling tickets with other event products or honing in on what they may want out of their event experience in your communication to sell more tickets and products such as merch and concessions.

Further, communicating through unified, integrated software, shared between key event stakeholders, enables more fluid ticket sales and event successes, as well as overall happier donors and customers, even on occasions where an event must be canceled, postponed or seating arrangements must be reconfigured, 

Tix Ticketing Integrates Ticketing Management with built-in CRM and CMS features

Tix Ticketing prides itself on understanding both the live event customer journey and the operational demands of our customers: the venues and organisations hosting the events. Our team’s extensive backgrounds in ticketing, venue management, event production, Performing Arts, Culture institutions and live event sales & marketing informs how we bring features and services to our software solutions.    

Segmentation

Search for customers using name, phone number or email address. 

 Ability to segment customers by interest and profiles, whether loyal and returning fans or by additional genres and purchase history.

Integration through powerful APIs to send and receive data between external systems such as PowerBI and Mosaic. 

Direct communication to customers from Tix Ticketing or your external newsletter and email systems such as MailChimp, Campaign Monitor and Apsis.

Optionally connect payment systems to our CRM to better track customer spends

Secure and GDPR compliance, with everything hosted in Europe using Amazon’s cloud-based platform.

Trigger Emails

Automate marketing and social media, when new events go live;

Complete website, social media and email updates with new or amended event information automatically; 

Content creation features, enabling direct customer communications from one system, or through 3rd party (API) integrations across your marketing software stack

Integrated tracking data from Google Analytics, Facebook, and other marketing and promotional channels;

Creation of Google (PPC), Facebook Product and other advertising campaigns directly from within Tix Ticketing. 



Tix Ticketing also puts customers and donors in control, enabling them to create Tix Ticketing profiles within our system to review their ticket purchase history, donation contributions, buy new tickets online, including subscriptions, renewals, membership sales, product sales and gift cards, as well as manage and request refunds, change seating and forward tickets to others where applicable. 

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Would your business benefit from a high-quality, award-winning ticketing system, presented in the simplest possible way? Contact Tix Ticketing today to find out more: Book a Demo. 

Why You need CRM and CMS in your Ticketing Management

Managing venue capacity changes in the Performing Arts: we’re not out of the woods yet, but there are new solutions to consider

Navigating cancellations has always been a challenge for Live Event producers and venues. It’s a costly and stressful process as much for the event team as for the patrons. Ticketing self-service and group management features, like bulk returns and CRM-based communications can mitigate costs and improve customer relationships. 

By now everyone has seen Adele’s announcement on her need to postpone her highly anticipated Vegas residency. In her tears-laden video, she talks earnestly and openly about the numerous factors that led her, and her team, to make the gut-wrenching decision to push the dates back, the pandemic being a significant factor. 

This scenario isn’t unique to concerts or Adele, however. The pandemic has time and again led live event productions scrambling to reschedule, causing a ripple among their fans and ticket holders to change plans at short notice. This notably happened when several cast members of “Moulin Rouge! The Musical” on Broadway tested positive for Covid-19, forcing the show producers to cancel as some patrons were taking their seats. Our own venue and Performing Arts customers have felt this crunch across Europe and the Nordics. 

These days, “The show must go on” is only true if PCR tests are negative and the (always evolving) gathering rules allow it. So, how can event producers, venues and ticket holders alike work together for the best outcomes in these situations and get back on track as restrictions lift and dates and seats need to be reconfigured? 

To understand the true complexity of this situation, you must understand how customer service, ticketing software and communications protocols factor into these changes. A few ways we’ve helped our own venue and event producers through the pandemic is by quickly implementing a social distancing feature into our ticketing management dashboard to adapt their venue seating plans in one click, as well as enable bulk refunding and communication tools, or by giving the ticket holders themselves the chance to pick new dates through self-service.   

Refocusing on Donors and Season Ticket Holders

One key way venues across the world have adapted to the pandemic, especially as restrictions are reduced and events go live again, was to focus attention on their repeat customers– donors and season ticket holders. We can look to recent changes at the arena level to see how major multi-event venues, particularly in sports, changed their approach. As new variants started to spread across North America and it became clear we weren’t out of the woods yet, organizations like MLSE, which is the parent company of teams like the Toronto Maple Leafs and Raptors in Ontario Canada began prioritizing season ticket holders first, as capacity at any venue with over 1,000 seats in Canada was reduced 50%. Non-season ticket holders were refunded and season ticket holder attendance was selected at random. It takes an all-hands-on-deck approach to make this successful, especially if your ticketing and communications software lacks the capabilities to manage this digitally and with as little friction as possible. 

What to do when you must postpone or cancel your live event? 

In some cases, ticket holders are given a deadline to decide whether to retain their ticket or roll it over to a future event, as happened with some of comedian Hannah Gadsby’s tour dates recently, first due to the pandemic and then an unfortunate slip on Iceland’s notorious winter ice (Hope you're feeling better, Hannah!). In other cases, when postponing is not an option, a full refund can be issued immediately upon cancellation. But what happens behind the box office doors to make these difficult decisions have the best possible outcomes, retaining the customer and donor relationship and mitigating extra steps? 

It’s really this simple. Circumstances beyond your control means you must cancel the event. Weather disruptions, performers are sick or injured, tours have been rerouted. There are a number of reasons that can impact the show going on. Everyone is devastated, but you have to make the cancellation process quick, easy and as stress-free as possible. 

Tix Ticketing enables ticketing managers to issue bulk refunds, in on one step. Select the event, and/or the ticket holders from the list, click. Refund. 

CRM features within Tix Ticketing make communicating with ticket holders easy when plans need to change, either because of Covid or any other reason. Events brands, organizers and venues can quickly launch new email and online communication campaigns and segment communications per customer group, so that the correct information gets to the correct ticket holder. 

Putting patrons in control gives them the freedom to choose the options that are best for them, while freeing up organizers and venues to focus on all of the logistics details that a cancellation of event postponement creates. 

Ticketing self-service, to us, is the future of ticketing. We’ve built patron self-service into our ticketing software and CRM. Whether they are requesting a refund or making sure tickets are rolled over to a date of their choice in the future, self-service puts the power pack in the patron and donor’s hands.  

Alongside self-serve seat changing, ticket forwarding and refund solutions, Tix Ticketing is packed full of easy-to-use features that ticketing managers and customers alike love, wrapped in a simple and beautifully designed interface. 

Two years into the pandemic and with so many false starts, postponements and cancellations, one of the primary focuses of 2022 for venue operators is making sure their repeat customers, season ticket holders and Performing Arts donors.

Now more than ever, it’s important to have the ticketing tools needed to quickly and efficiently adapt to live event logistics, delivered in a cloud-based software solution that makes the entire end-to-end ticketing experience enjoyable, cost-effective and prepares your venue and organization for the future of live events. 

Would your business benefit from our integrated, award-winning ticketing system and services? Contact Tix Ticketing today to find out more: Book a Demo. 

Managing venue capacity changes in the Performing Arts

Scandinavian, or Nordic design is synonymous with simplicity, clean lines, and a high-level of functionality. When we think of famous Scandinavian brands, the ones that usually come to mind are IKEA, Lego, Spotify and Volvo. Can we apply the same ideals to Ticketing software?

Simple, clean and efficient design principles ensure these, and numerous other brands, offer higher-value products at a cost-effective price. For example, IKEA has thrived on delivering useful, aesthetically pleasing home goods that are adaptable, accessible, stylishly Nordic, and sold at a consumer-friendly price point. 

In the live events industry, finding the right balance of form and function, ease-of-use and longevity is a challenge for many venues and organizations as they navigate numerous production changes, seating layouts and ticketing opportunities. 

In fact, finding nimble and user-friendly, software-based ticketing systems that live digitally where customers are making ticket purchase decisions and simultaneously enable event teams, box office staff and production stakeholders to manage and monitor ticketing activities from anywhere at anytime, still poses a big challenge for venues and Performing Arts organizations.  

At Tix Ticketing, we believe that ticketing software should be elegant, simple, easy-to-use, and convenient, the crux of Nordic design. It should feel modern, be functional and offer flexibility with seating, alongside value-added service offerings that reflect what event-goers want, from transportation, to dining options to sorting out other logistics. Our CEO, Sindri Finnbogason, recently discussed the influence Nordic design has on Tix Ticketing during INTIX 2022 earlier this month. 

The ticketing software and interface a venue uses should be graceful, sophisticated, sturdy and secure, like Volvo. And at the same time, it should be simple, customizable, affordable, and promote self-service among their customers, like IKEA. Managing ticketing should be tactile and immersive, as easy-to-use as it is adaptable like playing with Lego. Modern ticketing systems must put the consumer and consumer journey at the heart of the purchase experience, whether at a box office window or anywhere online, living wherever purchase decisions are being made. 

In a recent article about Tix Ticketing in The Ticketing Business, our Chief Operating Officer, Hrefna Sif Jónsdóttir, said: “We see the future of ticketing encompassing more than the event ticket purchase itself.”

How are Nordic design principles changing ticketing software? 

Whether a consumer wants to attend the opera, a live music event, the cinema, or any other form of arts & entertainment, purchasing and accessing a ticket is a critical part of the event experience. It should be immersive, fun, maintain seamless branding and be a positive part of the whole overall event. 

Nordic design principles solve challenges, in the most direct, simplest way possible, invisibly taking on the complexities on the backend to deliver nimble user experiences on the frontend. Look at how streaming services like Spotify make music more accessible, providing tools for labels and artists' to promote their projects, merchandising and pre-sales, all while fans and listeners stream, organize and discover music uninterrupted. Their algorithm studies consumption and behavior, creating more personlized, relevant recommendations. Can the same Nordic design ideals be applied to Ticketing?  

We think so. Afterall, we have a proven track record of applying Nordic design to our own software, which has helped venues and Performing Arts organizations in the Nordics, UK, EU and very soon in the US, to easily and efficiently sell millions of tickets monthly.  

Some ways in which the simplicity of Nordic Design can make ticketing more beautiful is through fluid integration. Imagine that, in addition to augmenting ticket packages with venue concessions or event merchandising before or during an event, ticket buyers could make transportation decisions with Uber, Lyft or a limousine service, or use reservation services like DineOut, OpenTable, or Reserve from within the ticketing system. This would give event goers options to plan and adapt the entirety of their event-going experience, make pre or post-event dining decisions at will, saving time and increasing predictable revenue in bars and restaurants in the area. 

Booking events is comparable to the booking process for travel, a necessary step to reaching your destination. As with travel booking, often the ticket purchase experience can be arduous rather than enjoyable, with a myriad of complexities that can negatively impact or slow the event journey. Tix Ticketing is looking beyond ticketing to increase ease-of-use and refine the user experiences of our software for both ticketing teams and event attendees, through impeccable UX and powerful API integrations. 

How Tix Ticketing is bringing Nordic design principles to ticketing software? 

We at Tix Ticketing leverage our inherent Nordic design philosophies to distill the entirety of the complex challenges Ticketing operations managers face into simple, functional features and solutions through our software. Our robust yet lightweight cloud-based ticketing system, which helps our customers evade cumbersome installations and unnecessary integrations and makes ticketing efficient and enjoyable, is likely why we’ve become the fastest growing ticketing software in our sector in the Nordics and Europe. 

Beyond providing all of the standard Box Office features the ticketing industry expects from their software solutions, we have also embedded within our software powerful and easy-to-use CRM solutions that include segmentation, personalization, and insightful sales reports while maintaining data and GDPR compliance. In addition to the ability to bring your current and historical ticketing data from other systems into Tix Ticketing, our software also gives promoters, Performing Arts organizations and venues the ability to quickly and easily create bulk events, and make marketing assets, such as email campaigns and online promotions. Simple and effective APIs ensure that websites are constantly updated with the most current event details. 

Alongside these features, we know there’s still massive untapped potential in customer data analysis and transparency. All of this makes event promotions more relevant and ticket purchasing more convenient for patrons and ticket holders, while at the same time generating valuable new revenue streams for events brands, venues, and producers. Everyone benefits. 

In the Ticketing Business Magazine article mentioned earlier, Einar Þór Gústafsson, our Vice President of Product and Engineering, said: “We think it’s important, as venues and event producers consider how to deepen the patron experience for each of their exceptional events, to look to technology solutions that consider both user experiences: the venue and the patron.” 

“Ticket buyers want more control over changes in their plans, such as changing event dates and seats, buying additional products and forwarding tickets to others. We think the cancellation and refund process should be as frictionless as the purchase, reducing both system and staff burdens while making the customer journey enjoyable”, Gústafsson added.

How can event producers and venues increase revenue? 

Our obvious answer is to choose Tix Ticketing. Utilizing cloud and browser-based Ticketing software, such as ours, can be the most cost and time-effective way for events venues and producers to increase revenue. Put patrons at the heart of the experience with modern conveniences that are accessible online, whether mobile or desktop.  

Make sure the whole booking experience is as smooth as possible at every click. Choose a solution that thoughtfully considers the whole experience, from how events are discovered, how tickets are bought or exchanged, to the way patrons arrive at an event. 

Would your live event organization benefit from using our intuitive, award-winning ticketing system, presented in the simplest possible way? Contact Tix Ticketing today to find out more: Book a Demo.

Nordic Influence on Ticketing Software Design

Tix Ticketing launches US operations, makes key management hire with Aren Murray

Tix Ticketing, the fastest growing ticketing operations and management software company in Europe announced today the launch of its US operations, led by key management hire Aren Murray, who has assumed the role of Business Development Manager. 

Since its founding in 2014, Tix Ticketing has grown to support world renowned venues and performing arts organizations across the UK, Europe and the Nordics in modernizing their ticketing operations through its state of the art ticketing system, which features a simple and intuitive interface, built-in CRM, promotional tools and seamless branding that creates a pleasant purchasing experience for Performing Arts patrons and event customers.

“We have experienced rapid growth in recent years as a result of providing the right integrated software and services that our customers need for digitized, modern event and ticketing operations. Our entry into the US market is a natural progression of our growth and enables us to service a greater number of performing arts and multi-event venues,” says Hrefna Jonsdottir, COO of Tix Ticketing. “We are thrilled to launch our US operations with an exceptional key hire in Aren Murray, an executive who has deep experience and a broad network within the US ticketing industry.” 

Aren Murray comes to Tix Ticketing with significant leadership experience within the performing arts venue sector, having overseen growth of Texas A&M’s centralized arts box office, as well as ticketing operations at Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, a state of the art, world-renowned venue in San Antonio, Texas. Her customer-centric management approach has helped ensure the success of countless events, fundraising initiatives and nurtured the development of the next generation of teams within performing arts organizations and venues. Aren is also a member of the Board of INTIX, a nonprofit membership organization that represents over a thousand ticketing, sales, technology, finance and marketing professionals from over 25 countries. Aren will oversee business development initiatives, assisting venues and organizations in streamlining their ticketing operations, make greater use of their customer data and navigate the nuances of multi-platform event ticketing management.

“Tix Ticketing takes a stimulating and intuitive approach to ticketing technology that will greatly benefit US venues and performing arts organizations. I’m thrilled to direct the development of its US presence and enable ticketing professionals and venues across the country to obtain the full control, transparency, efficient purchase flow and revenue they need.” says Aren Murray. 

Tix Ticketing is one of the fastest growing ticketing technology companies today. Our cloud-based software delivers the ticketing operations management that performing arts organizations and venues need through an intuitive interface, with built-in CRM, event promotional tools and powerful, high-quality APIs that integrate with CRM, ERP, finance systems and our customers’ websites. Tix Ticketing enables full control and transparency of customer data, mitigating data loss by giving venues the ability to import data from other ticketing systems. Our streamlined ticketing purchase flow and real time reporting keeps event stakeholders informed, all while providing an enjoyable purchasing experience, complete with several self-service features, for performing arts patrons and event customers. To learn more, visit TixTicketing.com.

Tix Ticketing is gearing up for INTIX in Orlando, FL and we have a lot of features, activities and fun giveaways to share. 

Get to Know The Future of Ticketing software and The Modern Box Office

We know that the future of ticketing encompasses more than the purchase of the ticket itself. Your customers want convenience, self-service and an enjoyable purchase experience, reflective of their event experiences. Point of sale now lives wherever your event promotions appear online, in social media posts, on blogs and at your other events. Your box office must be accessible the moment your patrons are inspired to make a purchase, whether in person, from a mobile device or online. Their ticketing experiences must be fluid and integrated, incorporating conveniences and transparency that enable them to more quickly and easily shop ticket packages that suit their needs. Likewise, your ticketing software must give your venue managers, event promoters and ticketing operations managers the tools they need, accessible whenever and wherever they need them. 

Visit us at Booth 217 to learn how we can serve you, just like we are serving our many customer venues and performing arts organizations across the US, UK, Europe and the Nordics on their journey to modern ticketing. See how our robust yet light-weight, cloud-based system eliminates clumsy installations and unnecessary integrations. Get to know why, in addition to our standard ticketing management features, Tix Ticketing offers the contemporary event promotions and content creation features that can help you quickly and easily create emailers and online content marketing campaigns, connected through high quality APIs to automatically update content across your sites, with the latest information and events. See how Tix Ticketing enables you to retain and discover valuable customer data and manage customers with contemporary CRM tools for segmenting into interest groups and create insightful sales reports to keep all event stakeholders informed.

You can find us by following the trail of Lego and perhaps walk away with a better ticketing solution and a special gift. 

We are proud to be presenting two talks at INTIX this year that will be helpful to you as a ticketing professional, both in your event operations and your professional development: 

How Scandinavian Design Inspires the Future of Ticketing

Sindri Mar Finnbogason, Chief Executive Officer, Tix Ticketing

Brands like Lego, Ikea and Volvo are iconic, as much for their elegant simplicity as for their use of Scandinavian design principles. We will share how the future of ticketing reflects the same clean, sturdy, easy-to-implement design without sacrificing beauty and robust functionality. We will show how infusing Scandinavian design principles with Icelandic tenacity and problem-solving helps venues and performing arts organizations quickly modernise their box office and sites, make the ticketing and merchandising purchase journeys engaging, and how implementing integrated, contemporary promotions tools helps build audiences.

Aren Murray, Board Member, INTIX; Business Development Manager, Tix Ticketing

We faced a lifetime of issues in the past two years. Those that faced these crushing pressures with positivity found a gentler path through the storm. A look at the impact of a positive attitude on the ability to face adversity in the work world. Discover how attitudes can be infectious and effect problem solving, team building, and personal advancement. Then discuss how to reform attitudes to create your desired work culture!

Protecting yourself from attitude affecting stimulus

We are proud to announce that Odense Teater, as one of the first major theatres in Denmark, has signed a contract starting next year with Tix as their partner for their ticket-sales and CRM.

Implementation is planned for April and and go-live for May 2022.

Odense Teater is one of the largest regional theatres in Denmark and is Denmark's second oldest theater centrally located in H.C. Andersen's hometown Odense. With roots dating back to 1796, Odense Teater has thus run a professional theater company for over 200 years.

In the theatre there are 3 halls whereas both Danish and foreign classics are performed as well as modern Danish and foreign dramas, performances for children and young people, musical performances and dance.

Blog

Why You need CRM and CMS in your Ticketing Management

Managing venue capacity changes in the Performing Arts

Nordic Influence on Ticketing Software Design

Tix Ticketing launches US operations, makes key management hire with Aren Murray

Join Tix Ticketing at INTIX 2022

Odense Teater signed for next year

See what Tix Ticketing can do for you

See what Tix Ticketing can do for you