TicketsNow expands transparency on site
Since February, TicketsNow has made national news. But it hasn’t always been the kind of news President Shawn Freeman wanted to hear.
Freeman and the rest of the company, which was founded in Crystal Lake and still operates a call center there, hope those words change today after TicketsNow announced a new transparency initiative called Fans Up Front.
The program features two main changes to the business. First, the face value price of tickets will be displayed along with the resale price. Second, consumers who search an event that still has face-value tickets for sale at Ticketmaster will be provided a direct link to those seats.
“To really show we’re taking important steps forward is very gratifying to me,” Freeman said. “I walked around the office today and people are really excited about it.”
Apparently, consumers have taken to it, as well. Freeman reported that their normal volume had doubled in the first few hours since the program went live on its Web site.
TicketsNow first made headlines in February when a problem – later declared a computer glitch – sent fans who were searching for tickets to a Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band concert in New Jersey from Ticketmaster to TicketsNow. Fans paid resale prices for secondary tickets – some for hundreds more than face value – while original seats still were available.
Shortly after, Ticketmaster Chief Executive Officer Irving Azoff told a Congressional panel probing Ticketmaster’s proposed merger with Live Nation that he would consider selling TicketsNow, and that he didn’t believe there should be a secondary market at all. “I believe that scalping and resale should be illegal,” Azoff told a U.S. Senate subcommittee.
But Freeman, who took over as CEO in December, said the changes were not in response to the recent news.
“All of this stuff really was in the planning stages last year shortly after we were acquired,” he said.
Ticketmaster bought TicketsNow for $265 million in January 2008. The deal closed in August.
The transparency programs are a response to resale ticketing going mainstream, Freeman said.
“As more mainstream adoption has come, more people don’t really understand what they’re getting, they don’t understand what they’re buying, and that it isn’t for what they originally would pay,” Freeman said. “As we heard this, it became clear that the consumer really wanted to be informed.
“More and more consumers who end up buying resale tickets shop for tickets the way most people shop for goods online – by starting at Google, looking up something like Madonna tickets, seeing the tickets available where they want to sit, and buying them. In some cases, they didn’t realize they were buying resale tickets. In some cases, they don’t realize that tickets are still available on Ticketmaster.”
Freeman said the company hoped that by being more up front about the process, TicketsNow could gain consumer loyalty.
“Because we’ve been very transparent, maybe they’re more inclined to come back to TicketsNow to find that ticket,” he said.
But that plan comes with a risk. Freeman said he was most gratified about the seemingly positive response Tuesday because the company anticipated potentially negative effects early in its introduction.
“When we started talking about this program and what the eventual effect might be, we were fully prepared that it might not be helpful for our business in the early stages,” he said. “But over time, we wanted the site that tried to be helpful and tried to provide all the information – even if that meant to consumer might go over and buy the ticket for face value at Ticketmaster – and then the consumer would be happier, more loyal, and would buy from TicketsNow.”
Freeman said he hoped their model would be accepted as the new way to do businesses in the secondary ticketing industry.
“We believe this is best for the industry in the long term, and we’re very hopeful that other exchanges will adopt these practices,” he said.