If I Was There…

This week is the annual Event & Arena Marketing Conference in Indianapolis.  For the first time since this blog started I am not going to the conference.   Since last year’s conference I have become a chef and melding the world of live entertainment with the world of culinary (I have never worked so hard for so little money!  But I love it!).   Anyway, it’s just not going to work this year.  Plus, I blew the conference budget on the Ringling Bros. promoter reunion.

If I did go to this year’s conference, this is what I would ask:

1. What is the industry doing to get butts back in seats?
2. Are you using social networking to market and is it really selling tickets?
3. What do you think of the Live Nation / Groupon deal? 
4. Are you thinking of offering your non LN shows on sites such as Groupon, Goldstar, and LivingSocial?
5. What is new in marketing our shows?  What really does work to move tickets?
6. If you work in the venue marketing department are you getting what you need? If not, what do you need?
7. What are the latest trends in group sales? What are your group leaders telling you?
8. What still works and what doesn’t with traditional media?
9. Media promotions: Are you still getting them?  Are they effective?
10. What is the industry doing to get butts back in seats?

You may notice that number one and ten are the same question.  This is by far the most important question to be answered at the conference.  This should be the number 1 focus of this year’s conference.

Since I won’t be with you in Indianapolis, I am giving you the chance to be a guest blogger.  If you have info, comments, or gossip you want to share from the conference, send them to me and I will post them.

More: They Are Finally Getting It

Last week I wrote about Live Nation cutting a deal with Groupon to move tickets.  I mentioned that this kind of deal was closer to the type of marketing that family shows have been doing for years.  This week I saw another example of family show marketing for a Live Nation concert.

Here in the Boston area, we have a large furniture chain called Jordan’s.  They are no small outfit.  They are part of the Warren Buffet empire!  Everything they do is bigger than life.  They are all about mixing entertainment with selling furniture.  All of their stores are themed toward entertainment.  Some even have IMAX theaters.  Over the past several years they have teamed up with the Boston Red Sox on promotions that include the possibility of everyone who buys furniture getting it free.   Currently they are running a promotion that if you buy a mattress, you get free tickets to see Tim McGraw.  This promotion is right out of the old Feld Entertainment handbook!

I took a peek at Live Nation’s website to see how the show was selling for the summer stop here in Boston at the Comcast Center.  Thanks to LN’s new seating chart, I was able to see how many tickets were still available in each section.  The answer: thousands of tickets are still available!  This does not even include the lawn seats.

This is a good promotion for Live Nation.  They know that Jordan’s does quality promotions.  They know Jordan’s spends tons of money in advertising.  They are one of the top advertisers in the Boston market.  LN could never afford to buy the amount of TV exposure for one concert that the Jordan’s promotion is giving them. 

I’m sure that I will get feedback from old school concert promoters ripping the promotion.  They already responded to last week’s post on the Groupon deal.  They believe that customers will wait to buy tickets at a discount.  The family show biz has been offering discounts for years and customers didn’t always respond by waiting.  If the concert industry doesn’t want to discount, than lower ticket prices.

While not every deal and promotion will breed success for concert ticket sales.  My hat is off to Live Nation for at least trying!

Are They Finally Getting It?

This week Live Nation and Groupon announced a partnership to move tickets.  The deal is called GrouponLive.  This is a major breakthrough for the concert industry.  They are finally starting to get it.

How can I not like this partnership?  Anyone who reads this blog knows that I constantly preach about this stuff.  Instead of just papering the house, leaving the seat empty, or canceling a show, they are going to try and get some ticket revenue for the seat.  Don’t forget that Live Nation runs many of the venues.  Getting a customer in at a discount also means getting revenue for parking, concessions, and merch.

This matchup is closer to the marketing thinking that the live family show business has been doing for years.  The live concert industry always believed it was beneath them to offer discounts, group sales or promotions.  I still remember a certain manager of a very famous rock band giving me shit when I came up with a clever promotion to create exposure for his on-sale. His quote was “this ain’t a fuckin circus”.  He was referencing my Ringling Bros. marketing background.

As a music fan that grew up spending lots of summer nights at an outdoor amphitheater, this could help bring that summer ritual to a new audience.  When I was a teen, anyone could afford to see multiple shows at a summer shed and teens took advantage of this.  Today, kids have to save the whole summer just to see one.   Offering a GrouponLive coupon could fill those lawn seats once again.

This deal is probably a better deal for Live Nation then Groupon.  Yes, Groupon will move tickets with their 60 million subscribers, which will bring them new revenue.  For Live Nation, they get to market to 60 million subscribers and fill those empty seats. As Michael Rapino CEO of Live Nation said “finding ways to deliver the message to local email in-boxes is the way of the future.” 

I believe this is a shot in the arm that Live Nation needs save the 2011 summer season and maybe even the company.

Online Coupons

I get my daily offers from both Groupon and Livingsocial and I always chuckle.  Not because the deals are funny but because this concept was so… frowned upon just a few short years ago in the entertainment marketing world, and some still do. I was part of a concept in 2000 that was way ahead of its time with grouptickets.com.  These sites have taken our concept to the next level.  I was almost a dot-com millionaire!

I love these social coupon sites.  They have taken the idea of group sales and super groups to the mainstream.  You can get discounts for restaurants, car washes, clubs, bars, dental, etc…  The one participant I don’t see a lot is our industry.  Some are doing it, but they are in the minority. What is wrong with us?  Why are we always one step behind?  We should be all over these sites. I just read this morning that even the movie business is using it. Lions Gate Entertainment is offering a half price coupon on Groupon for an upcoming movie release.

Everyone always thinks that coupons make the product look cheap.  It’s all in how you market it!  If you market it cheap, it will be cheap.

If your show performs with empty seats then you should be looking at these sites. Why leave the seats empty.  Why do you try to fill them with comps?   When you paper the house you have no idea how many will cash in the comp. With these sites, the customer has to buy the coupon.  The chances they will redeem it are much greater.  

These sites offer minimum and maximum coupons that can be sold.  They offer time limits.  You can control the flow of coupons.  They do a mass email marketing campaign for you.  Do you realize how many million people get their daily emails?

No I’m not on Groupon’s or Livingsocial’s payroll, just a happy consumer who gets it.

Groupon

A little over a year ago I mentioned Groupon in one of my blog posts.  Over the past year has the digital super group for anyone grown?  Oh you bet it has!

Last week on their Twitter page Groupon claimed that someone got the 10 millionth North American Groupon.  For a company that is only two years old that is mind blowing awesome. 

Groupon shows all of us in the event & entertainment marketing industry that we should be doing more with selling tickets in bulk.  The family shows have been using traditional group sales forever.  Concert promoters, not so much. Amusement parks would be out of business without groups.

It wasn’t that long ago that shows frowned on super groups.  They didn’t like the idea of “piecing together” a group.  They thought it was “cheating”.  I was never part of that thinking.  My attitude was always “sell a block of my tickets and I will reward”.

Ten years ago I was part of a dotcom called Grouptickets.  This was a B2B play for 1000+ employee based companies.  We were a one stop shop for individual employees to buy tickets at the group discount without actually going as a group.  It was one of the first “super group” concepts.  The gamble was that a large company would meet the minimum requirement for a group.  It was Groupon for business. The downfall of Grouptickets was timing.  We were ahead of our time.  We also needed more money when the dotcom bubble burst in 2001. I always joke that I was a dotcom millionaire for a day.

Today, Groupon is offering the same concept to anyone. Timing is everything.  Customers want a deal.  All part of the new economic world we live in.

Meet People, Learn Something New

Last night was the first night for the Boston chapter of the Aspen Dinner Club.  It was a really fun and interesting two and half hours.  This was a very informal event.  No name tags, no set agenda, just members talking about whatever in the entertainment business. 

We had attendees from different areas of the entertainment world.  We had event marketers, band managers, festival producers, independent artist development, and a promoter of dinner theater, harbor cruises and teambuilding.

We met at Stone Hearth Pizza in Cambridge MA.  This locally owned eatery was small but very cool.  Everyone in the group agreed that the pizza was great. 

One goal for this club is to learn at least one new thing during the dinner.  I believe all of us would agree this happened. In fact, we learned a few new things.

David Goldstein our team building promoter told us about Groupon.  This is a very cool group sales marketing opportunity for all of us in the ticket selling business.  You give Groupon a good deal on tickets.  You decide how many customers it will take to make a group.  They promote your event to their members and on the website. They only offer one event per day, per city. If a customer is interested, they put down their contact and payment info.  If enough people sign up for your event, then everyone is charged for the ticket and they get a coupon to print out. If the minimum is not hit, nobody gets charged. This is a digital super group!   Groupon is currently doing business in Chicago, Boston, New York, Washington DC, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Atlanta.  Check it out for yourself. 

Have a great weekend!