Welcome to the new ts.com web site! This is our corporate site and is designed to showcase the suite of ts.com products (ranging from free ts Express, to ts Marketing our new marketing toolkit). However like all good web sites, it needs to evolve. If you have any feedback (negative or positive) then do please contact me...
So onto my inaugural blog.
When is a cheap ticketing system good value?
With the Credit Crunch, and the unmentionable ‘R’ word, all that anybody seems to talk about socially and in the media is gloom and doom. So I thought that this blog should start off with a joke (juvenile I know, but in a blog you can get away with this). I have been inundated with many over the last few weeks, my short and sharp favourite is still, “Question - What is the capital of Iceland? Answer - £3.50!”.
Which neatly brings me onto more weighty matters, regarding ticketing systems, and specifically, “when is a cheap ticketing system good value?” Here at ts.com we have always tried to focus on affordable ticketing solutions. What I mean by this is a product that does the job well enough with sufficient features at a highly affordable price, with little or no upfront capital investment, and that can be deployed by end users with minimal training. This product, ts Web, is today in use in hundreds of clients ranging from rugby, football and cricket clubs through to outdoor music events, right the way through to pre-book airport car-parking, and was also used to run large outdoor events such as the RedBull Flugtag.
Cost effective solutions and totally free alternatives
To be honest, although ts Web is very cost effective for some organisations it is still too expensive. The mindset is that if it costs money, then it is way, way too expensive! Also they (un?)reasonably want to be live within 30 mins of getting the product and selling in 45 mins, and as for the requirement for training, well you can probably guess the answer to that one. Being an imaginative organisation ts.com decided to tackle this problem and as a result created ts Express; a totally free easy to use ticketing solution. However, to make it free we have limited (and I do really mean limited) the functionality and have made it very easy to set up configure and use. It has limits on its flexibility; basically it allows you to sell tickets online – period, with limited online training and support.
From a wider perspective, there are other free ticketing solutions out there and also many low cost ticketing systems, sold by new, small organisations. On the surface I think that they all have merit. They typically have a commercial model based on a ticket price, i.e. they make their income based on a % fee of the value of the tickets sold through the system. They may be solely web based ticketing solutions for end clients, however the more sophisticated combine web based ticketing for end clients as well as box office functionality for venue staff to sell tickets face-to-face and over the phone.
Such products certainly do the job of selling a ticket; however I and you would expect any ticketing system to be able to do this. If that is all you want, both today and tomorrow, then you have a wide choice.
The big issue?
The issue for all of you is how do you maximise your ticket sales and add-ons to generate the greatest margin for your business? The limited functionality products just don’t cut it if that is your focus. You simply have to buy a decent solution to achieve more than just a ticket sale, for example with a customer who is standing in front of you saying “can I buy a ticket”? If you are the type of organisation that will evolve and demand more from your system in the future then this choice will prove a false economy.
My Grandmother had a saying that I have used whenever I consider buying anything, “if it sounds like a sheep, baas like a sheep and smells like a sheep, then it is a sheep”! ie if the price feels too cheap then it probably is for a good reason; don’t expect top drawer service and support when you have paid bottom drawer prices. Ticketing companies are commercial organisations and your software license and support fees pay for their existence, product support and development. A cheaper solution may be priced that way because the vendor is desperate for your business (at any price), or simply that the software is all you get, nothing else, no marketing, no memberships, no loyalty scheme, no promotions , no reservations or add on sales capability. If you want service and support then that is not included in the price.
Finally, the issue always comes down to what else such systems can do and, significantly, what they can not do. Interestingly, all of these products are just software, so how well does the vendor support this software, do they do what they say they will do, and will they support you when (inevitably) you have a problem.
My top hot topics are :-
Regards
Mark Ellis
Managing Director, ts.com Limited
So onto my inaugural blog.
When is a cheap ticketing system good value?
With the Credit Crunch, and the unmentionable ‘R’ word, all that anybody seems to talk about socially and in the media is gloom and doom. So I thought that this blog should start off with a joke (juvenile I know, but in a blog you can get away with this). I have been inundated with many over the last few weeks, my short and sharp favourite is still, “Question - What is the capital of Iceland? Answer - £3.50!”.
Which neatly brings me onto more weighty matters, regarding ticketing systems, and specifically, “when is a cheap ticketing system good value?” Here at ts.com we have always tried to focus on affordable ticketing solutions. What I mean by this is a product that does the job well enough with sufficient features at a highly affordable price, with little or no upfront capital investment, and that can be deployed by end users with minimal training. This product, ts Web, is today in use in hundreds of clients ranging from rugby, football and cricket clubs through to outdoor music events, right the way through to pre-book airport car-parking, and was also used to run large outdoor events such as the RedBull Flugtag.
Cost effective solutions and totally free alternatives
To be honest, although ts Web is very cost effective for some organisations it is still too expensive. The mindset is that if it costs money, then it is way, way too expensive! Also they (un?)reasonably want to be live within 30 mins of getting the product and selling in 45 mins, and as for the requirement for training, well you can probably guess the answer to that one. Being an imaginative organisation ts.com decided to tackle this problem and as a result created ts Express; a totally free easy to use ticketing solution. However, to make it free we have limited (and I do really mean limited) the functionality and have made it very easy to set up configure and use. It has limits on its flexibility; basically it allows you to sell tickets online – period, with limited online training and support.
From a wider perspective, there are other free ticketing solutions out there and also many low cost ticketing systems, sold by new, small organisations. On the surface I think that they all have merit. They typically have a commercial model based on a ticket price, i.e. they make their income based on a % fee of the value of the tickets sold through the system. They may be solely web based ticketing solutions for end clients, however the more sophisticated combine web based ticketing for end clients as well as box office functionality for venue staff to sell tickets face-to-face and over the phone.
Such products certainly do the job of selling a ticket; however I and you would expect any ticketing system to be able to do this. If that is all you want, both today and tomorrow, then you have a wide choice.
The big issue?
The issue for all of you is how do you maximise your ticket sales and add-ons to generate the greatest margin for your business? The limited functionality products just don’t cut it if that is your focus. You simply have to buy a decent solution to achieve more than just a ticket sale, for example with a customer who is standing in front of you saying “can I buy a ticket”? If you are the type of organisation that will evolve and demand more from your system in the future then this choice will prove a false economy.
My Grandmother had a saying that I have used whenever I consider buying anything, “if it sounds like a sheep, baas like a sheep and smells like a sheep, then it is a sheep”! ie if the price feels too cheap then it probably is for a good reason; don’t expect top drawer service and support when you have paid bottom drawer prices. Ticketing companies are commercial organisations and your software license and support fees pay for their existence, product support and development. A cheaper solution may be priced that way because the vendor is desperate for your business (at any price), or simply that the software is all you get, nothing else, no marketing, no memberships, no loyalty scheme, no promotions , no reservations or add on sales capability. If you want service and support then that is not included in the price.
Finally, the issue always comes down to what else such systems can do and, significantly, what they can not do. Interestingly, all of these products are just software, so how well does the vendor support this software, do they do what they say they will do, and will they support you when (inevitably) you have a problem.
My top hot topics are :-
- Customer Relationship Marketing (CRM) function allowing you to target people in your client data base (whether current clients or purchased data lists) and then target them with particular offers and incentives
- PCI-DSS compliance - how is the system sorting and protecting sensitive credit card data?
- Membership and loyalty schemes
- Service Level Agreements
- Reporting
- Selection process for a ticketing vendor
- And finally that bane of all systems, how well does it support what I want it to do my own unique way?
Regards
Mark Ellis
Managing Director, ts.com Limited
