We will be adding a new tip in the manual. We now have some better data to support it. Just about every MLB team has a “FanFest’ between late January and early February. This is an opportunity for the team to reach out to the fans. Many players are available for autographs, there is memorabilia to be bought, perhaps an exhibition game or games for the kids. These are often cheap to get in (tickets around $10). Many clubs have between 10,000 – 20,000 attending. The events are often held for a Friday – Sunday.
If you have listings up before a fanfest, you are probably seeing just a few sales coming in because it is so early. The weekend of a fanfest could see sales multiply by several times. Ticket sites report that when a team’s fanfest is occurring, teffic for that team will increase about ten times and sales about five times. These subsequently go down until spring training when we see another spike.
Unless you have significant volume, you might not see 5 times the sales since you are one of several listings, but you should see your sales go up. Remember we want to price our early listings on the high side. We can sell tickets for a price early that you cannot get later. It is a great way to increase your margins. It is not uncommon to sell a regular season ticket for 5 times face value this time of year. If you have that same ticket a week before the game you might only get 10% over face value. 10% or 500% - easy choice.
To learn how to make money being a ticket broker, visit www.MyTicketBiz.com
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
A Good Beginning
We always love to hear about people’s success. We received the following from a new client over the last week. We wanted to share it with everyone.
“I got the materials and read through it over a couple of days. Being a bean-counter, I really liked the CD. Seeing the types of things that have sold gave me the confidence this could work. When I received the email last week, I saw that Justin Timberlake was selling tickets. I bought two sets of two for the Houston show. (Toyota Center). I bought the tickets on Friday. My total out of pocket was $366.20. (Under the $500 Threshold, I might add). They sold on Tuesday. After seller fees, my net was $537. I just made $170.80 in 5 days! I am going to take that and turn another deal. Very cool!”
To learn how to make money being a ticket broker, visit http://www.MyTicketBiz.com
“I got the materials and read through it over a couple of days. Being a bean-counter, I really liked the CD. Seeing the types of things that have sold gave me the confidence this could work. When I received the email last week, I saw that Justin Timberlake was selling tickets. I bought two sets of two for the Houston show. (Toyota Center). I bought the tickets on Friday. My total out of pocket was $366.20. (Under the $500 Threshold, I might add). They sold on Tuesday. After seller fees, my net was $537. I just made $170.80 in 5 days! I am going to take that and turn another deal. Very cool!”
To learn how to make money being a ticket broker, visit http://www.MyTicketBiz.com
TicketMasterNow
As previously stated, TicketMaster has announced it is buying the online ticket marketplace TicketsNow.
The fallout from this announcement has begun.
TicketNetworkDirect is encouraging members of it’s affiliate network to contact the Department of Justice and the various state Attorney Generals offices. The basis for this is they are saying the merge will stifle competition since the new entity is the originator and the secondary marketer. TicketNetworkDirect in their newsletter is insinuating that Ticketmaster already holds back premium tickets for their existing TicketExchange program. Facts on the accusation remain foggy.
Our source material and this newsletter has long adopted a “let the market decide” approach. We stick with that when evaluating this merge. Lets go with the assumption that Ticketmaster is holding back tickets for their own exchange. They have a bad enough time with their public relations as is. Would it be a good idea to invite all those Hannah Montana moms to come after you? We think not. Also – what is so wrong with the practice anyway. All they are doing is creating more of a market and buzz for everyone else. What exactly is so wrong with selling the manufacturers product to the highest bidder. It happens all the time in other industries.
Buying TicketsNow is a huge investment. Millions in cash will be used for the purchase. At its core TicketsNow uses full-time professional brokers for its inventory. If Ticketmaster does not realize this and work toward keeping those brokers happy, they will just leave. Ticketmaster would have then just bought a site no one uses.
To learn how to make money being a ticket broker, visit www.MyTicketBiz.com.
The fallout from this announcement has begun.
TicketNetworkDirect is encouraging members of it’s affiliate network to contact the Department of Justice and the various state Attorney Generals offices. The basis for this is they are saying the merge will stifle competition since the new entity is the originator and the secondary marketer. TicketNetworkDirect in their newsletter is insinuating that Ticketmaster already holds back premium tickets for their existing TicketExchange program. Facts on the accusation remain foggy.
Our source material and this newsletter has long adopted a “let the market decide” approach. We stick with that when evaluating this merge. Lets go with the assumption that Ticketmaster is holding back tickets for their own exchange. They have a bad enough time with their public relations as is. Would it be a good idea to invite all those Hannah Montana moms to come after you? We think not. Also – what is so wrong with the practice anyway. All they are doing is creating more of a market and buzz for everyone else. What exactly is so wrong with selling the manufacturers product to the highest bidder. It happens all the time in other industries.
Buying TicketsNow is a huge investment. Millions in cash will be used for the purchase. At its core TicketsNow uses full-time professional brokers for its inventory. If Ticketmaster does not realize this and work toward keeping those brokers happy, they will just leave. Ticketmaster would have then just bought a site no one uses.
To learn how to make money being a ticket broker, visit www.MyTicketBiz.com.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
A Happy Ending We Do Not Recommend
One of our new clients recently relayed a story to me. While we like to hear the end result, it shows a lot of a things we do not want to do.
Donald Fagan, one half of the rock duo Steely Dan, is putting on a show in his hometown of Woodstock, New York. The client grabbed some ticket at $67.50 apiece and is selling them for $150 apiece.
http://www.pojonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070111/ENT04/70111025
While I would take the numbers on this deal every day, there are a number of things that would have driven me away before making it.
Local Show – this type of event flies under the national radar. Unless you are in the know about the local music scene, this would whiz by without you knowing. The people going to the show are going to have a rare experience I am sure, but we want events with more marketing behind them. There are a few thousand people who know about this event. National tours have hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people following the event.
Listings – I could not find a single listing for this event on any of the major sites listing tickets. This is not the business to burn new trails in. While you might get some wins, it can also cause losses.
Nothing electronic – There was not electronic delivery of the tickets, nor could they ship them. She had to go to the theater ticket office, present the credit card and pick them up. If you have to wait in line, drive anywhere or do anything except answer email or open your mail box – you are not doing the right thing. It is impossible to build any type of momentum in this if you are driving around picking up tickets. Efficiency is a key component to success.
Individual Sale – She sold the tickets to a person who ran a classified ad looking for tickets. While this worked, relying on people running classifieds is, once again, a lot of work. Calling the person, leaving messages, writing down addresses, getting checks cleared, etc.. Too much trouble.
There are plenty of events on sales every week that have multiple places to list them on the internet and third parties to run the transaction. Small local events may be some of the betters shows out there, but require quite a bit of extra work and added risk that we want to avoid.
To learn how to make money being a ticket broker, visit http://www.myticketbiz.com/
Making Moves
TicketMaster announced this last week that it is purchasing TicketsNow. TicketsNow is regarded as the second largest secondary ticket online marketplace behind Stubhub, which is owned by eBay. The value of the acquisition is placed at $265 M.
This move clearly signifies the permanence of the online secondary market. Ticketmaster has been the biggest player in the primary market and has made many moves over the years to prevent the expansion of the secondary ticket market. They have been unsuccessful in changing the basic economics of the market.
This purchase is clearly a “if you cannot beat them, join them” move.
Details of how the new company will work are still in question. How TicketsNow deals with its suppliers, affiliates and commissions are up in the air. There is some concern amongst ticket brokers that Ticketmaster, who has a strong corporate culture against ticket brokers, will use the eight years of data that resides in the TicketsNow computers against them. They will now know exactly who sold what.
While it is good for Ticketmaster to validate the marketplace, they have a ways to go before they master it. TicketsNow exists because of the brokers who use the exchange. This is not the only exchange out there and offending the supply base could ruin their investment.
http://www.reuters.com/article/technology-media-telco-SP/idUSN1550717420080116
http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2008/01/15/ticketmaster-branches-out-claims-huge-stake-of-secondary-ticket-market-by-buying-ticketsnow/
http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2008/01/16/ticketmaster_agrees_to_buy_net_reseller/
To learn how to make money being a ticket broker, visit www.MyTicketBiz.com.
This move clearly signifies the permanence of the online secondary market. Ticketmaster has been the biggest player in the primary market and has made many moves over the years to prevent the expansion of the secondary ticket market. They have been unsuccessful in changing the basic economics of the market.
This purchase is clearly a “if you cannot beat them, join them” move.
Details of how the new company will work are still in question. How TicketsNow deals with its suppliers, affiliates and commissions are up in the air. There is some concern amongst ticket brokers that Ticketmaster, who has a strong corporate culture against ticket brokers, will use the eight years of data that resides in the TicketsNow computers against them. They will now know exactly who sold what.
While it is good for Ticketmaster to validate the marketplace, they have a ways to go before they master it. TicketsNow exists because of the brokers who use the exchange. This is not the only exchange out there and offending the supply base could ruin their investment.
http://www.reuters.com/article/technology-media-telco-SP/idUSN1550717420080116
http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2008/01/15/ticketmaster-branches-out-claims-huge-stake-of-secondary-ticket-market-by-buying-ticketsnow/
http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2008/01/16/ticketmaster_agrees_to_buy_net_reseller/
To learn how to make money being a ticket broker, visit www.MyTicketBiz.com.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
A Word on Presale Passwords
For a while now we have been including presale passwords as part of the subscription. Many of you have noticed that we have also been sending out some separate emails just with the passwords. We are happy to say we have finally started getting passwords consistently and will continue sending those to everyone.
Our goal is to send about 4 emails a week with nothing but the passwords. If we need more than that to keep up with everything, we will increase our efforts. Most passwords are made available 24 – 48 hours before a presale event.
These are a great advantage. Obviously the number of people vying for tickets a day early is significantly list.
Let’s not get too pulled into this. Just because tickets are available in presale, does not mean they are good seats. It is a common practice to block off certain areas for presale. There are no guarantees they are good seats. Apply the same rules we talk about in the manual. Good seats sell. Bad ones don’t.
To learn how to make money being a ticket broker, visit http://www.MyTicketBiz.com
Our goal is to send about 4 emails a week with nothing but the passwords. If we need more than that to keep up with everything, we will increase our efforts. Most passwords are made available 24 – 48 hours before a presale event.
These are a great advantage. Obviously the number of people vying for tickets a day early is significantly list.
Let’s not get too pulled into this. Just because tickets are available in presale, does not mean they are good seats. It is a common practice to block off certain areas for presale. There are no guarantees they are good seats. Apply the same rules we talk about in the manual. Good seats sell. Bad ones don’t.
To learn how to make money being a ticket broker, visit http://www.MyTicketBiz.com
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