As the world went into lockdown in March 2020, Ticketmaster Sport supported its clients from the moment their doors closed, to the moment the UK’s first ground-breaking COVID-19-safe match took place at Surrey County Cricket grounds on the 3rd September 2020 when Surrey took on Hampshire in the first T20 match since March.
At Ticketmaster Sport, we believe in being supportive through solutions and consulting with our clients on how to support them in all areas. Following quick fire sessions with our clients on their own individual needs, we doubled down to deliver the tools our client base needed during these particularly difficult times. This was done under the #ReturnToLive umbrella which is Ticketmaster Sport’s in-house team dedicated to helping clients bring fans back to live sport.
At the very core of our brand is innovation built on resilience and through our open ticketing technology our team introduced:
- SIM Seat Pods – these are groups of adjacent seats that have been socially distanced before the on sale.
“Ticketmaster Sport’s Seat Pod technology made it such a simple ticketing process for supporters once we knew our social distant capacity and configuration of various sizes of bubbles around the stadium.”
Brian Caldwell
Chief Executive & Company Secretary
Shrewsbury Town FC
- Best Available Social Distance – taking the work out of the fans’ hands, this tool automatically socially distances fans by the number of seats in their online purchase.
- Waive, donate or keep – aware of the financial difficulties both clubs and faced as a result of COVID-19, clients can now implement a ‘waive or donate or keep’ function.
Fans then have a choice to either keep part of the season ticket refund for a later date or against their season ticket for the next year.
They also have the option to donate to a club cause or waive the refund entirely to support the club.
They can also keep any credit returned to their My Account profile from refunds or ticket exchange to use on any club ticketing portal for example their season ticket, single matches, memberships or upgrades.
“The timely introduction of the credit functionality by Ticketmaster Sport played a significant part in supporting ticketing revenues being retained within Welsh Rugby as part of the postponed fixture supporter options. We pro-actively offered a choice of donation, credit or refund due to the introduction of the functionality and were well supported in implementing and delivering the operation.” –
Matthew Clarke
Ticketing Manager
Welsh Rugby Union Group
- Balloting – ballots have been used to help manage the level of demand for a number of our clients and we’ve seen the functionality being used across the board to solve a host of challenges.
“Ticketmaster Sport’s work on advancing their technology in reaction to Covid19 has been invaluable. We have utilised the balloting functionality to best prepare ourselves for graduated return of crowds.”
Kerry Halliday
Head of Ticketing
Scottish Rugby Union
- DIY Ticketing – our DIY tool, Universe, is now available for all clients. This was in high demand throughout 2020, with the meteoric rise in live streamed events. The Ticketmaster company platform rivals all other DIY platforms and can be utilised for a variety of events within a few clicks.
- Accessibility – we’re proud that our accessible ticketing has now gone completely online. Offering fans the opportunity to purchase their seats, manage their requirements, and obtain companion or carer seating in the same transaction without having to contact a call centre.
- Klarna and PayPal – we’ve partnered with Klarna and PayPal to add to our existing payment solutions, and offer clients the opportunity to give their fans more payment options.
All these and many others were part of Ticketmaster Sport’s commitment to supporting and helping our clients make the best of a horrific financial situation, which has left many on the brink of bankruptcy.
So many clubs have commented that these tools have enabled them to re-open as soon as they could do so in line with government guidelines. These products were a literal financial lifeline for everyone.
Crucially, everything developed as part of Ticketmaster Sport’s #ReturnToLive toolkit was so well received by clients that they have now been integrated into our main product offerings for all our clients moving forward.