Ticket Management Blog

TicketNews wrote a nice article featuring Concierge Live.

Marketing managers and executives are under the gun to make informed decisions about what they buy and why it makes sense for their company. Due to the economy, many companies who might have previously not been held accountable for results are waking up to a new world.

Most companies lack data to effectively evaluate event entertainment expenditures. This assertion is supported by the fact that nearly half of all sponsors spend less than two percent of their budget on evaluation.

An important issue with evaluating entertainment is a lack of measurement standards. There are a lot of variables as to why someone does business with you; products, fees, relationship and client entertainment. Companies can longer say a used ticket is a a successful use of a ticket. Managers now need to understand the value of a client in relation to the expense of the entertainment.

At Concierge Live we have the expertise and the tools to help companies make track, monitor and evaluate their hospitality assets. This will lead to the company making and data driven decisions.

Two of the biggest spenders in the hospitality are the financial services and the automobile industry. Unless you have been on an island somewhere without TV, radio or the internet you know they are not participating at the same levels are in recent years. Many of them are still entertaining, either out of necessity or because they have contracts which require them to entertain.

In time, companies will ramp back up their efforts, but the industry as a whole may never be the same. We think the one positive that may come out of this is pricing, which had been outpacing the rate of inflation at a ridiculous pace, may come back to reality. Team and properties have lost most individual ticket holders because of price increases and PSLs, if they start having renewal and sales issues with companies, the hospitality industry will be in trouble.

Marketing managers are under more pressure than ever to evaluate and justify hospitality expenses. This is what we at Concierge Live are all about. Helping companies evaluate and justify their hospitality expenses.

As more an more companies repay TARP funds and the economy recovers, they will move back to traditional hospitality and branding activities. However, as a result of the Wall Street vs. Main Street mentality, hospitality has become a toxic term. The folks in Washington are working on oversight and regulatory policies which may change the way companies approach hospitality.

For many of these companies, this is a not simply a compliance issue but a much bigger issue, namely a reputational risk issue. In the current environment, while hospitality may be a competitive requirement for many, no one wants any negative press and this is most true of senior management.

To protect themselves against future scrutiny, we believe many companies will step up their hospitality measurement and evaluation opportunities. If a company is put under the microscope by shareholders, regulators or watchdog groups for their hospitality programs, they need to be able to justify what they did, who they entertained and why it was a value to the company.

The Concierge Live ticket management software is a great solution for this, it helps companies manage, track, and report on their tickets so that they can easily justify their entertainment expenses.

This is an interesting article about the rise of NFL prices. With new stadiums popping up, teams and venues continue to raise prices to pay off debt. All of these articles are focused on the lavish prices that the teams and venues are offering. There is no doubt that these tickets are expensive, but if the tickets have a positive ROI maybe the prices aren’t all that exorbitant. The problem is that most people can’t tell you when a price crosses the line from being an asset to a liability. Determining that line is key because venues can accurately price their tickets, and more importantly, justify that price. At the same time, companies can feel comfortable making a large ticket investment because they can forecast the return and make informed decisions. They understand a ticket’s value.

The challenge is capturing the necessary information to accomplish these things, and most companies lack the tools to do so. Such information as:

• Which employees used tickets at this venue last year?
• What was the ticket usage rate?
• How many tickets were wasted and how many tickets were bought in excess?
• Which clients were entertained and what is their value to the company?

This is what Concierge Live is all about: providing you with the tools you need to confidently answer these questions. Tickets are getting more expensive, more now than ever, tracking, measuring, and reporting on entertainment investments is necessary.