This is a guest post from our very own Bobby Furnish. You can find Bobby on twitter @ticketbizdev.
Ticketing companies come in all shapes and sizes these days. So it’s no wonder that they keep coming up with more ticketing options and features to differentiate themselves. The question remains who benefits from these features… the venue or the patron? With the ever growing number of new ticketing features, these ticketing companies now walk a fine line on who they really aim to please. In the media it would appear ticketing companies are working towards becoming “fair” and the perception in the media would also lead you to believe it’s becoming more fair for the patron. Here is an example of this found on TicketNews.com about “Fair AXS”.
Sounds pretty fair right? There is also the opinion that it will slow down or eliminate ticket bots from buying up all the tickets at the on-sale. Funny thing about that is most of the large primary ticketing companies and ticketing publications own or benefit from that very same secondary ticketing machine. What’s the angle here? Is it really a new feature that is truly fair for the patron? I don’t think so. I believe this new feature will be used by the venue to gauge the level of interest in an upcoming performance or event. This knowledge could then be used by the promoter to increase the ticket price or even by the venue to increase ticket fees. It sounds like a patron-friendly new feature, but I’m not sold.
