Technology / 09.06.21

Red61 Launches Digital Solutions

Red61

Red61 is providing industry-leading digital solutions to their clients that are igniting event experiences.

Digital Wallet

In response to the ticketing industry’s need for digital solutions, Red61 has developed an innovative Digital Wallet that their clients can use with Red61’s integrated WordPress solution or with any other content management system. Customers can purchase in-person or digital livestreaming events and access all their content in a beautifully designed Digital Wallet by simply logging into their online account. Fully branded, slick and modern, customers now have all their event bar codes and digital content at their fingertips available in the Wallet. Livestreaming and on-demand content can be viewed right within the Wallet, eliminating the need for multiple logins to third-party platforms. This all-in-one solution is ready now and “red hot” for industry use.

Cohesive Digital Solutions

The Scottish Storytelling Centre is a vibrant arts venue with a seasonal program of live storytelling, theatre, music, exhibitions, workshops, family events and festivals. After 18 months without live events, the Scottish Storytelling Centre invited audiences back into the venue this past August during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe where they annually offer programming at the Centre as part of the festival.

The Centre have taken advantage of all the new Red61 digital features and are using the Digital Wallet for e-tickets and for their digital events, and plan to continue both types of programming.

Cordelia Toennies, Retail and Box Office Supervisor at the Scottish Storytelling Centre, says that “the ability to add pre-purchase and post-purchase information in emails and the Wallet has been a game-changer for us mainly in the cutdown of admin (and removing the chance of human error) that comes with hosting digital events.”

Having a ticket solution that offers digital integration will provide a more cohesive customer experience for this year’s Scottish International Storytelling Festival and will eliminate the need to manually code digital event invites.

Toennies further says that “the overall upgrade within Red61 and the integrated WordPress solution has made delivering digital and in-person events easier to sell. The ticketing solution is now built more inclusive for the variety of content we sell. From classifying digital on-demand, digital live and in-person events to the ability to use price override for our pay what you can/by donation ticketed events.”

Digital Video Integrations

Red61 has integrated with several leading digital content providers including Brightcove, Vidflex, Vimeo and YouTube. Events can be scheduled for future dates, available on-demand or available for hybrid digital experiences. Customers can easily search for and find online, live and hybrid events with event filters. Clients can set up flexible ticket pricing options including structured pricing, pay what you can, free, or options to pay or donate after the viewing. As the evolution of digital hybrid events expands as COVID-19 restrictions are lifted, Red61 is continuing to support digital delivery as a channel for live and immersive events as our industry experiments with methods to connect with its customers.

A Mission to Protect Artists

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society is the organization that underpins the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Its core aims are to support participants, assist Fringe audiences, and celebrate the Fringe and what it stands for all over the world. The Edinburgh Fringe Festival returned this past August 2021, and digital experiences were introduced to their audiences for the first time.

The Fringe and Red61 had a critically important mission: Collaborate to help the Fringe protect the artists’ ability to generate revenues, many of whom had not made revenue for over two years and had not been in receipt of any funding. The Fringe needed to ensure that transactions were secure, that artists’ work could not be freely shared if it was not paid for, and that they could chose the digital platform that Red61 would integrate with.

Lyndsey Jackson, Deputy Chief Executive at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, says that “the joy of the Fringe needed to be protected so that anyone can do it, anyway they want to do it.”

A New Digital Lifeline

Initially, the Fringe was “married to the romantic notion” of a live festival, and the initial thoughts around digital events were that they should all have a specific start time, and everyone would show up for that time. They underwent a huge learning curve and let go of this attachment to consider audiences living in Australia, Canada, Brazil or other countries in different time zones. This transformed the way they thought about digital and instead they embraced the notion of offering digital-on-demand and hybrid performances, providing new ways for artists and audiences to interact through a variety of digital platforms.

With over 900 in-person and digital events at the 2021 festival, one-third of the events offered were digital. While there was an initial greater uptake to the return to live events, once the festival started, the adoption of digital events quadrupled overnight. It was an enormous and meaningful feat that confirmed that Fringe fans were keen to see Fringe work in digital spaces and were willing to pay for digital content. 

Having a digital solution and strategy — essentially a “lifeline” in place earlier in the year — allowed engagement with the artists and people that participate in the festival to continue. Confidence that the live festival was going ahead occurred very late, so that having a digital strategy in place ensured that the critical strand of work from international performers who were unable to travel could still be offered, including 10 international showcases that were purely online. An added result was that highly innovative and thoughtful content was created purely for digital consumption.

Broad Accessibility

The digital experiences also extended to providing greater accessibility in a completely digital platform to provide easier ways to facilitate British Sign Language interpretations, captioning – timing and spacing, and subtitling through the Fringe Player, where digital interpreters were employed. And greater accessibility depending on where audiences and artists were or are in the world — many were or could be shielding, high risk, under COVID-19 legislation, unable to get a visa, had budget restraints, or not able to or willing to come out of their houses for genuine reasons. The digital offerings provided broad accessibility and a different way to bring the Fringe to audiences where it was not possible to attend a live event.

Born to Tell Their Stories

The biggest benefit of the new digital features they could offer that stands out for Lyndsey Jackson is that the Fringe were able to support a multitude of artists who wanted to tell their story and wanted to connect with audiences, and who were born to do so. Customers were happily tweeting from their homes with beers in hand in funny cups, laughing about queuing for their own toilets, and trying to recreate the full Fringe experience at their homes digitally so they did not have to miss the 2021 festival. Each year groups of international young people normally attend the festival as part of their graduation or when they have achieved a certain grade or level. They were still able to say that they were part of it in 2021, digitally and socially, and, most importantly, these stories were not lost.

Supporting Our Clients

“Venues, festivals and event organizers have had to quickly adapt to a new environment, and we’ve been there to support their transition all the way. In typically Red61 style, we haven’t just provided a video platform, our new Digital Wallet provides a seamless solution that connects into multiple video platforms and plays within your own website. And, of course, we create large ticketing networks, so it was essential to be able to cross sell digital content from other organizations. “This is a truly unique solution that offers a variety of options that make it easy to find the right channel to connect with your audience as our landscape evolves,” says Tony Davey, CEO of Red61.

About Red61

Red61 is a leading worldwide Ticketing as a Service software company, providing audience management and ticketing solutions for festivals, venues, agencies and attractions. Red61 makes the ticketing process quick, easy, simple and organized for clients across the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, United Arab Emirates and Papua New Guinea. From the very beginning as the ticketing solution for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, the world’s largest arts festival, Red61 has worked collaboratively with our clients in a spirit of constant innovation to completely transform the customer journey and increase sales. For more information please visit www.red61.com

This article was sponsored by Red61.

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