Venues Today (12/06/17) by Tim Newcomb
The Nashville Predators hockey team recently completed implementing its strategy to assume control of the secondary ticketing market via a mobile solution. A fully mobile system lets the team control ticket management, as well as provides them with a stronger cache of information about fans, as all users must download the team app and enter information to use tickets. "If we sell season-ticket packages to fans, we can maintain the home-ice advantage," says the Predators' VP of ticket sales Nat Harden. "We made a concerted effort not to resell to ticket brokers." Harden notes this action was driven by the issue of ticket brokers purchasing season tickets and reselling them to opposing fans, and since deploying the plan the team has gone from having one of the highest number of tickets available on the secondary market to next-to-last in the 31-team National Hockey League (NHL). More aggressive moves this year has given Nashville an average of 146 ticket listings per game, 64 percent below the NHL average. The strategy began with selling season tickets only to fans the Predators knew, and sales personnel must secure manager approval before selling more than four season tickets to a single party, and conduct background checks on people out of the area who request season tickets. The Predators also migrated from hard and paper tickets to season-ticket ID cards, helping to staunch the flow of untrackable tickets, as well as identify and remove ticket brokers.
Read more on the Venues Today website.