From a family motorcycle business to banking, telecommunications and sales support, Ben Bray gained varied experience for more than eight years before finding his way into the ticketing industry.
“I love being part of the ticketing community,” he says. “The thing that I love most about it is that there are so many different personalities, and those personalities are able to shine. It’s not heavily corporate. Obviously, there are corporate elements to it, but you meet so many different personalities, and there are so many different ways of going about a similar goal, if you like. I would say the thing I love most about my job is being part of this ticketing community.”
For the past 16 years, Ben has helped shape TicketPlan, a UK-based innovator in ticket and booking protection that protects customers who have booked in advance but are unable to attend because of unforeseen circumstances. He began as Group Development Manager and worked his way up to his current position as Relationship and Development Director.
“I’m particularly proud of the fact that when I joined TicketPlan in 2011, there were about four [organizations] offering refund protection across the globe. I think through the work that I did with the support of the team at TicketPlan, we grew not only our business, but we created a service industry in its own right to the ticketing world and beyond.”
He readily acknowledges that he didn’t do it alone. His first mentor at TicketPlan was founder Graham Berg, with whom he worked for eight years.
“I learned a lot under Graham,” Ben says. “We took this niche concept that he came up with on a beach when he was booking West End theater tickets back in 1999, and we brought it to the wider ticketing world to the point that it’s now a service industry in its own right.”
He also says Toby Stubbington, TicketPlan’s managing director from 2020 to 2024, and current CEO Mark Gordon have influenced his career and leadership style. What qualities are most important to him in a leader?
“Honesty is key. When I’m speaking with the CEO of our business, I’m completely upfront and honest about how I feel about situations, what we have going on and I expect the same from them. When people start trying to pull the wool over someone’s eyes in any sort of business, industry, team, whatever the environment, if you’re misleading someone, then it will come back to bite you on the arse. Ultimately, I think being as honest and open about things as you possibly can be, that’s key … And I think that when you’re managing a team, it’s always good to get feedback and be a bit more collaborative than just sort of dishing out orders. The only way that truly works is if people are honest with you.”
Ben also looks for a good work ethic in his staff.
“I’ve worked my way up in this company ... I really recognize and respect someone who’s got a hard work ethic and wants to [develop] and keep taking on more things.”
Ben is a long-time INTIX member who attended his first conference in 2018 in Baltimore.
“We use INTIX from a business development standpoint to further conversations. There’s nothing better than meeting and engaging with someone face-to-face ... I love the fact that what we do in the ticketing industry is community-oriented, even down to the fact that I classify competitors as friends. I think there’s always more that unites everyone than divides them. We’re all doing something for the end goal of delivering these incredible experiences that allow people to immerse themselves and forget about the stresses they have in their lives. We’re all playing a role in that, and I think that we all understand that, even if we’re competitors.”
He adds, “The thing that I like about INTIX is understanding that no two places do things the same way, and there’s cultural differences between those, and I enjoy understanding what those cultural differences are, for instance, between how the ticketing world works in the UK, to the US, to Canada, to South America … We use the conferences predominantly to understand trends in the industry, educate ourselves on development, and obviously, having a booth at the conference enables us to engage with existing partners and potential prospects as well, particularly those that we wouldn’t often see at UK or European events. We try to get that engagement in a couple of ways, because there’s only so much ticket protection anyone can talk about, so that’s why we always bring a game to play and have some competition running, so there’s always prizes to be had at the TicketPlan booth, which are always curated to the city that we’re in, so I’m looking forward to New Orleans next year … [I particularly enjoy] the competitiveness of the people that claim they’re not competitive or sporty when they come to play our games on the booth, and then have to attempt it about eight times, because they really want to take home either a part of our sports merch prizes, or the vinyl records we bring.”
After 16 years in the business, Ben has many memorable career moments.
“Launching with AXS nearly a decade ago, at the O2 or OVO Wembley Arena, to bringing this product to rail ticketing ... there’s been lots of highlights from that perspective. From a fun perspective, I think it’s the growth I’ve seen in my own team and how they’re all developing. You see that on a month-by-month basis, and you see former colleagues and members of your team go on to different things. We had a business development manager in Europe that I worked with for three years, and I really saw him develop in his role; he’s taken a job now at a massive tech firm, and he’s doing fantastically well, so that’s great.”
Ben continues, “We sponsor a local festival in our home city of Southend-on-Sea called Lazy Days. It’s an incredible event — it gives back to local charities — and being a part of that has been particularly proud to see with the way that’s developed from quite a small gathering in one of our local parks to a proper, three-day music festival now with some big names playing it. That’s again something to be proud of, the fact that we’ve grown and we’ve been able to give back to the industry and the events sector that gave us the opportunity in the first place.”
Outside of work, Ben loves spending time with family and friends.
Ben and his wife Sammy.
“I love spending time with my wife Sammy, my brother, my sister, my mum and dad, our nieces, our goddaughters and our friends. When you’re just having that time and there are no other distractions, you immerse yourself in that time … Spending [that time together], enjoying concerts, enjoying the sports side of things, traveling somewhere new and exploring that place, anything that enables you to not think about those day-to-day stresses that can sometimes really wear on all of us, anything immersive like that, I think, brings me the most joy.”
Bowie and Ben.
And then there’s Bowie.
“We don’t have any kids,” he says. “We have two goddaughters and three nieces. That was enough insight into the whole having kids thing for us. We decided we would get a dog. We wanted someone to pour some love into, and we wanted to rescue rather than shop for a dog. We wanted to give a pup a chance that perhaps didn’t have one, and there’s a local animal rescue place relatively near to us, in the same county as us. They rescue dogs from Spain from difficult situations or kill shelters and offer them up for adoption in the UK. We were on the list for quite some time. On Christmas Eve in 2020, they said, ‘We’ve got this pup, Bowie, do you want to adopt her?’ We were in love the first time we saw the photo of her, so we said, ‘Of course we do.’”
Ben adds, “She’s a mixed breed. We got a DNA test done on her when we first got her, just to understand what traits we were dealing with. It came back with 48 different breeds. Her predominant ones are German Shepherd, Husky and a Spanish boxer-type dog, Presa Canario, so she’s got the intelligence of a German Shepherd, the stubbornness of a Husky, and the energy of a boxer, so she keeps us on our toes … A strange coincidence was that, with the paperwork we got for her, she’s got the same birthday as me.”
Bowie and Ben.
Other than Sammy and Bowie, the greatest love in Ben’s life is soccer.
“I played at a fairly good level, not professionally, but I played at probably the highest level you can play as an amateur … I have run a charity soccer club, St. Pauli-on-Sea, since 2020. It’s an official supporters club of a professional football club based in Hamburg, Germany, called FC St. Pauli. They were the first club to take an active anti-fascist, anti-racist, anti-homophobia, anti-transphobia anti-sexist stance in their stadium back in the ’80s, and that resonated with all of my personal beliefs and political stances.”
Ben continues, “Since then, we’ve released jerseys and merch, we’ve played soccer games and tournaments, and just various other projects and things we’ve done for various charities within the St. Pauli ethos. We’ve raised a lot of money for our local food bank, for Football v Homophobia, which is a charity in the UK, and the Stephen Lawrence Day Foundation, which was founded in the name of a man who was murdered in a racially aggravated attack back in the ’90s. We reached a landmark earlier this year of £25,000 across various charities in that ethos, so I’d definitely put that as an achievement I’m as proud of as anything I’ve done in my professional career.”
His work with St. Pauli-on-Sea also reflects the qualities he most admires: resilience, generosity and a willingness to help others.
“I think if everyone in the world had a little bit more empathy and cared a little bit more for things outside of themselves, the world would be a better place,” he says. “I think anyone who can overcome adversity, and not only succeed for themselves, but give back, is truly inspirational. I think volunteers at various organizations who give up their time purely to help their communities are incredible. With the soccer club, we’ve worked quite closely with our local food bank and have had the opportunity to work and contribute there. There are dedicated volunteers who do that on a daily basis, and they are truly inspirational people, because they are just giving up their time to ensure that our community eats.”
Given his lifelong interest in soccer, it is hardly surprising that some of Ben’s most treasured possessions are sports memorabilia.
“I’ve got some memorabilia from my first World Cup that my dad got me,” he says. “So, showing my age a little bit, it was Italia 90, so the World Cup in 1990. He filled in a wall chart for me. It’s a really silly thing, but that wall chart showing, obviously, every game and the result. So, that coupled with the coin collections from the gas stations here in the UK. Every time you spent, I don’t know, it must have been about £5 on fuel back then, they’d give you a different player coin. I’ve got a complete set of those for the England and Scotland squad from Italia 90.”
And when it comes to his favorite venue, well, did we mention Ben likes soccer?
“Now we’re talking,” he laughs. “It’s the Millerntor-Stadion in Hamburg, home of FC St. Pauli, and Carrow Road, the home of Norwich City. For purely sentimental reasons, I’ve also been privileged enough to play soccer in both stadiums and score, because part of the thing of running an official supporters club with St. Pauli is you get the opportunity to take part in the Supporters Club tournament every year, so we’ve been there a couple of times and played soccer there, and I’ve played in a couple of charity games in Norwich City’s stadium. The first of which was with my dad, who’s the reason I’m a Norwich City supporter, because he’s from that city, so I followed my dad’s team. Despite the fact that it’s about 100 miles from where I live, we were both at a game recently and having played on the same pitch and being at that stadium countless times with him, that will always hold special memories for me.”
Ben continues, “Wembley Stadium [is also a favorite venue] because it’s iconic; I’ve seen not only soccer matches there, but I’ve also seen my beloved Jacksonville Jaguars play there 11 times (they have played 14 times in London as part of the NFL’s international series). I’ve seen every Jags game at Wembley. From a music perspective, I like smaller venues because I like the intimacy, even when really loud bands are playing in them. And for that reason, I like the Kentish Town Forum. I also like a small venue not far from Kentish Town called The Dome. I’ve seen some really great bands play there.”
His musical tastes range from heavier alternative rock and punk to rap and hip-hop, but you don’t have to look far to find his favorite artist.
“As you can see, I’ve got one or two tattoos, and I have several song lyrics tattooed on me from different bands, but I have two lyrics from one particular band, and that is from Nirvana. I have the first line of the chorus to Aneurysm tattooed on my wrist: ‘Beat me out of me,’ and it’s over a heart.”
When asked if he ever wanted to be on the concert stage himself, he says: “I’d like to have been a singer and guitarist in a band ... I did sing with some tribute bands in college, but I could never play the guitar. I’m not that talented.”
Ben and Sammy have very different taste in music, but they always go to each other’s concerts.
“We’ve seen everyone from Korn, Slipknot, Turnstile and the Dropkick Murphys. Last month we went to Atlanta to see my wife’s favourite artist, Chris Stapleton, play Mercedes-Benz Stadium with her second favorite artist, Ashley McBride … For best gigs [I’ve ever seen], I would say Turnstile at Kentish Town Forum in 2021, which was the first gig out of lockdown. I didn’t realize quite how much I missed being with other humans in a tight, sweaty space watching a high-energy band.”
Ben travels frequently, both for work and pleasure, and one of his favorite destinations is particularly appropriate given his family history.
“I’m of Irish heritage, and so is my wife,” he says. “My name comes from a town called Bray, just outside of Dublin, in County Wicklow. We both love spending time there. We go four or five times a year, and [if there is anywhere I would most like to live] I would say that I’d most like to live there or in Dublin. It just feels like home. But I’m also lucky enough to have a branch of our family in Vancouver, British Columbia. I love it up in the Pacific Northwest. I love Vancouver, I love BC, I love Seattle, not just because of my music nerdiness, but I just love that area where you’ve got everything: the city, the sea, the green spaces and the mountains.”
The conversation takes a more personal turn when Ben is asked what advice he would give his younger self.
“I would give myself the advice of not getting too high or too low when things are going well or not going well,” he says. “When I was younger, and I speak openly about this, because I think it’s important that everyone does, I managed certain mental health conditions. Not through medication, but through a couple of sessions of therapy and hypnotherapy and understanding what worked for me in terms of managing those things. Obviously, when I was younger, I’d get really, really high over things when things were going well, and really, really low when they weren’t. I think that what I’ve understood as I’ve gotten older is that it’s better not to get too high or too low. That’s the advice I would give myself.”
Asked what he would change about the world if he had three wishes, Ben doesn’t hesitate:
“I’m big on community and social conscience … and think that one of the biggest tragedies in the world is that so many Western civilizations, the UK included, have working families, and families in general, [who are] reliant on food banks. I think that’s atrocious, and I think that everyone should be afforded basic human things, like food and water and a roof over their head, so that’s the first thing I would do. I’d make sure there were no prerequisites for those things; they were just there. Equally, on that same thing … sanitary products should absolutely in no way, shape, or form be sold and taxed. They should be free. I’ll get off my social soapbox very briefly. So that’s the first thing. Second, end of conflict. I know it sounds a little bit corny, but end conflicts and the horrendous things we’re seeing in the Middle East, in Ukraine and in Africa. I don’t think any human with a good conscience could have three wishes and not wish that those things were over. As for my third wish, I think I will hold that in reserve.”
As our interview nears an end, Ben sums up 16 years in the ticketing business with pride in what he helped build — and in the relationships he has made along the way:
“I hate to say it, but at 43 years of age, I’m now a veteran, I guess, of what I do. When I first joined TicketPlan back in 2011, and we, like I say, had this niche, it was basically a concept. I’m particularly proud of my career and the hard work, persistence and relationship-building over the last 16 years. It’s the relationships we’ve built, because people buy from people at the end of the day, and we very much partner with the venues, ticket agents and platforms that we work with. I think that those partnerships only work if you’ve built that strong relationship from the get-go, and people trust you. I really have enjoyed the best part of the last 16 years that I’ve worked at TicketPlan and not only creating this service industry in its own right with ticket protection, but also the countless relationships that I’ve developed. To me, that relationship-building element is the best part of the community that we’re a part of, and the best part of my job.”
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