Dive Brief:
- Ticketmaster launched a revamped app last week to offer customers a more personalized experience as it looks to increase discovery and ticket sales.
- The app includes a watchlist feature to track upcoming events, a refreshed favorites tool to follow artists and teams, and improved search and location switching so customers can more easily search for events while they’re traveling.
- Ticketmaster also refreshed its homepage to surface trending, upcoming and last-minute events tailored to that individual.
Dive Insight:
Ticketmaster’s personalization push aims to keep customers in the know about the events they care about — and in turn grow ticket sales.
About 2 in 5 fans said they missed an event because they didn’t know it was happening, according to Ticketmaster. The company sees its app as the vehicle to change that.
“Too many fans first hear about a great show after it’s happened,” Saumil Mehta, global president at Ticketmaster, said in a prepared statement.
The company took that insight to heart as it shaped its app update, with Mehta saying the app was just the beginning of a broader effort to improve discovery.
The company is integrating AI across Ticketmaster to “unlock more long-tail discovery” of events, Joe Berchtold, president and CFO at parent company Live Nation Entertainment, said on a July earnings call. That includes bringing the technology directly to the fan experience on its website and in the app.
While ticket sales remain strong, Ticketmaster says addressing unsold tickets is an ongoing effort.
“I think that selling unsold tickets will be an ongoing proposition, helping fans discover the shows, helping make sure we have the right information on how to price the tickets, how to market the tickets, what promotions make sense,” Berchtold. “I think we continue to make good progress in terms of how we use the data and lay the opportunities out in front of the fan, and that's in part being borne out by continued very strong ticket sales, and that will continue over the next while.”
