As the person responsible for sponsoring, you are in charge of partnerships, purchasing, administration and distribution of tickets for events of all kinds. But how do you distribute hundreds, if not thousands, of tickets efficiently and fairly? And above all, how do you successfully involve all stakeholders in this process?

More time-consuming than expected… Phase 1: Organize distribution

At first glance, distributing tickets seems like a simple task, but as soon as you get started, you are confronted with questions that you won’t have an answer to in a hurry. Here is one possible task:

• Tickets from a sponsorship or cooperation are part of the deal and are available for distribution to employees, customers or other target groups.
• If this has already been determined, the tickets must be systematically recorded. How many tickets, in which category and for which event? This is easier for a one-off event than for a tournament or even the Olympic Games.
• In addition to the ticket, other resources may be relevant.
• Tickets should be distributed according to a certain scheme. The scheme can run either directly or indirectly via branches, employees, departments, countries, partners, etc.
• The scheme includes an organizational structure on which the distribution key is based.
• To ensure that everyone has a fair chance of getting the tickets, a request phase should be carried out before the tickets are distributed in order to determine how many tickets are actually requested and in what weighting.
• Certain tickets (e.g. for sport/games/culture) are only relevant for a specific region, while others are equally interesting for all regions. It must therefore also be possible to weight the distribution as desired.
• Distribution is a dynamic process and must not be left to wither away in a document, but should be available at all times and, if necessary, transparent for the groups involved. Keyword: self-service.
• Tickets are not free of charge. The branches, countries, etc. should be charged for their tickets.

Note: At this stage, you still don’t know which people will ultimately get a ticket. Nevertheless, the logistics must already be organized in the background, hotels purchased and perhaps even flights booked. “Real” tickets are also not yet in play at this stage – it’s still just a question of who gets how many.

Phase 2: Guest management

Now that it has been decided who will receive tickets, it is a matter of connecting these allotments with the event’s final visitors.

From a central location, or each individual in their own area, they now invite their guests and hope that all tickets find a guest. This process must also be systematically monitored. Invitations by e-mail must be synchronized with the contingents. Cancellations are processed directly and fed back into the invitation process.

For the registered guests, the process already described elsewhere applies with booking (including the resources with flight, hotel, transfers), but in the end, ideally every possible ticket will find a buyer.

Phase 3: The “right” ticket

Even though we keep using the word ticket, we have not yet talked about the “real” ticket – the ticket that is issued by the organizer and that actually entitles you to enter the event.

One of the challenges in this phase is that there are many different types of tickets, which can even vary from stadium to stadium. As this is the case, we have built in a kind of “gearbox” that allows you to import any type of ticket and link it to a guest.

And to stick with another analogy to vehicle construction: Last but not least, there is the marriage. In vehicle construction, this is the moment when the body and engine come together; for us, it is the moment when the ticket is finally connected to the person.

This is the moment when this phase of ticketing is completed and moves on to the next.

Stakeholders

One of the challenges in ticketing is the ongoing coordination with all stakeholders. This must be largely automatic or based on the self-service principle.

The relevant stakeholders in the process are:

• Rights holder: Organization that issues the tickets
• Customer/partner: Organization/company that uses (buys) the tickets
• Ticket management: Responsible for the organization of distribution
• Agency: Commissioned with the activation (marketing of ticketing)
• Broker: Intermediate stage and often the most important beneficiary in the distribution of tickets. They invite your customers and partners and are therefore important for the success of the engagement.
• Guests/participants: Target group of the entire campaign

With colada, all phases of ticketing can be mapped efficiently and transparently, from distribution to final allocation to guests. This integrates all stakeholders and automates the entire process.

Arrange a free colada demo and see for yourself how we can optimize your ticketing processes!