GAA and Ticketmaster

Culchie

Leading on from another thread.

I think the GAA should terminate it's recent distribution agreement with ticketmaster.

Clubs could distribute these tickets themselves, add on 2 euro to each ticket for admin expenses and a little profit, and no right minded GAA fan would begrudge their club the couple of euro.

Alternatively, there's no reason why the GAA couldn't set up a ticket selling office themselves, keep a database on who is buying tickets, so at least the genuine fans will be able to acquire tickets, come the business end of the championship.

(GAA Bosses, if you see this thread, I'm available to set this up:) )

Anyone else got a view on this?

Flukey

Ticketmaster, as with any online sales system, facilitates many people. The GAA do have a ticket office, but for all sorts of practical reasons that doesn't suit people. Getting them through clubs may not facilitate some people either. At the earlier stages of the championship they have ticket outlets around the match areas, when the crowds are not so large. There are no online or ticket office sales for the All-Ireland Final and, as we saw last week, occasionally for semi-finals.

Without ticket office and online sales the GAA would sell less tickets, if just the clubs sold them, in the early part of the championship. Even on days when the ticketmaster sales are in place, there is a lot of space in the grounds. Without those online sales, there would be even less people there. With them, they get bigger crowds and broaden the amount of people that become interested in the games. So there are far more benefits of selling them that way. People may not be willing to travel on the chance of buying a ticket on the day. But if they guarantee one from ticketmaster, then they will travel. It is also for people travelling in from abroad.

If you restricted it to clubs, at the earlier stages, how would tickets be distributed, and to which clubs? Just ones of the competing counties? That would not facilitate people from other counties. You might have someone in Monaghan wanting to go to a match in Portlaoise, not involving Monaghan. Should Monaghan get a whole load of tickets sent to their clubs? Most would be unsold, even if that person got a ticket. That would be a waste of money in printing and postage for the GAA. So it makes a lot more sense to send some to clubs where they know they will be sold and leave others to Ticketmaster who can sell them to anyone else that wants them, wherever they may be from, without printing and posting expenses for the GAA. Ticketmaster just print any they sell. So the GAA, Ticketmaster and the fans all benefit. Everyone is a winner. Getting rid of online sales would be a backward step for the GAA.

Culchie

I said get rid of ticketmaster, not online sales.

GAA should set up their own online business.

Flukey

They used to do it through a Setanta company, based just off the quays in Dublin, on GAA.ie. For whatever reason that did not prove suitable, so they changed to Ticketmaster. Presumably Ticketmaster have a better system and a broader range of people visiting them. The Setanta ones sold for GAA matches only and would not have other casual visitors to find tickets by chance, as Ticketmaster would have. Ticketmaster also have a broad range of ticket offices, not just online, again giving them a distribution advantage, and facilitating those having no access to the Net. Ticketmaster have better advertsing opportunities. It may not have been profitable enough to warrant it for the other company. When not getting them around GAA venues or from a club, I have used both of those online service, and I think doing it through Ticketmaster is far better.

Aido c

I know in the past few months the GAA were advertising positions for Computer whiz's, maybe its already on the cards

I am no fan of Ticket master B.T.W.

Flukey

Those jobs may have been for other things. There is a lot the GAA could do with computer people. A lot more websites should be in place. Databases of past fixtures, articles, history etc. should be available for those of us interested in that kind of thing.

As for ticket sales, someone like Ticketmaster is a better option for the reasons I've outlined. They tried the other system, but there is no way that they can match what Ticketmaster can do for boosting sales. Love them or loathe them, Ticketmaster is better for the GAA to sell tickets and advertise their product, rather than trying to do that themselves. They get professionals in for other jobs they need doing, so ticket sales is no different.

Culchie

Flukey wrote:

Those jobs may have been for other things. There is a lot the GAA could do with computer people. A lot more websites should be in place. Databases of past fixtures, articles, history etc. should be available for those of us interested in that kind of thing.

As for ticket sales, someone like Ticketmaster is a better option for the reasons I've outlined. They tried the other system, but there is no way that they can match what Ticketmaster can do for boosting sales. Love them or loathe them, Ticketmaster is better for the GAA to sell tickets and advertise their product, rather than trying to do that themselves. They get professionals in for other jobs they need doing, so ticket sales is no different.

Absolute Tosh Flukey.... if the GAA want to do online sales, there's no reason why they couldn't...and be successful and profitable at it......and genuine fans would get the tickets if they incorporate database analysis.

Flukey

Culchie wrote:

if the GAA want to do online sales, there's no reason why they couldn't...and be successful and profitable at it......and genuine fans would get the tickets if they incorporate database analysis.

They tried doing it and then handed it over to Ticketmaster because they can do it better. Would you favour Ticketmaster running the GAA? That is not their area. Online ticket sales is though. Ticketmaster have elements in their expertise that the GAA can't match. It is not really feasible for the GAA to set up a section to sell online what would be a relatively small amount of their total tickets. The same can be said for many organisations, which is why they hand it over to companies like Ticketmaster.

The GAA is not selling tickets for events every day right throughout the year. The championship only has just over 60 matches and many of them would not be worth, or even require, putting any tickets on sale online. Even for matches they do sell online for, it is only some of the tickets. So altogether there are not many tickets sold online. They could do it, but it is simpler and cheaper for them to contract that out to a company that can do a better job on it.

As to doing analysis of ticket sales, as online sales would only be a small part of their sales, it would not be a good analysis. The only way to do a proper analysis is to analyse every single ticket of every single match and the individual that presents it at the gate. I go to matches regularly. Sometimes I get tickets online, sometimes I get them through a club, sometimes I buy them on the day and sometimes I pay cash at the stiles. So my online purchases would not form a true analysis of how well I attend games.

Then there is the fact that many people buy them online for others who may not have access the net, or buy a lot of tickets, not just a single one. So there is no way a database could keep a true track of who goes to matches, even if you went broader than just online sales.

I am presuming from what you say, that you do know about databases, as I do. That being the case you will know well that doing an analysis on online sales would not work, for the reasons I've mentioned. All it could tell you is the amount of online sales and who paid for those tickets, but that is about all. They would need a lot more information from lots of other sources to do a better analysis, and even that could never give a true picture. Somehow I don't think we would agree to having to bring our passports to prove identity and give an exact detail of where our ticket came from, when we went to matches. Would we agree to maybe having to fill out a questionnaire, every time we went through the turnstiles at every match we'd go to, all so the GAA could get a true and accurate analysis of what matches people went to? They talk about people staying in pubs and going to matches late, and saying they should leave them earlier. If everyone had to fill in a questionnaire before going into next Sunday's match, they'd have to be leaving the pub on Friday night, to get in on time for the match, such would be the time it would take for all the crowds to get through. They'd have to rename that stadium on Jones's Road, Guantanamo Park.

To do a true analysis of match attendances properly you would also have to be including even every underage game that people went to. It sounds like a nice idea in principle to set up a database to keep track of ticket sales and those who attend matches, but it could not work accurately and would certainly not be feasible for the GAA. All they want is to sell tickets and get people to go to matches, not question every single person that ever attended a match to find out their ticket purchasing and match going habits.

Blackjack

Flukey wrote:

They used to do it through a Setanta company, based just off the quays in Dublin, on GAA.ie. For whatever reason that did not prove suitable, so they changed to Ticketmaster. Presumably Ticketmaster have a better system and a broader range of people visiting them. The Setanta ones sold for GAA matches only and would not have other casual visitors to find tickets by chance, as Ticketmaster would have. Ticketmaster also have a broad range of ticket offices, not just online, again giving them a distribution advantage, and facilitating those having no access to the Net. Ticketmaster have better advertsing opportunities. It may not have been profitable enough to warrant it for the other company. When not getting them around GAA venues or from a club, I have used both of those online service, and I think doing it through Ticketmaster is far better.

Setanta was quite a handy set up. You could collect from their offices just off the quays, or you could collect from the Matt Talbot Credit union between Mountjoy Square and Jones Road (don't remember the name of the streed - could be Matt Talbot street or something).
I suppose ticketmaster have more outlets and therefore its easier to distribute, rather than depending on post, or only 2 collection points.

Ticketmaster are Rip off merchants though.

The GAA do have a ticketline, which I used for the first Mayo Laois game. I needed 10 tickets in the same area, was hoping for the lower cusack. The chap on the phone was very helpful and got me 10 tickets in a row in section 308, which were great seats. Posted them out to me and I had them in 2 days.

Flukey

That's Fitzgibbon Street. Ticketmaster has many advantages for the GAA as I've outlined above. They'll be selling them for the International Rules matches I presume. That will be interesting.

GAAman

Flukey wrote:

That's Fitzgibbon Street. Ticketmaster has many advantages for the GAA as I've outlined above. They'll be selling them for the International Rules matches I presume. That will be interesting.

Yup looks that way

http://www.ticketmaster.ie/browse?category=229&tm_link=tm_sports_b_229&root=10004

Flukey

When I've been visiting Ticketmaster's site of late, Norton keeps telling me an attempt to attack my computer has been blocked. Anyone else had that?

Flukey

I ordered and received my ticket for Sunday's Camogie Final and Under 21 Hurling Final, from Ticketmaster. The weather looks good for the weekend. Anyone that has been at the Camogie Final or Ladies Football Final will notice a very different atmosphere. There are a lot more children and a lot more women, and you can actually notice the different in thepitch of the cheers during the match. Come along and listen for yourself.

An annoying thing is that there tends to be more whistles and with more children about, there are an awful lot of them being blown. While being annoying there is also the confusion in can lead to. They should not be allowed to be blown, not that it would be easy to stop them. Not a lot of attention would be paid to a request over the public address system not to blow them, but they still should make one.