Tickets.com's ProVenue Technology Soars On MLB Level

(CelebrityAccess MediaWire) — Tickets.com says that Major League Baseball (MLB) clubs experienced significant increases in the adoption rate for its pioneering ProVenue technology products during the 2004 season. One of the most dramatic increases was in the use of Tickets@Home, which allows fans to purchase and print tickets directly from their home or office computers. The total number of tickets purchased by fans of Tickets.com's MLB clubs using Tickets@Home increased by 221 percent.

With the launch of Double Play Ticket Window for the San Francisco Giants in 2000, Tickets.com introduced the first team-sanctioned product allowing season ticket holders to resell their unused tickets. The San Francisco Giants experienced their highest ticket volume during 2004, with 120,815 exchanged through the service. Now offered to all MLB clients under the brand name Replay Ticket Exchange, this year the Boston Red Sox introduced the product to market with great success.

Tickets.com's online Targeted Group Sales served as an effective marketing tool for teams, as the product enabled teams' sales forces to create targeted campaigns for sponsors and community groups with special offers and preferred pricing. In 2004, the Texas Rangers experienced a 1,016 percent increase in the total number of online targeted group sales tickets sold, while the Giants, Pittsburgh Pirates and Oakland A's also saw significant sales gains.

"The functionality of Tickets.com's Targeted Group Sales has enabled our department to become more efficient, while saving us valuable time during the ticketing process," said Andy Silverman, vice president ticket sales, Texas Rangers. "The service allows individual Rangers fans to promote their own group game-day event outing from a pool of tickets they control."

Many teams experienced increases in online ticket sales during the 2004 season. The Milwaukee Brewers saw the largest jump, doubling their sales penetration from the previous year with a 115 percent increase. Texas Rangers' fans also flocked to the Internet to purchase tickets in 2004, resulting in a 75 percent increase in online ticket sales.

Through its ProVenue Automated Ticketing Kiosks, Tickets.com became the first ticketing provider to develop self-service ticketing kiosks at MLB ballparks. During the 2004 season, Boston Red Sox, Pittsburgh Pirates and San Francisco Giants all installed the kiosks, which were subsequently met with high consumer acceptance. The Giants reported that for most games 50% of all tickets were retrieved using the kiosks will call. The Boston Red Sox also used the kiosks during the first two games of the World Series to alleviate long lines on game days.

"We are thrilled that Tickets.com's baseball initiative to aggressively develop and deploy state-of-the-art ticketing technology for MLB has been met with significant consumer acceptance.," stated Carl Thomas, executive vice president, sales and marketing, Tickets.com.
"This growing trend signals that our MLB clients are on the forefront of technology in the ticketing industry, and baseball fans are enthusiastically purchasing tickets through new distribution systems because they are faster, easier to use and more convenient."

Among the Major League Baseball clubs utilizing Tickets.com's products including online group sales, online coupons, online season renewals, and new season ticket sales, are the Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs, Cincinnati Reds, Milwaukee Brewers, Oakland Athletics, Pittsburgh Pirates, San Francisco Giants and Texas Rangers. –Jane Cohen and Bob Grossweiner