First Sessions Booked for TPC2024
This page has the initial sessions selected for the TPC2024 programme.
The First Confirmed Sessions and Speakers for 2024
Well, it is a little later than we would have liked, but we can now start to show the list of sessions fully booked, locked and loaded for #TPC2024.
We already have a diverse mix of topics, titles and touch points, with much much more to come as speaker headshots and final copy roll in.
A big thank you to Brooke Gallagher, Caspian Turner, Lucy Costelloe, Sarah Bagg, Robin Cantrill-Fenwick, Kate Mroczkowski and Matthew Breen for their help in putting the ’24 programme together.
Planned Sessions for #TPC2024
Newly Confirmed
VIP/Hospitality Packages: Entertainment Event Consumer Perceptions of Value and Pricing
This presentation will discuss some they key survey findings from an online consumer survey which is part of a PhD project undertaken at Aberystwyth Business School (Aberystwyth University). There will be a particular focus on the package components, pricing and consumer purchase behaviour. There will also be an analysis of consumer perceptions of real anonymised VIP/Hospitality packages.
Frictionless Checkout Experience
Session looking at methods and tools to streamline and declutter your checkout experience, including cart abandonment, incremental auths, tokenisation, alternative payments as well as the rise of buy now pay later.
Register for #TPC2024
Venue Spaces from just £239+VAT
How to Design an Empathetic Chatbot
Let’s not make our customers shout, “LET ME TALK TO A HUMAN!”
Whatever the primary function of your chatbot is, there are Conversation Design techniques and guidelines you can follow (particularly unique to ticketing) to ensure you deliver a positive customer experience. The session would answer questions like, how do you effectively frame an AI conversation so your customers knows what they can and can’t do? How much personality should your bot have? What metrics should you look at to analyse how effective your bot is? How can your bot speak with empathy without aggravating an impatient customer?
Have the Tough Conversation: Price, Value, Loyalty
What is a ticket worth? Truly worth. Discussing price and value in an arts organization is really hard. Because as passionate as your colleagues are, they aren’t the one’s buying the tickets. Talking about price is so difficult that often it’s not talked about at all. But for an organization to evolve, pricing must evolve too. Join us as walk you through how to have the tough conversation about price.
Creating the ultimate AI Assistant in 10 minutes
Venue case study looking at reduced customer / venue human dependence, by streamlining event communications and logistic discussions in the lead up to event days.
AI ...you're doing it already
How we are already using automation, machine learning and AI in relation to pricing, CRM and communications. AI is becoming a buzz word and has potential to create more uncertainty and worry about not keeping up with the latest approach……we’re not
Expert and not Imposter
Recognising the expertise of women in our sector. Touching on imposter syndrome with a panel of women with a range of sector experience discussing how their voices and experience offers value. Examples of how female views differ and offer different value to conversations. Not self promotion for those on panel but a reminder of the depth and breadth of experience in our female colleagues. Include variety of roles from our sector.
Register for #TPC2024
Venue Spaces from just £239+VAT
How to build a website, CMS, CRM, DAM & more in just 1 hour – a live demo!
An exciting one to watch… this session we will see how it’s now possible to use modern programming frameworks, open source libraries and cloud services to create digital infrastructure in a flash! This talk would be open to anyone with an interest in how to modernise and speed up their digital product development (no development experience required!).
In a world of ticket ballots, why is queueing still the British way?
We’ve seen the rise of the queue but while those who nab a ticket will be thrilled, those who don’t have wasted hours of their time and are left with a sour taste over the process. It’s poor for customer service, the data collection opportunities are limited! why do ticketing teams making their lives so difficult? This session will set out why a ticket ballot is a much better solution in nearly every way.
All-In Ticketing
How can the ticketing industry work to increase diversity and inclusion in our workforces, ensuring that society is represented fully at all levels, especially in senior management and the board room? The panellists will fearlessly raise and discuss with you the issues, obstacles and opportunities as well as encouraging you to contribute your own experiences and ideas.
The Best Tix In Life Are Free (Or Are They?)
Join us on a whistlestop tour of free ticket initiatives we have encountered over our careers, what the audience development aims of them were and the data behind if they worked or not. SPOILER ALERT not all of them did! We can promise laughs, learning and the occasional eye roll.
Dynamic Pricing - Beyond Making Money
Exploring the rationale behind its implementation and the considerations accompanying the decisions to employ it within an organisation’s pricing strategy. This comes after a seemingly growing public awareness of dynamic pricing in arts and entertainment, particularly with negative connotations (arguably because of highly priced concert tickets).
How do you sell a "sold out" venue?
What happens when the perception that there are ‘no tickets’ is far from reality? How do you get the message out that there are great shows and tickets to them? Venue led session.
Register for #TPC2024
Venue Spaces from just £239+VAT
We *would* make access tickets availble online but…
Making access tickets available online has been a topic of many an arts conference over the years. Most arts organisations, ticketing platforms and web agencies have had a desire to improve this, with mixed results, and it’s audiences who suffer. Truth be told, it is hard, it is complex and it takes time (and money). But it’s not impossible, and the benefits to those audience members is worth every penny and minute spent.
Success starts in the box office: How your whole team can drive revenue and enhance audience experience
Box Office teams are the people closest to your audience – but often furthest from your boardroom. Make the most of their impact by empowering every team member to drive revenue, enhance customer experience, and help achieve top-level goals. A panel of experts will share proven strategies to establishing a culture of shared success, where everyone’s invited to bring their energy, ideas, and initiative.
What is a ticketing system?
A panel from across the industry (different roles and organisations) to discuss what actually constitutes a ticketing system. They will pick, and by the end of the session we’d arrive at the bare minimum requirements for what makes a ticketing system.
Moving Audiences the Ecoway
Environmental sustainability remains a business-critical challenge for the cultural sector, not least due to the disproportionate carbon footprint created by audience travel.
This presentation and panel discussion lhighlights findings from two parallel initiatives to engage audiences, influence their travel behaviour, establish best practice, and quantify the results.
What's On - trends, ideas and measuring success
In this session, a group of speakers covering producing theatre, museum and festivals will discuss the trends, new ideas and measuring success of What’s On pages on websites. We’ll look at:
The session will give attendees inspiration, tried and tested approaches but also and understanding of limitations and how to manage those difficult expectations when people say ” but Amazon does this….”
Let’s have a conversation about Racism
A look into recent anti-racism conversations at a major entertainment group followed by an interactive Q&A session.
Including, some personal stories on the topic and contextualising the conversation along with an Interactive sections asking audience to anonymously answer some questions and asking what is next for the ticketing industry?
Register for #TPC2024
Venue Spaces from just £239+VAT
Forgiveness not Permission: Why we should (sometimes) break the rules.
This session will challenge some of the written and unwritten rules that we hold in our industry, citing examples where stretching the rules a little or breaking them entirely, lead to an increase in efficiency, revenue and customer experience.
Let's have a chat!
The session will be an insight into how service providers and venues improve customer service through the introduction of live/bot chat and desk systems. 2 case studies one being full live chat and one with bot and how this can be applied to any venue as staffing numbers low and workloads increase.
Onboarding new users
When a venue invests capital into a new system, the success or failure of that system is down to the buy in from users. How well they are onboarded has a massive part to play in that buy in. We have some tips and tricks for onboarding users with a variety of learning styles to ensure each user learns a new system in a way that is appropriate for their learning preferences
Cultural Digitalization Redefined: The Role of Human Skills in digital projects
In today’s rapidly evolving world, the cultural industry is undergoing a profound transformation due to increasing automation and digitalization. While these technological advancements have the potential to bring about immense benefits, they also pose significant challenges. A presentation of case studie(s) of cultural organizations that have successfully navigated the digital transformation journey. The session will share the most common mistakes or failures made in digital projects and the tips and tricks how to avoid them.
Warning: This Ticket May Cause Harm
The UK Government has launched an investigation into drip fees / drip pricing, and the potential harm caused to consumers by the unbundling of elements of a service into a base price + upsells in the checkout process. They’ve created a definition of which drip fees ‘harm’ consumers. This follows on from a consultation on personalised / ‘live’ / algorithmic pricing which also said measures would be needed to prevent consumer harm. Are common ticketing practices about to fall foul of government regulation? And what will be the impact if they do?
How to increase revenue, online share & early bookings by holistic price differentiation
Overview of results from automated price optimization along with best practives from OTHER industries, e.g. ski resorts, attractions, Christmas Garden and European sports
Register for #TPC2024
Venue Spaces from just £239+VAT
Removing the friction from your customer journey.
In a world where customer expectations are continually evolving, businesses must adapt to provide seamless and frictionless experiences. This discussion will explore strategies and innovative approaches to eliminate friction from the customer journey, ensuring customers are delighted at every touchpoint.
Scaling the Stage: How Dynamo Pricing Strategized for a Theatre's Grand Arena Debut
Using a case study to break down the key considerations and parts of a dynmaic pricing project, including fining common ground with colleagues, preparing, foundations of pricing, how to communicate, outcomes and anlaysis as well as some key dos and donts
Data Unleashed: A Doodler's Guide to Joining the Dots
This session we’ll discuss how to visualise data to form a strategy and make sense of what other perhaps see as chaos.
We’ll stress the importance of Data categorisation and (if it needs to be longer) about how you only get out what you put in and how people play a critical role in creating order.
Finally, we’ll use an example of an event where technology, data & humans worked seamlessly together to create the most memorable experience.
Creating the fans of the future
The cost of living crisis is reducing disposable and essential income for everyone. Live events fans, especially those on lower incomes, are choosing to save their pennies for essentials or for a couple of truly memorable nights out. In other words, they are investing their limited income carefully and rarely in live events, despite their enthusiasm. And while they may be short on cash now, our industry’s future fans won’t necessarily stay that way – and they’ll remember the hobbies and interests that inspire and care for them today. How can we get fans to attend live events at all levels, committing to their local venues and clubs in the future?
Stage by stage: helping people buy tickets online
Case study showing how we figured out how to make it easier for more people to book tickets! We will look at the three main stages – finding the website, browsing around it finding the necessary information, and then going through the purchase pathway. We will look at the techniques for figuring out how to optimise each stage, with some no-brainer usability testing methods that everyone should be using, and some website analytics insight sprinkled on top.
Inclusivity in Ticketing: A Guide to Best Practices
Inclusivity is not a buzzword but a critical component for organizations serving diverse audiences. . This session will go over practices that aim to create a diverse, engaged, and respected audience, in the context of ticketing software and CRM systems. Including but not limited to: Recognizing pronouns and gender diversity at POS, avoiding making assumptions based on last names or addresses, gathering demographic data for grant applications while respecting privacy and autonomy along with strategies to continually learn, adapt, and evolve to be as inclusive as possible
Register for #TPC2024
Venue Spaces from just £239+VAT
Migration: The Musical - a story of moving ticketing systems across venues with zero downtime
If moving ticketing system is like having a mountain to climb, then Everest is moving a hundred shows across six venues with a target of zero downtime and an advance matched to the penny. This case study will will explore how strong collaboration enabled a major entertainment group to scale these heights.
Eurovision - it’s a TV show! / Eurovision 2023 - Douze Points!
Presentation of learnings following the delivery of ticketing for the BBC of the nine shows with ticketed audiences at Liverpool Arena making up the Eurovision Song Contest 2023, delivered by the ticketing representative for the BBC. The session will reinforce the importance of several aspects of ticketing which can be found in many ticketing operations from community theatre to large scale venue or arts festival, and show how these were applied to deliver a 100% sold out run of shows, and the impact this had on the success of ESC23 with official statistics from the evaluation of the event.
Considerations for Accessible Ticketing
Walk through of an organisation’s “Access Pass” – an intiative that allows us to capture data on the access requirements of our audience (blind – requires audio description; Deaf – requires BSL; wheelchair user – requires level access; etc) to support them in being able to book the most appropriate seats (best sight lines and/or accessible to them) in a venue and how it improves their experience at the actual venue too, as the data can be shared through ticketing systems directly with venue staff.
Tomorrow’s Audience: turning first-timers into lifers
Recovery from the impact of Covid had been slow and early in 2023, the impact of the cost of living crisis has also hit, as well as broader behavioural and lifestyle changes. Anecdotal reports from venues report a lot of first timers attenders – at least on the surface. Are they really new? Do they represent a future loyal audience? How could we encourage them to come back (more often)
This session will present the results from the research, looking at who new audiences really are, how they behave and what they want from arts organisations, now and in the future.
Enhancing The Theatre Booking Experience
In an era where digital innovation is paramount in enhancing customer experiences, this session wil examine how major organisations has elevated the ticket-buying process by implmementing new view-from-seat technology. As a case study, it will look at rigorous AB testing phases over two years, discussion on the implementation and impacts of this state-of-the-art technology in theatre ticketing.
Making Ticketing and Events Inclusive and Accessible
Accessibility and inclusivity are words with a lot of different meanings – in arts and digital they can often be treated as buzzwords that we nod towards but don’t actually do anything to address.
This session breaks down the ways accessibility and inclusivity in the arts and in digital spaces intersect, and how we can put this into practice in events spaces and ticketing processes, both online and in the real world. Sections include, definitions of inclusivity and accessibility, how barriers to access and inclusion are created and maintained, how different groups are represented in the arts, and impacted by these barriers. as well as how we overcome these barriers
