Trapital - focus on the fans
focus on the fans Hey. It’s been sad to think about Takeoff. He was just 28 years old. His life was just getting started. I can only imagine how his family and loved ones feel right now. RIP. Thanks again to everyone who has shared The Culture Report. The response has been strong, and I’m glad it’s resonating. Today’s memo is about how to improve the concert ticket-buying experience for fans. I had a great conversation with DICE president, Russ Tannen. DICE was the presenting sponsor for our Culture Report, so we also talked about some of the insights that stuck out to Russ as well. Let’s dive in.
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how DICE makes ticketing more fan-focusedConcert tickets have been in the news for a bunch of reasons lately. Whether it’s dynamic pricing or additional fees, live music fans have voiced their frustration with the process. But even if a fan is willing to pay the fees, there’s still some friction. One of the main reasons that fans don’t attend more concerts is because they don’t have anyone to go with, or they didn’t know that their favorite musician was in town. Russ and I talked about all of this on the podcast. It was great to hear his perspective, especially compared to how things worked in the UK. discovery fuels ticketingIn Europe, a single show can be sold by multiple ticketing companies, but in the United States, there’s typically a single point-of-sale on the primary market. For large venues, it’s Ticketmaster, and for smaller venues, it’s often Eventbrite. Given the landscape, DICE doubled down on discovery to differentiate itself. “Most ticket companies in the U.S. previously have been transactional. When we pitch, it’s all about how do we significantly change how people are discovering events at a venue and how do we increase the number of shows that they’re going to by focusing on their experience on the actual ticket purchase. That narrative has paid off.” Nowadays, 40% of DICE sales come from its discovery system and push notifications, which let fans know which shows are going on. The system pulls in different data points, like syncing with a user’s music library, tracking behavior inside the app, and more, to drive its suggestions. “We knew our superpower would be personalized recommendations and building an algorithm that was extremely sophisticated and shows people the right shows to them.” Not only is the discovery feature a value-add for concertgoers, but artists and venues too. Organic in-app sales mean spending less time and money on their own show promotions. owning the entire journeyDiscovery is typically the first step of the process to attend a show, but there’s more in the customer journey that fans do leading up to a show:
In most cases, these are all on separate apps, but DICE brings them all together in one place. The social component is a big part of DICE’s strategy. This can help make sure that fans don’t miss shows that they really want to attend. “We talk to fans all the time and fans would tell us the number one reason that they wouldn’t buy a ticket for a show is they wouldn’t know who to go with.” not just the Bad Bunny effectAs you saw in our first-ever Trapital Culture Report, Latin music has had exponential growth in the US. Russ has seen a similar trend within DICE. From 2021 to 2022, Latin music ticket sales on the app are up 829%. Plus, Latin events listed on DICE have quadrupled between both years too. We’ve all seen the huge streaming numbers, but it’s great to see this with Latin music concerts too. It’s easy to pin the whole genre’s success on a superstar like Bad Bunny, but DICE is only working with artists in venues with less than 10,000-capacity. This movement is bigger than just one or two artists. “It’s hitting that point where it’s not just that trickle-down effect. It’s also this bottom-up swell of artists coming through.” Riding this trend, DICE expanded into Miami over the summer, signing up Club Space to its platform. Russ said more Miami-centric venues will be inked in the coming months, as well as Latin America overall. Listen to our full conversation here:
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the culture report is here
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