Recently rescued from going bust by Sunrise Records owner Doug Putman, UK-based entertainment retailer HMV is looking to ramp up its live in-store event offering and has partnered with Tixserve to provide secure, content-rich digital tickets.
Tixserve is a Software as a Service (SaaS), white label, digital ticketing solution that enables event creators and rights-owners to create branded, interactive digital tickets that are delivered directly to consumers’ mobile phones.
The partnership kicked-off with a number of signing sessions with Twenty One Pilots at six stores across the UK at the start of 2019.
The events took place during the UK leg of the band’s Bandito tour and were 100% and tickets were sold as part of a bundle with the band’s fifth album Trench.
More than 3,200 digital tickets were distributed via the Tixserve mobile app to purchasers’ smart phones simultaneously for events in Birmingham, Glasgow, Manchester, Belfast and two in London.
The Twenty One Pilots digital tickets marks the beginning of a multi-year partnership between HMV and Tixserve, as HMV develops more live events.
Tixserve’s tickets can eradicate ticket fraud and enable secure, authorised ticket exchange as specified by the event organiser.
In the run-up to HMV’s Twenty One Pilots events, it was found that touts were advertising yet to be activated Tixserve tickets online for up to £200 – a mark-up of more than 1,000% on the album/ticket bundle.
When fans alerted HMV of these cases, organisers were able to disable all ticket transfer functionality unless authorised on a case-by-case basis.
“HMV WORKS CLOSELY WITH THE MAJOR RECORD COMPANIES AND THEIR ARTISTS TO CREATE EXCITING AND ENGAGING IN-STORE EVENTS, AND WE ARE ALWAYS LOOKING FOR WAYS TO IMPROVE THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE.”
SIMON WINTER, HMV
HMV Senior Events Manager Simon Winter said: “HMV works closely with the major record companies and their artists to create exciting and engaging in-store events, and we are always looking for ways to improve the customer experience.
“Using Tixserve has given us the control we need to manage ticket distribution in-house, and the digital ticket helps build a closer relationship directly with the ticket holder.
“The recent run of sell out Twenty One Pilots events required us to distribute over 3000 tickets with purchases of the band’s Trench album.
“We needed a very secure ticket offer to stop potential re-sale at highly inflated prices, and Tixserve allowed us to stop this and maintain direct contact with the ticket holders from the point of purchase right through to the event itself.”
“WORKING WITH HMV WILL MEAN THEIR CUSTOMERS BENEFIT FROM HIGHLY SECURE, CONVENIENT AND CONTENT-RICH DIGITAL TICKETS WHICH CAN BE TAILOR-MADE TO BRING REAL ADDED VALUE TO EACH INDIVIDUAL EVENT.”
PATRICK KIRBY, TIXSERVE
Patrick Kirby (pictured), MD at Tixserve, added: “Working with HMV will mean their customers benefit from highly secure, convenient and content-rich digital tickets which can be tailor-made to bring real added value to each individual event.
“For Tixserve, it’s great to be able to partner with a company synonymous with the music sector, and to work with such iconic bands such as Twenty One Pilots.
“Not only was Tixserve able to distribute their digital tickets quickly and easily, we were also able to configure Tixserve for this high profile event to prevent the unauthorised sale and transfer of tickets on re-sale sites.”
News sourced from Music Business Worldwide
