A recently announced deal between dynamic ticket pricing specialist Qcue and half-price ticket seller Goldstar opens up a new ticket sales channel to sports teams, venues and promoters, a move that potentially could be duplicated in the future with the secondary ticket market.
Qcue, which works with the World Series Champion San Francisco Giants and close to a dozen other clients, will incorporate into its software the ability for its clients to list tickets on Goldstar in addition to their other traditional sales channels.
“One of the things we’ve started to see, whether it was a team, promoter or venue, is that they use different sales channels to sell tickets,” Barry Kahn, CEO of Qcue, told TicketNews. “So, it’s our job to help our clients allocate their ticket inventory out to these different channels so they can maximize sales.”
Using discount sites to sell excess inventory is not a new concept. Broadway has used such methods for years, and this season the Washington Wizards put hundreds of single-game tickets up for sale on the discount site Groupon.
Building such ability into Qcue’s software will allow the company to move beyond helping teams or others better price tickets, but also help those clients to manage their overall ticket inventory. Qcue crunches information, such as historical sales data, player statistics, weather forecasts (if applicable), opponent, standings and other factors to help determine ticket prices, and now that information will be used to determine prices for more than one sales channel.
“For Goldstar, integrating our platform with the leader in dynamic pricing means that venues that use Qcue will be able to make us part of their dynamic pricing strategy more easily than ever,” Goldstar CEO Jim McCarthy said in a statement.
Kahn said he also envisions a time when Qcue technology will include secondary ticket resellers as a sales channel. The company is currently having discussions with secondary ticket companies about the possibility of working with sports teams to sell excess inventory.
“I can’t believe that in five years, or more likely in a lot less time, these secondary ticket platforms will not be selling primary ticket inventory. The discussion about the blurring of the lines between primary and secondary ticket companies has been going on for a long time,” Kahn said.
The deal also gives Qcue the opportunity to pitch their product to thousands of venues and concert promoters, in an effort to break into the live music arena. Qcue currently does not have any clients in that market, but Kahn hopes that will change.
“The music industry desperately needs this,” he said, adding that there are contractual issues that will have to be worked out between artists, promoters and venues before that can happen.