The SMS revolution

Mobile coupons are a valuable ticketing tool for large-scale events, offering commercial opportunities and environmental benefits

The market for live music concerts and festivals has been growing for over a decade worldwide and looks set to continue expanding. In the UK, where this market is particularly dynamic, market analyst Mintel forecasts that ticket sales at live music events will have grow by more than 100 per cent over ten years by 2010.

Ticket sales at live music events are predicted to have grown
by more than 100 per cent over ten years by 2010

The number of summer festivals is growing yearly and new technology is allowing customers to gain access to these events faster than ever. The internet has dramatically changed way tickets are sold. The UK’s Glastonbury festival, the largest music festival in Europe, sold out in less than two hours when tickets went on sale in April 2007.

Thankfully for consumers, not all events sell out quite as rapidly as Glastonbury festival. Now, mobile ticketing technology gives people the opportunity to buy tickets over the phone and have the ticket sent to their phone in the form of a unique bar code.

Instant access
A significant advantage of mobile ticketing for event organisers is that they are able to continue to sell tickets right up to, and during, the event. As there are no delivery fees, it cuts costs for consumers. Mobile tickets also maximise trade for events organisers by providing an opportunity to offer lower commission rates as an incentive for purchase.

Mobile ticketing also cuts down on the illegal trade of touting, because a barcode on a mobile phone text message cannot be resold. Although the text message can be forwarded to another phone, its unique code is only valid for a single use.

Big green benefits
Doing away with the need for paper tickets also brings environmental benefits. It was this consideration that inspired the Big Green Gathering, Europe’s largest event with an environmental theme and one of the first of the UK festivals to use mobile ticketing, to employ the technology.

In August 2007, the Big Green Gathering drew 20,000 visitors. Many customers are attracted to the notion that all of the power for the event, including musical entertainment, is derived from renewable energy. Mobile ticketing technology presented an opportunity for the festival, which bills itself as a “low carbon holiday”, to lower its environmental impact still further.

International specialists in mobile coupons, ActiveMedia Technology, contacted Penny Kemp, organiser of the Big Green Gathering, about a month before the event was due to take place. She jumped at the opportunity to prevent any more paper being used unnecessarily. “We thought it was wonderful, from an environmental point of view, to have a paperless system. Using no paper is fantastic,” she says.

Despite the short time frame for introducing the scheme, the festival sold mobile tickets to the value of GBP 15,000 (RMB 230,000) in the space of one month. “It was a trial scheme. A lot of people had already bought tickets,” Kemp says.

The Big Green Gathering plans to expand the ticketing technology scheme massively next year. “Paperless ticketing must the way forward. It would wonderful if the whole event could be planned using paperless tickets.”

Interacting with customers
Mobile coupon technology not just means of providing access to events. It also allows companies to communicate messages to attendees once they are inside the event.

“SMS can be an extremely powerful vehicle, not only for entrance into events, but also for changing user’s behaviour at events,” says James Hilton, founding partner of mobile marketing specialists, Inside. “It can be used for promotional purposes to change the behaviour of the person when they are at the event.”

Hilton cites the example of “Orange Wednesday”, a scheme mobile phone operator Orange developed with cinema companies to encourage trade in cinemas. Orange customers who type in the word “film” and send it short code 241 on a Wednesday can get two cinema tickets for the price of one, transforming what is usually a quiet midweek night into an evening of significant trade in cinemas.

Virgin’s massive musical event in the UK, the “V” festival, worked with ActiveMedia Technology’s mobile phone couponing system to appeal to basic consumer instincts. “If you are a Virgin customer, you could text a number and get sent back a coupon for two free pints of beer. The redemption rate for this promotion was over 70 per cent,” Hilton says.

Inside used a similar approach to direct mobile phone users towards a client, mobile phone operator Sprint, at the Winter X Games in January 2007. The Winter X Games is a multi-sport event with a focus on action sports held annually in Aspen, Colorado in the US.

“At the X Games we were encouraging people to enter a competition by sending an SMS at standard local rate,” Hilton says. “All winners were notified by SMS and they went immediately to the Sprint tent, showed and validated their mobile coupon and received their prizes. The aim was for them to understand more about Sprint as a mobile operator.”

Inside also allayed mobile messaging technology with blue screen filming techniques to provide attendees at a senior management level conference with a unique experience. “We used blue screen pods – a pod that contains a blue screen, so you could be seen playing football with David Beckham, for example. You could then send the footage to the customer’s mobile phone, providing a great memento for the day.”

Such a pod is a regular feature at the O2 arena, one of the UK’s leading live music venues, allowing customers to personally interact with the event in an imaginative way. Another application of mobile phone technologies at live music events is using SMS to post messages on stage.

“Mobile phones are all about communication and providing content on the move. Most brands want to heighten user experience using mobile technology,” says Hilton.

The deciding factor
For more exclusive events, mobile ticketing offers the element of secrecy. “Mobile couponing is very powerful. You can have a secret gig and none of tickets will get on Ebay, because you can’t use the same coupon twice,” Hilton says.

The biggest live music event yet where access was provided using SMS was Live8, which took place in London in July 2005. “The whole event made millions to alleviate third world debt, on the cost of just GBP 1.50 (RMB 22.6) per text. It was a way of using micropayment, which is very easy as there is no need to use cheques or internet payment.”

The user-friendliness of mobile couponing is a major driver in its rapid uptake. Hilton says: “Ease of use is a 100 per cent deciding factor for mobile ticketing – it’s the perfect vehicle for payment.”

Kemp also vouches for the ease of use of mobile ticketing. “I was quite amazed how easily it works. I didn’t hear any complaints from anybody. We were delighted,” she says.