The 5 biggest obstacles of sports ticketing & how to overcome them

The perfect ticketing solution doesn’t exist. No matter what solution you look at, you will find a variety of compromises that make it great for some users and far from perfect for others.

So what solution should you choose?

We’re starting off with the two that directly involve yourself.

1: Lack of self service possibilities

Have you ever needed to make urgent changes to your seat reservations or other urgent changes inside of your event? If such a need should occur outside of office hours at your ticketing provider’s customer support, then you may be in trouble.

Being independent of external support is one of the greatest advantages of a self serviced ticketing system. Then you can do the job when it suits you, and not when it suits your ticketing provider.

You should be 100% in charge of all details inside of your ticketing system, so you don’t have to wait in line.

2: Limited integrations options

Quite a lot of the ticketing solutions available at the market today are built as the ticketing equivalent of a Swiss army knife. They’ve got all the tools built in. This legacy way of thinking makes them heavy, clunky and very little adaptable towards all the other tools you use in your daily life.

A modern ticketing solution should have open APIs for third party integrations such as Zapier, Zoho Analytics, Zendesk or the various access control systems, so that you can have everything you need in one place without carrying around that clunky Swiss army knife.

You shouldn’t even have to be at your office to do your job. Your mobile should be more than enough to keep you on top of things.

Then let us look at the two most common obstacles concerning your organisation.

3: Slow and insufficient access control

The access control is a critical part of your ticketing operations, because access control covers more than just a smooth entrance for your audience. It is also of vital importance for the stadium security.

Some ticket solutions don't cover a professional access control. Others require expensive hardware and/or complex scanning operations.

You should choose a ticketing system where the scanning operations can be run by both Android smartphones and iPhones, and where the access control personnel can bring their own devices if wanted.

You should also look for a system that delivers real time security reports for your security personnel or the police.

4: Lacking ownership of customer data

In 2023, almost every organiser knows the importance of rich customer data. They are vital for your marketing as well as the planning of your event.

How many employees will you need for the event? Where will you need them, when? How much food and beverages can you expect to sell?

If you’ve got access to decent customer data, they can give you these answers. They can also help you reach exactly the right audience with your marketing, and thereby save costs and generate maximum revenue.

But how about the ownership of this data? Who is the actual owner of the data you rightfully define as your own?

This may very well be your ticketing provider, because not every ticketing company defines the data as the organiser’s property.

You should choose a ticketing provider that does.

Last, but not least: Let’s not forget the ticket buyers.

5: Slow and complex customer journey

In today’s modern world, we all expect our online services to be super efficient. Clunky customer journeys with way too many steps before checkout is not only a burden for your ticket buyers. It can also result in bounced sales.

You shouldn’t lose your ticket buyers due to inconvenient shopper journeys. You should choose a ticketing supplier that can facilitate a lightning fast customer journey, and make it possible for your ticket buyers to complete their purchase without obstacles of any kind.

So, to conclude:

There's an abundance of sports ticketing systems out there, and it can be hard to choose at times. But not all ticketing solutions work for everyone. These five common obstacles are a good starting point for any ticketing manager looking to find the best ticketing system for your clubs needs.