3. How-To: Get folks to come to shows again with no-shows hitting up to 40% at some gigs:
Big Ideas:
- No shows is something we’ve been talking about.
- Flexibility and being in the business of “no” is something Maureen Andersen has been talking about even before the pandemic. The no-shows make this even more important to think about now.
- It was never about price or anything. It was always about value.
People want peace of mind in their purchases now more than ever. I’ve been going back and sharing some data from Booking Protect with y’all over and over because I want you to see the actual behavioral data and how it is changing folks.
To spell it out with numbers:
- Before the pandemic, you’d see somewhere around 5-7% uptake on refund protection. Slightly higher in the United States, but that was the baseline area.
- When lockdowns eased and tickets went on-sale, there were months when you might see as much as 30% uptake in refund protection. That’s around 1 in 3 for the mathematically challenged like me.
- As things have progressed, we are seeing that people are still taking up refund protection at a rate that is about twice what it was before the pandemic…around 15% in a lot of markets.
Why do these numbers matter?
Because it shows a clear behavioral change.
Before the pandemic, your no-show rates might be around 10%, it is the holiday season…I’m being generous. But they haven’t recovered.
Despite people that seem in wonder that people are making decisions based on the value they put on an experience, the truth was that people had already begun to value the live sports experience differently before the pandemic.
You were seeing the scan issue less often in theatre, performing arts, and concerts.
Concerts get a little more YOLO. Theatre and performing arts might just have to do with percentage of tickets on the secondary market.
I did a little press tour early in the year and I was talking with one journalist that said, “no one really seems that concerned with the ticket buyers…except you, that seems to be your key focus.”
Kids, flattery will get you everywhere!
Before the pandemic, Maureen Andersen would give a speech about how box office folks need to be in the business of “yes”.
That was always the right answer.
Richard Howle was on the podcast and talked about how the business of tickets and on-sales were often set up to maximize the benefit of the ticket sellers and not the ticket buyers.
On and on this idea has gone.
Maybe things have gotten better, but in most cases they are still pretty bad for the end buyer.
So the real lesson from this scan data and no-show story is that everyone needs to get into the business of customer focus.
Without customers, fans, ticket buyers…you’ve got nothing.
Find out what matters to them and find a way to deliver on that.
If not, you’ll see the scan data continue to drop and once you start sliding, coming back isn’t a guarantee.