Imagine this scenario: you are sitting in the car on the way to a baseball game when, all of sudden, the sky opens up with sheets of torrential rain. Things look bleak, until you receive a mobile notification from the venue with an option to upgrade your seat to a covered area for a small fee. Your experience with the venue and the sports brand is instantly improved and, symbiotically, the venue directly maximized their profit by easily selling available inventory. No rain on this parade.
This is just one example of how mobile technology is transforming the live experience. In order to dive deeper in to how companies are exploring and utilizing this space, I sat down with Stan Deak, VP of New Business Development at Experience, to get his insights on how mobile technology can power experiential brands.
Experience is a relatively new service. They sit among a range of new offerings in the marketplace that are aiming to create flexibility and convenience for consumers. By utilizing the power of mobile technology, Experience taps into the inventory of over 250 partners in sports and entertainment to help customize experiences for people who have purchased tickets to a partnering event. This could mean offering the choice to upgrade their seat, increase the size of their group or party, purchase VIP season passes for exclusive offers, or return seats for guaranteed value, all on a single mobile interface.
Experience and similar companies capitalize on the reality that there are increasingly high expectations about how we interact and experience live events. Millennial consumers in particular now expect access specific to their needs and interests. This demand means that new platforms like Experience are continually evolving in order to engage more thoughtfully with these expectations.
Stan shared with me that, for Experience, the ultimate goal of this engagement is to allow users to upgrade their live event experience in a myriad of ways. For example, people on-the-go can pick up last minute tickets from offers via text message, email or social media. Or avid fans can purchase subscription access to live events at participating venues for a flat fee, allowing them to pick and choose events that best fit their schedule. Their goal is to provide fans with varying levels of flexibility, diversification, and personalization that they have come to count on.
There are still many hurdles in the way for this convenience to come full swing when you consider connectivity issues and integration of outdated legacy ticketing systems but innovators are laying the groundwork.
Mobile tech trends include a growing marketplace of apps, platforms, and technologies that are driving the evolution of the live event experience. Done right, our mobile devices can serve as a concierge, a box office, a scoreboard, a virtual store, a new and improved tool for making memories and, ultimately, enjoying live events the way we want to. That's not to say that mobile can replace the thrill of standing in a crowded concert hall or watching a brilliant touchdown from the stands, but it's a powerful instrument for making those moments even better. And it's sitting right in your pocket.
What's more exciting? We know this is just the beginning.
#MobileTruth. This article originally appeared as part of the agency's new publication Situation.