Rick Jurkiewicz (The Rugby Football League) on the future of ticketing and fan engagement

"Plan for the absolute worst case scenario. Always. Something will always go wrong. You need to be ready for it every time."

If you jump straight to the end of this TicketingPodcast.com season 2 episode with Rick Jurkiewicz - Head of Ticketing at the Rugby Football League - that is the advice you'll get. Listen carefully, but please also lend an ear to everything else that's on Rick's mind, because that's quite a lot, and it's highly engaging all the way through.

Rick's career within ticketing started 25 years back, and it can roughly be divided into two separate parts. First it was rock'n roll, then sports. He started his career at See Tickets and then moved on to Ticketmaster, and in the rock'n roll part of his career he did massive events like Glastonbury and Robbie Williams in Knebworth Park.

The shift to sports came with the UEFA Euro 2012 in Poland and Ukraine and the London 2012 Olympics, followed by the 2013 Rugby League World Cup. Since 2016 he's been Head of Ticketing at the Rugby Football League. Along the way, he's learned how to be a master risk preparer, especially in high-stakes situations where tickets have to be printed manually when time is of the essence.

In this episode, we tackle the fascinating concept of audience segmentation. Rick breaks down how ticketing managers slice and dice databases into profile audiences, ultimately using this data to better fulfil their customers' needs. He also walks us through the contrasting realities of ticketing for sports events versus theatre, emphasising the crucial role of capturing unique audience profiles in each sphere. 

Last but not least, join us as we envision the future of ticketing and fan engagement. Imagine a time when live events can rival the atmosphere and experience of watching a televised event, perhaps through the magic of augmented reality. Rick also shares valuable insights on the challenges in governance and integration, and lays out his golden rules for ticketing managers. 

This episode is a goldmine of insights and strategies for anyone drawn to the event industry, so be sure to listen in!

The episode was recorded on 20 June 2023.

TicketingPodcast.com is powered and sponsored by TicketCo and hosted by TicketCo’s CEO, Carl-Erik Michalsen Moberg.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Hello and welcome to this episode of TicketingPodcastcom where ticketing experts reveal their secrets and share their insights. My name is Karl-Eric Moberg and my guest today is Rick Jörgavic. Rick is head of ticketing at the Rugby Football League. Feel free to listen in. You don't want to miss this one. Hello everyone, thank you so much for tuning in to the TicketingPodcastcom. My name is Karl-Eric Moberg and I'm the host of this podcast where we're interviewing the unsung heroes of the event industry, which is the ticketing managers. Today's guest is head of ticketing at the Rugby Football League, rick Jörgavic. It's a pleasure to have you as our guest, rick. Hello.

Speaker 1: 0:46

Thank you Appreciate it to be invited, so we would love to get to know you, right, and we will. However, let's kick off. We're talking a little bit, something that's super fresh. What have you been up to today?

Speaker 2: 0:59

Today mostly counting tickets, organizing allocations for semi-finals for our Cup Competition, challenge Cup, which will be at Wembley on the 12th of August this year. It's the first year where we have men and women's finalists play at Wembley at the same time Different games, obviously. Yeah, it's been a pretty busy day Just trying to get clubs in place to be able to sell tickets to their fans and all the problems that go along with that. Largely, how do we distribute 20,000 tickets with very little time, availability, printer time. Yeah, it's been a busy one.

Speaker 1: 1:34

As far as I understand, you're doing a lot of things manually, right Your allocated tickets, printing out, etc. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 1:40

I'll go back a step. We've just had a quarter-finals of the weekend And because we have eight teams and we have to have neutrality in the semi-finals, there are eight men's teams that are participating in the quarter-finals And as each team is knocked out, then that allows us to go to one venue or another. So with those eight teams, we have seven different venues that we're available to use And then, as each team is knocked out, we eliminate certain venues to say, right, okay, so we don't need to use this venue because that team isn't playing, so we can remove that from the list And we get to after the end of the weekend. We get down to two different venues that we can use. One is local to two of the teams and then another one is a similar distance for both teams to travel to. So the idea is that we kind of try and make it as equal for fans and teams that are going to be participating in those games. And then, in addition to that, the added extra complication is we also had women's quarter-finals occurring at the same time And because we're trying to bring the women's game in line with the men's game, we're also having the women's quarter-finalists winners playing in those same venues as the men's semi-finals. So, yeah, there's quite a lot of trying to work out which venue is okay to use, which one isn't.

Speaker 2: 2:50

And then Sunday night, at about seven o'clock I think the last game finished was when we finally got our final set of games that are available And then from there it's just down to working out which teams will play on which days and which venues and which ends. And then at that point so we know all those things and we know what time the broadcasters want us to play the games and in which day, then at that point then we start printing tickets And we physically print tickets. There is no cleverness about it. Because of Sunday night, we don't know checks as control provider we're going to be working with, but we need to distribute tickets the following morning. So because we don't have a million staff to sit around doing nothing all the time, we don't have the benefit of being able to build every scenario to its maximum. So we have to build to 75%, and then those last 25% of whichever venue we're going to use in the end those get filled in just in that interim time between 7 pm on Sunday night and 8 pm Monday morning, at which point.

Speaker 2: 3:45

Then we start printing the tickets. So it's kind of a difficult puzzle. I'd say And I guess that's what we do is that we are looking for those puzzles. How do we find the complicated thing? If you could have a work equivalent of a Rubik's Cube, i think this would be it. It's a lot of different permutations, a lot of different pieces that have to go together to try and work out what the best way to deliver that is.

Speaker 1: 4:08

I mean, that's an amazing story And straight into the challenges of ticketing, and that's what we love here in the ticketing podcast. So it's a perfect, perfect start. But you look quite relaxed there, right? Yeah, i guess you've been doing things like this before.

Speaker 2: 4:22

Yeah, yeah. So I'm a risk preparer. I prepare for all the risks. People that know me know that I will plan for the worst case scenario in every situation. If there is a worst case scenario, then I would be planning for it. If that worst case scenario doesn't happen, then that's a win, so long as it isn't the worst. If it's the worst case scenario, then I'm ready for that, and if it's anything better than worst case scenario, then yeah, brilliant good times. So you can be pretty chilled about that sort of thing. There's no point in dwelling on the worst thing that could happen. If you're ready for it, then you're ready for it, and if you're not, then okay, you can panic and stop pulling your hair out and scream, but I don't do that so much anymore.

Speaker 1: 5:00

Isn't that something you actually would recommend? if you reduce job and ticketing?

Speaker 2: 5:05

You can guarantee that the worst thing will happen if you're not ready for it. It has happened to me. I don't mean to jump into stories too soon. Of course that's what I'm here for, but I can't even remember the year.

Speaker 2: 5:15

I know that it was Hyde Park, i know it was Roger Waters playing the dark side of the moon show in Hyde Park in London, and I know that at five to two, when the doors were opening at two o'clock, i didn't have any keys to open the access control booth, to switch on all the access control, for the staff to start letting people in.

Speaker 2: 5:35

Now this is 15 years ago, maybe 20 years ago now, and yeah, that's something that's very difficult to prepare for having no ability to do access control and having a lot of people wanting to get in the building at the same time. So worst case scenario in that situation there's no access control, won't get test stubs and then I'll scan them as soon as I can get into this damn booth with the access control scanners. I think that's influenced my insistence on retaining stubs on tickets for longer than anyone else ever as well. There's always a worry that I can't get access to or something does switch off or that whole other argument of what happens if the power switch is off. Well, we know what happens when the power switch is off All the barcodes stop working on the mobile phones and all the servers stop working and suddenly we can't sell a ticket, we can't scan a ticket. So let's be prepared for that as well.

Speaker 1: 6:21

You are basically prepared for anything that can happen. Thank you, for that. Sounds like a good plan and lots to learn from Love the story as well. And now you talk music. Right, You came in. You talk sports. You're now head of ticketing at the rugby league. So it all started with rock and roll, didn't it? How did you end up in ticketing?

Speaker 2: 6:42

OK. So, 13-year-old Rick, i was in Poland on a pilgrimage. It was a thing that my mum insisted that I went on a Catholic pilgrimage from some town in Poland for a walk for five days to a religious site in Czellstorow which is like a castle religious site. It was cool. It was a walk in the countryside. I've always enjoyed walking the hills. So I was like, yeah, cool, let's do it. And obviously, as a 13-year-old boy, i'm very influenced by those around me And all I remember was seeing is this guy playing guitar surrounded by girls, and at that moment I just thought that's it, i'm going to do that. That's the thing. Whatever that is, i'm going to do that. So fast forward three years I've been playing guitar. I've grown my hair long like that kid that I saw in Poland, got a leather jacket, i'm listening to ACDC, iron Maiden. And then I got some tickets for my first ever real gig at Monster's Rock Festival in Donington Park And that was amazing. It was just the best experience ever. But when I was there, there was a bunch of guys walking around behind the stage pushing boxes. It's like I don't know what those guys are doing. They're just kind of wheeling things on stage, opening boxes, closing and putting things in And whatever that thing is. They find out they're roadies. That's what they do. They just kind of move stuff around. Whatever that is. I want to do that.

Speaker 2: 7:56

Fast forward five years. I'm working in pubs, working in clubs. A friend of mine said that there's jobs available at Rock City in Nottingham. So it's like a music nightclub. All the great bands play there. I want to go and watch gigs all the time. I can't afford it because I'm a student and I'm pretty poor. So hey, let's get a job at Rock City Nottingham. I go and watch Boat or Ed while I'm serving beers and behind the bar. It's fine. See all my favorite bands And that was cool.

Speaker 2: 8:21

And I did that in 1996. And that's kind of where I started really sort of engaging with this idea that music could actually be a bit of a career And this is something that I could do a bit more. I was 1996. I was like 21 years old. I'm just sort of waking up to the world and seeing what's going on And it's like welcome to do next. And having worked in a club for a year and kind of getting used to that, a friend of mine said, oh there's this place called Way Ahead And they sell tickets for gigs to sell like records and stuff, but they also sell tickets to concerts And they're doing jobs on the phones selling tickets on the phones And I was like that sounds really cool. That's kind of I like the idea of that. I mean, i don't know what skills I need. I'm pretty good behind the bar, i can talk to people, so I guess that's kind of maybe it's a transferable skill. That could be something that would be cool to do. So that was February 1997.

Speaker 2: 9:07

But I got my first taste of working in a call center. I'd never worked in a call center, i'd never answered the phone for a living And I was like what's this really cool thing to do? It's a weird thing to do is to sell people things over the phone. But it was cool And I did that for a little while And it was one of those jobs where all I had to do was just keep putting my hand up and saying, yeah, i want to do that. Whatever that is, i wanted to keep doing it And I've done this throughout my entire career. Is this thing that I see stuff that's really cool looking? It's like that looks cool, i want to do more of that, so do more of that, do more of that, do more of that. And within a year or two of working at Way Ahead, which turned into C tickets in 2004 when I left, i looked there and put my hand up for every job and saying, right, whatever it is, i want to do it.

Speaker 2: 9:47

I did a bit of sport in my time, did some Speedway Love the Speedway Speedway. Did the Speedway Grand Prix every year And that was one of my favorite events, absolutely loved that event. I did some athletics in London at Crystal Palace. It was kind of a big athletics meet like an Olympics trials and things like that. I looked after the Ideal Home Show, which was a million people over the course of a month going into Earl's Court in London, which has since been knocked down, sadly And some other odds and ends like that sort of big events at the Southampton Boat Show And that moved to London And there are various different odds and ends Cut exhibitions predominantly, and then after a couple of years I was like, look, i'm doing all these things. Can I put my hand up for the Glastonbury gig as well? Because that was a gig that we did at the time And I guess those guys are still doing that, and I think that was the thing that when I did my first Glastonbury and I did that for a couple of years, like two or three years After doing that that was where the real bug is.

Speaker 2: 10:35

This is what I want to be doing. I want to be doing large scale events at major festivals that are unique. The unique major events are the things I want to be doing. This is like this is the cool stuff. This is the stuff that I can talk about when my mates in the pub and they actually understand what I'm doing, as opposed to working in a small bar somewhere and just saying, well, i serve beers, or I can say I serve tickets to people at Glastonbury Festival, and it was at that point it's like, right, ok, this is the thing I want to do.

Speaker 2: 11:01

And within a couple of years of doing that, i'd worked at Download Festival, which was only a few years earlier. I was seeing these guys pushing these boxes around. I'm thinking I'd love to do that. I want to access all areas past. That would be amazing. It'd be like a life goal to get an access all areas past And within a couple of years of moving into ticketing, i had my first access all areas past the Download Festival, and then I got another one for the ACDC gig at Milton Keynes Bowl, and another one for a Megadeth gig somewhere else, and an ACDC gig and a Black Sabbath gig And I was like man, these are all things I really dig And I'm getting these really unique souvenirs that you could never get working in a factory or you could never get coding or whatever it is that you do outside of, and it's like this is kind of a thing. And then that's me And I'm like this is cool, i want to keep doing this, yeah yeah, yeah, i guess that's the beauty of ticketing, right?

Speaker 1: 11:49

You raise your hand and you wouldn't like to join. You want to help out, since you haven't heard the other episodes, right? That's a thing that many of the guests have said. Volunteering, joining, being engaged, is a great way into ticketing. And how do you get hold of those tickets, those access all areas? Well, that is within ticketing. Yeah, exactly, but coming from rock and roll right Going into sports, what synergies can we find there? Because we've had one or the other on this podcast so far, can you help us a little bit? What can two very different industries learn from each other?

Speaker 2: 12:23

It's a curious one The polar opposites. It's like music is over on one side, which is it's not about data, it's about artist engagement, but it's, you know, when you collect your database and your audience, you don't really have any audience specific. You don't have to worry about fan connection or anything. From experience, because I moved to Ticketmaster after working at Sea And I kind of got a better idea of how that worked And that side of the business worked, where you've got a database of 10 million email addresses And you email these people And you can't email everybody everything all the time. So you split the database up into your profile audiences. You know you've got your rock and pop people here And you've got your theater guys here And you've got your special events or family events or what have you, and then within your music genre you can split that between dance and rock and pop and metal. You know, ultimately you don't want to be telling a slipknot fan that Beyonce is coming to town because they'll just go. Yeah, great, woohoo, i'm totally not going to bother engaging with this email anymore. So you kind of make your emails as relevant as possible. That's kind of as much of your audience segmentation. You should do it. You're not really paying that much attention to the individuals, just their habits. You don't really care about who they are, just care about the fact that they have already bought a ticket. If you're a Beyonce fan already, then you're probably going to go and watch Rihanna next time she tours, or Rita Ora or whoever those artists are, and so you can just take that database of those previous bookers and sell them to the next guy that turns up. Having said that, on the other side of the table, you've got in sport. If you're selling tickets for Arsenal and you've just played Liverpool last weekend and Man United are coming next week, you're not going to go back to those Liverpool fans and say, hey guys, we know that you came to an Arsenal game last week, so why don't you come and watch Arsenal again against Liverpool this time, or against Man United or against Man City? Because those fans are going to tell you what they think about that particular idea and it won't be positive. However, if you manage your segmentations, you understand your audience profiles a little bit better, then you can kind of utilize that data still, but use it in a more intelligent way. There is a middle ground which is kind of more where I lean into and that's the theatre which is weird, i know, because I haven't spoken about theatre at all and ultimately theatre finds the best of both worlds.

Speaker 2: 14:33

Theatre is looking at that repeat business for repeat audiences, but they appreciate. Within the theatre You know you don't have the same product week in, week out. If you're a football team, you don't have the same football team coming in week in, week out. You know it's a different team each time But there is a common denominator which is your home team and every week your home team is in the magic on the field Or in some cases, not magic on the field, magically dreadful on the field. Either way, whatever it is, it's the same thing And you know that every week you're going to see the same thing, whereas in the theatre it's kind of more thematic but you are still looking at the same audiences But you're just trying to sort of segment them a little bit better and capture which parts of those audiences you get in.

Speaker 2: 15:10

But you have a different production coming in. You know in every few weeks you'll have a different production, but it's the same audience because you tend to find you don't get that many new people coming into one theatre from outside of the area. They might come once or twice or however, but your audience growth is largely sort of restricted to a specific audience volume, people always looking for audience growth, but you tend to find that that's what the body of what you're looking at, and then you profile the audience within that and then you look to how do we segment this audience and then promote these certain types. So, for example, if the opera is coming, then you know that somebody is going to go to see the opera Isn't necessarily going to want to go and see an Andrew Lloyd Webber smash hit, and vice versa. So in that respect then you have some minor segmentation, in the same way that you do in music, that you know that these audiences are going to watch these types of things. A metal fan is going to go and watch Slipknot. It's definitely going to go and watch Metallica, they're going to watch Megadeth and ACDC. So all of those. You can kind of put those in the same bucket, and that's what you do in the theatre as well.

Speaker 2: 16:05

But in the same respect, you're also capturing audience data and audience profiles and trying to create this sort of more fuller and richer audience data And as a result of doing that. It just gives you that chance to sort of understand where you are, where your audiences are, and that kind of aligns with us in governance a little bit more in so much as that we have our own database of people that have previously been to cook finals, that have been to England internationals or Scottish internationals or whichever competition we're promoted, and whether that's for Super League, so that, like the Premier League, the top league, for their grandfather league playoffs at the end of the season, or whether it's the cook final at Wembley every year or any other event that we're selling for, what we find is that those audiences will come for their own team, but we can't necessarily promote all the teams to those audiences. So the difficulty for us is how do we segment our database in order to be able to find those specific audiences and group those people together?

Speaker 2: 17:00

And so that we're not trying to promote everything to everyone in the same way that happens in music, because there's no point in doing that, and we also have to look at the geography and look at the types of events that we're trying to promote and then see if we can capture new audiences, but utilizing the existing audiences to try and promote it. So ultimately, yes, the two sides are quite different, but they all have a common middle ground, which is the theatre.

Speaker 1: 17:23

I completely understand what you mean. You have the theatres you build up a loyal database of customers etc. Work with, but still they might be in a different situation, They might be a family or they might be a little bit older, right? So you try to find these attributes and try and connect them. And I guess that's how you work with sports today. Right, You have your own database and you find out those attributes. What attributes are you looking for? Is it like this is Karl Herre is a family guy? He wants to go through that match, or do you see that he followed that team before? and that's how you approach it? or maybe the combination?

Speaker 2: 17:55

Yeah, so ours is a little bit more simple. We're effectively creating the event with a governing body. So for us, we put on the cup final, but we don't have a home team. We don't have a home production. Our home production is putting the thing on the pitch, but the actual audiences to fill those stands in most of our situations is not us. So we are trying to encourage fans to buy directly from the clubs that are participating.

Speaker 2: 18:22

Now I have a bit of a view or a vision of how I'd like this to look. Long term, i'd like to get to a place where we essentially don't sell a single ticket. I want to get to a place where I push all customers to go to their local club you know whether it's a community club or whether it's a professional club in their community, and whether it's a super league team or a championship level team. It doesn't matter to me which club they go to, provided they walk through their own club shop door or go into their own club ticket office and ask to buy an England ticket. If I can get to a point where I can sell an England ticket to everyone without anyone coming to our website to buy a ticket, then that suggests that I've created an environment where the communities are more engaged with their fans or with their supporters, and it also means that there's an opportunity there for your supporters to create a little bit of extra revenue for you as a club. So if you're selling those tickets, you're encouraging people to come into the store, and so I'm not looking to eliminate that human connectivity.

Speaker 2: 19:23

I think it's absolutely paramount that people have an opportunity to engage, especially the communities. They really need a place to engage with other humans and it's fine that we're promoting and pushing the idea of digital first tickets and making all that easy. But what we need to remember not to do is to let go of that human touch And if I can get to encourage a few people, lots of people, to walk into their local club to buy their tickets for an England game or for a cup final at Wembley or for a league playoff final at Old Trafford and they are speaking to another human being in the club or the queueing up to speak to another human being in the club, then while they're queuing up, they might think I'm going to buy a sports bottle or I'm going to buy myself a new mobile phone or a cup or a scarf or a badge or whatever. Or it might just be that it's somebody who wants to talk to somebody else about the thing that they love and who better to speak to than the person who's in the shop, who is a professional at that club and they understand the club's needs or requirements. And it forces the club shop to stay open, to stay as a physical store, to be a kind of a core of the community.

Speaker 2: 20:27

But it also means that we can distribute, or that I want to be able to distribute easily, quickly, without having to print 20,000 tickets and give them out hand in hand.

Speaker 2: 20:35

Here you go, here's a lot of postage being paid out because I have to distribute, but find a way to get those customers and those fans, those supporters, to go into their local club and to engage with it. And you know, the fact is, if you get used to the idea of going to your club to buy the thing, we can get them to do that two or three times over the course of a season. You never know they might actually buy a ticket for their own community club and actually go and watch a game of rugby at their club. And that's what we want to do, is that obviously we want to sell tickets for our major events, naturally, and we want to sell every event out. But our other role, our other hat is, whilst we are commercial and we are commercial in mind and need our other requirement is for more fans to be arriving at those clubs, to be buying tickets at their local club and actually engaging with the audience.

Speaker 1: 21:22

I think it's interesting because what you're saying here is that you like to have people inside the club shops and that can generate more revenue in terms of other revenue streams, but there is also a way of settling digitally, right, even though you're in the club shop, so you can be digital but still be physical present. So, and also questions, upsell packages, etc. Absolutely Based on what you're saying, a key takeaway and what's the feedback from the clubs on that?

Speaker 2: 21:49

It's early doors at the moment, to be honest. So we've partnered up with IMG and they are masters of the digital sphere. They do a lot of work with us, specifically about it's kind of a consultative approach, so they provide us with the support and assistance from outside, like what we do In governance. You tend to be in a bubble If you can come into our office here all the walls covered in rugby league memorabilia and pictures and posters and messages and historical references and stuff, and the second you go outside you don't see that. But as an employee, as a person that really enjoys this, when I go outside it's really curious And you think, oh, wow, the rest of the world doesn't really see what's going on in here And we're trying to sort of take what we have in this building and get it outside and show the world.

Speaker 2: 22:38

And sometimes you need a strategic partner like IMG. Somebody's in the world of promotion and sports and they do great work with UFC and WWE And they do some Speedway, which keeps coming up in my conversations because it's into a lot of Speedway for some reason. But we find that they have that extra set of skills that governance and sports don't necessarily have to hand, because there's no reason why I would be an expert at understanding what the ramifications are of using Google Analytics 4 versus using Google Analytics 3, or wherever it was. There are certain things that I use, the tools.

Speaker 2: 23:14

When you're familiar with a tool, you keep using that tool, and the more you use it, the more familiar you are with it, and it's very difficult to sort of say, right, ok, i'm getting rid of this tool, i'm going to get something else, without somebody else to sit there and say, look, these are the experiences that we've had, this is what we understand. These are the things that we should really be striving towards. And then, within all of that, then we can understand what it is that we're trying to do with our audiences, and I talk a lot about profiling and trying to understand who the audience are. And that's where the expertise comes in from. Img is they provide us with that as additional assistance to understand the profiling process and understand how to get the most out of the database that we have already and how to grow that. And ultimately, it's a growth game that we're trying to understand how to grow the audience, how to grow engagement and attendance, and then participation ultimately is something that we want to try and get to.

Speaker 1: 24:01

A key takeaway based on what you're saying is that you should challenge your supplier, because the ticketing role, working with ticketing, is very often a kind of like a lonely role. Right, you have huge responsibility. You plan for everything that can go wrong. Isn't the supplier a go-to place to get feedback, best practices? well, the community, would you say to other ticketing managers or people ahead of ticketing directors, et cetera, to challenge their supplier, to understand what's out there and get experiences from others.

Speaker 2: 24:34

I'd say yes in an ideal world. Yeah, of course, absolutely. We should always be striving to squeeze the most out of our products, and when we use the same software as Premier League football clubs use, and as Premier Ship rugby users and governing bodies in all the codes And that's great that we use that same platform. But the difficulty is especially in governance, where we're a not-for-profit organization And so we strive to make the most out of what we have And a lot of the time regardless of my needs to make things better.

Speaker 2: 25:08

A lot of the time it is a bigger picture plate. Do we need this? Is this going to change anything? Do we need to improve things, as you call it, in order to make a better experience for the clubs? If we spend a load of money, that's money that isn't being distributed to those clubs. So can we justify an increased spend on changing systems to upheaval and to reducing things, and be able to justify that to our stakeholders? Ultimately, the clubs that are in the league are the people that tell us what to do, and it's down to them to create a mandate for us to go out and do that and achieve that. So one of those things is whilst we try and create the best environment, the best services that we can. It's ultimately down to those clubs to decide what they want us to do for them.

Speaker 2: 25:51

And it comes to a point where a great example was recently the Old Trafford in Manchester. They had access control system where you couldn't scan a mobile phone for seemingly incredibly long time And then, despite the rest of the world moving to a mobile phone first mindset, they continued with what they had. Because one can only assume that to change that many turnstiles, to update your hardware on that many pieces of equipment, is a very expensive proposition. If you're spending £100,000 on one little feature, whether somebody has a piece of paper in their hand or they have a mobile phone, it's very difficult to justify that outlay And to do that there has to be a genuine need or requirement from the organisation to do that. And we have a similar sort of feeling here, in that we want to make the best thing we can.

Speaker 2: 26:38

We want to try and find the best use of the software that we have available, the tools that we have available. Ultimately, it's not a software problem, it's a tools problem. Do we know how to use the tool correctly? Yes, we do, or we know how to use it, how we want to use it, but sometimes the tool gets developed and you're not aware of it, or it doesn't seem appropriate at the time, or you're just simply too busy to do it.

Speaker 2: 26:59

For example, if somebody tried to introduce a new feature to me now, right now, this weekend, i'd say I really don't have time for that. Thank you very much. I'm sure it's lovely. Can you come back in three months, by which time they might have forgotten that new feature has occurred or they might not realise that that's actually relevant to something that I need? And so it's very difficult to firstly find time to sit down with your supplier and say actually you know what, we're going to put everything down, we're going to stop working and we're going to sit here and we're going to talk about our business operation, because it's not really something that you do that often. But, like I say, that's not because I don't want to do it, it's just simply it's not a thing that anybody really thinks about in the day to day. When you're right in the middle of it, it's a tricky one, but if you look, from a bigger perspective, because you have huge experience in ticketing.

Speaker 1: 27:42

You've been rocked, you've been in music, big concerts. You've let people in without scanning them, you've scanned them in and you've done everything in the book on ticketing. What do you think is the next big thing in thinking?

Speaker 2: 27:56

I mean there's a couple of things. It's not so much that there isn't a single next big thing. I think the connectivity part is one thing, and interconnection. The thing that frustrates me the most is the organizations that are supplier side. So various supplying organizations don't work together.

Speaker 2: 28:13

Prior to coming to me to say, hey, we work together with all these suppliers, these are things that we do as part of the package. Yeah, we'll sort out the money in the background. So if you're looking for a supplier that's not a supplier, you just need to know that if you switch that on, we'll utilize that because we're already plugged in. So 3D mapping we do this so we can plug straight in and it's fine, you don't have to pay anything more. Or this analytics suite we'll sort out the money from what you're paying us already, but we'll do that. Or the access control process is you know we'll cover the cost of the access control because it's not a lot, but you don't need an additional payment. You look, just pay us and we'll sort that out in the background. You want your supplier to just deal with the problems? I'd love it if a supplier came to me and said we understand that this is a problem for you, we get it, we understand that. So we're going to take that and we're going to deal with it. We're going to do a deal with the supplier If you're an access control provider or you work with an access control company.

Speaker 2: 29:03

In a file, go to a venue. So, for example, go to Wembley Stadium. It's Fortress and we want to use the access control there. So for us, we deal with the venue directly and we have to do an upload and integration And I have to do a lot of file sending and transfers and various other bits and bobs And I have to do that at all the venues we go to. But if my supplier says to me you know what, we'll get a deal with Fortress. Wherever you go, we'll sort it. If it's a Fortress venue, we've got it covered. So don't think about it, don't worry about it. It automatically connects. All you've got to do is build your event, click on Fortress, click on the right building. Everything else is sorted. Easy peasy is what I want. That would be great. I don't think that's going to happen because that's completely crazy, but that'd be great if it could.

Speaker 1: 29:46

I think you're touching on something right, because we've been talking about the API economy and integrations right And integrating into the value chain, and I think this is happening more and more. I mean, in the broader scheme of things, you see that your Spotify suggests new songs. that fits your playlist right. It should be more on the useful premises, i believe, moving forward because you're super busy and everything that can remove fragmentation or things take more time. I think that's the way to go And I don't think it's a magic bullet either. like you're saying, it's all about fitting into the value chain, making things easier, So we can definitely agree upon that ultimate goal right. Take a thing should be a walk in the park and not the stress of how you can find it.

Speaker 2: 30:29

And then on the other side of it that's just obviously from my side of the back end There's another side of that. So I'm at the match day operation, the match day engagement, and one of the things that frustrates me is and it happens in music as well, i guess less so because it's not as required in music, but taking sport specifically, if you're sat at home watching the TV, you're watching the Olympics Paris Olympics next year So you sat there watching the Olympics at home and you've got a guy on the TV telling you everything that's going on Some dudes just got a world record, somebody's just thrown a javelin further than anyone's ever thrown a javelin before And you're watching a TV going wow, this is amazing. Beer crisps, yeah. Chatting with your friends, yeah, well, that's really cool, that was really interesting. But ultimately, if you're sat there watching that on the TV, you're missing a really important component about the entire experience, which is all the humans and the atmosphere.

Speaker 2: 31:21

So if you then take that same thing and you say right, actually you know what, i'm gonna have a ticket and I'm going to go sit in the same place in the Olympics. So I'm going to go into Paris and going to go to the Stade de France, wherever the events are happening, and you're going to watch exactly the same thing, but from Stade de France or wherever it is, and then you're watching the games and you start then, looking at him, thinking, okay, this is brilliant, and what I can see is I can see a guy throwing a spear, i can see some guys running and I can see some women throwing what looks like a hammer, but it could be something else. I have no idea what's going on. That's too far away, i can't see it. Is that somebody jumping a long jump? or is somebody just trying to evade security?

Speaker 2: 31:59

I don't know, because there isn't that interaction. You don't get the same level of engagement you do with the TV. However, the excitement and the volume and the air pressure that crushes your chest when everybody roars at the same time and everybody jumps out of the chair and punches the air because their country has just won the gold medal This is what I'm trying to sort of find is, how do I get to this place where we merge the matchday experience in front of a TV where you are watching, you have all the information to hand, you've got every bit of information you need and they're telling you and you're feeding you information the whole time. You're watching, there's stuff on the screen telling you what the times are and graphics and bits of replays and things, and then switch that to the other side, where it's the atmosphere, like when you're in a gig and a music gig.

Speaker 2: 32:44

If you're in a gig in a live music environment, it's just hit the bass drum when there's double basses on your chest and you're like well man, give me another beer, i'm going to do some nuts and I'm going to bounce around and smash into everyone. It's just the best thing ever. But then when you watch that same gig on the TV at home, if I'm watching a slick little gig at home, i might drink a beer and watch it and then after a bit and think it's not the same. I don't feel threatened, i don't feel like I'm just going to get crushed by this sheer weight of people. Where's that middle ground, where's the middle bit? And that's the bit That is in its essence. That is the place where not specifically a ticketing thing, but that can be part of it. But that middle ground is the place where events need to get to, where we collectively need to try and work out how do we get to, the place where we provide enough information and we still have that atmosphere to hand as well. So the TV experience, but in the live environment, whether that's Apple Glasses or Apple Goggles or XR, whatever the hell we're calling it these days, in a few generations time, when they're slimmed down to something that's a little bit more reasonable and you don't like an idiot with these giant helmets on sitting there watching the gig, something like that.

Speaker 2: 33:48

But the augmented reality side of this is that's where the next place is going to be, I think is, and that's where we really need to start trying to understand. How do we collectively, as an industry, move into that space? How do we create an environment where that's a useful tool for fans as well as ourselves? It'd be great for us to have that as well. It'd be great to be able to put on a pair of augmented glasses to look around and stay in bowl and see a value of each individual in there, to see the name of the customer, how long they've been a fan, for, how many times they bought a pie or a coffee from the concession store, And if we can get to that, then we'll have a lovely middle ground that I think that would generate more interest from fans.

Speaker 1: 34:27

Yeah, i think so too, And it's super interesting how you can build that relationship. I think today they are separate, right. They strengthen each other in many ways. The more people in the audience, the more people will watch, and the other way around. So that is interesting, and maybe the future is something in between. I mean, rick, you have amazing insights and inputs on this podcast. If we were to sum up like three things in ticketing, what would be your key three takeaways from this episode today, or all the ticketing managers out there?

Speaker 2: 35:01

Really simple Plan for the absolute worst case scenario. Always. Do you not ever expect something to not go wrong? Something will always go wrong. You need to be ready for it every time. Just keep it simple is the thing that frustrates me so much is let's not overcomplicate things. Let's not have too many options on the table. Let's just say repair in advance, get everything ready before that on sale happens. Don't have too many variables. Just make it super simple as much as you can.

Speaker 2: 35:29

Number three talk to somebody. Don't bother it up. I've literally yet to meet somebody in ticketing that doesn't have a lot of frustration inside of everybody is to talk to people. Find somebody that knows what you talk about, and I guess that's the other problem is that nobody knows what we do. Even inside the business that we work in could be working somewhere for 20 years people have no idea what is that we do, what we achieve, what we're trying to deliver. No, the amount of money that we generate as a sector or as a department collectively is incredible and nobody really appreciates that. But the other side of that is that it's very difficult for us to find people to talk to understand what it is. So find a forum, find a group down ready and join the ticket in ready, whatever it is just going on a massive. You have to Just find a place to just vent your spleen, just be able to scream into the void so that it can just create a sense of just and relax right and go on with it again, just do the next day.

Speaker 2: 36:23

It's so important just to keep your head square, and The smallest thing can become very complicated very quickly if your mind isn't on the job, and that's the thing that we have to try and avoid is that. I know that is fashionable to think about mental health, but I think I've been through the ring of enough now over the years To know that we have to find our friends are people that understand. I have, you know, a few people that I turn to from people that worked with every years. We've all moved on and we're working different companies. We all work together one time or other. When I say all moved on to all the jobs, they are still people that know what I do and understand the things I do, and it's great to be able to go and speak to those people and just not have a moment, but just to be able to sort of say, look, i just need to say these things and I want somebody just not to give me an explanation, not to give me a reason. I just want to say, yeah, you're right Where?

Speaker 2: 37:12

yeah, there it is I don't know what it's talking about. Yeah, you were right, and then that's it. I'm over it and I can move on then and it's fine.

Speaker 1: 37:19

of the three really good inputs, i think number three, my favorite, definitely reach out to people, talk to absolutely it's really important, just, and they might not have the solution, but they have the same challenges as you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, so yeah, great. But if people want to reach out to you, right, what do they?

Speaker 2: 37:36

do. I'm literally on LinkedIn every all the time, so I missed the LinkedIn at Rick Yerkovich on LinkedIn, just to be double sure. I'm sure that there's a link somewhere we can put them Very, very good sounds great.

Speaker 1: 37:46

We'll search for that for sure. Thank you so much, rick. It's been great to have you here with us today.

Speaker 2: 37:51

It's nice to talk about ticketing with other people that know I'm talking about Very, very good likewise.

Speaker 1: 37:55

likewise appreciate it. You've been listening to the ticketing podcast dot com, where today's guest has been Rick Yerkovich, head of ticketing at the rugby football league. If you want to hear more from Rick, there's also a bonus episode you should check out, where we discuss his music industry background in more details. You'll find this episode and the very same platform we found this one, and thank you so much for listening and thank you to our sponsor ticket for powering the ticketingcom.