票务市场酝酿大整合

    由于它们规模很大，也许这并不要紧。Ticketmaster在2012年的收入达到了13.7亿美元。StubHub并没有公布收入数据，不过它有1,300名员工，每天可以给游客卖出800万张票。很多人认为StubHub规模要比Ticketmaster更大，即使他们经营的是二级市场。

    纽约的研究生安德鲁•格洛普常常得把自己家的洋基棒球队的季票转卖给别人。他认为StubHub是这个市场里最强大的玩家。他说：“他们历来都十分可靠。其他售票网站乍看一眼就显得有些可疑，让我不敢放心使用。”他自己想要买票时则会选择Ticketmaster。当然，他说，两家的“要价都令人讨厌”——但是用这笔钱买来令人放心的交易流程和大量受众还是划算的。“卖家需要把票放在能吸引最多眼球的地方。放在StubHub上，你就知道它们肯定能卖掉。”

    挑战者们知道他们无法在规模上击败现有的巨头，所以他们正学着提供售票以外的服务。Ticketfly就把自己不仅定位成一个票务网站，还是一个支持场馆的所有网络呈现的技术引擎。这家公司给推销商使用的客户关系管理工具Fanbase可以显示出所有购买场馆或乐队门票的顾客清单，上面提供了一系列详细资料：顾客是否在社交媒体上分享了他的这次购买行为，是否把票转卖给了别人，甚至他们什么时候到达演唱会现场。德雷斯金表示，这个工具能让场馆“识别、奖励那些老顾客。” FanFueled是另一个主要的市场，通过向使用社交媒体宣传某项活动的顾客发放一些现金和奖励，带来“影响力上的回报”。

    TickPick力图从更低的费用上与StubHub拉开差距（卖家须交10%的手续费。在StubHub，卖家须交15%手续费，买家须交10%手续费），同时对同一时段的不同席位给出不同的价格。TickPick公司还为这项技术申请了专利。戈德博格说：“你是卖家，你在StubHub上挂了一张票，售价100美元。但我是买家，我想‘我就愿花80美元，’但你没有渠道来得知我的意见。”卖家也可以设定截止日期，来一次公开拍卖。

    对一些后起之秀而言，他们更多地把大型票务公司看作朋友，而不是对手。杰克•格罗青格的免费票务索引SeatGeek就像票务业的Kayak（旅游搜索引擎服务商）或Priceline（旅游服务网站）。它集合了许多合作伙伴的票务信息——从StubHub到不那么著名的次级销售商如Razorgator。用户可用它查询特定活动的所有可以购买的票。每家合作伙伴都需要为在SeatGeek中得到推荐而支付一点费用。

    这些公司是否蚕食了现有巨头的市场份额呢？是的，但并不明显。Ticketfly筹集了3,700万美元的资金，有105名员工，将于2013年完成2,500万美元的销售额。它的移动端销量自2012年1月以来已经增加了100%，占到了公司整体销量的20%，这个数值是Ticketmaster 10%的两倍。而TickPick的营业额达到了去年的10倍，不过它每月的交易额依然不足100万美元，今年10月仅售出5,000张票。对比之下，SeatGeek每月交易额达到600万美元，10月份售出了5.2万张票。

    一些人认为，在不久的未来，分散的市场将会被整合。戈德伯格说：“我认为初级市场和二级市场的网站可能会进行大规模整合。许多人已经把Ticketmaster和StubHub看作一样的了——他们不知道其中的差别。这是一个很严重的问题。”

    他说得有道理。Ticketmaster已经在它2008年以2,650万美元收购的黄牛网站TicketsNow上开展转售业务。它还拥有NBA（全美篮球协会）、NFL（全美橄榄球联盟）和NHL（北美冰球联盟）的球票交换业务。然而，Ticketmaster最大的竞争对手不是前面提到的任何一家公司，而是AEG（安舒茨娱乐集团）。后者拥有斯台普斯中心，一直以来都在为其他网站提供白色标签技术。不过这家公司开始计划使用一个预购的彩票系统Fair AXS，发展面向顾客的业务。此外还有其他对手：MLB Advanced Media旗下主打初级票务市场的大型网站Tickets.com。

    最后，StubHub的品牌总监迈克尔•拉缇戈承认：“粉丝想要进场看他们喜欢的乐队的演出，票是从初级市场购买的还是二级市场购买其实并不重要。”这意味着市场“绝对有可能”进行整合——这一点对小公司而言至关重要，他们要抢在大公司醒悟过来、开始创新并模仿（或者收购）他们之前就率先吸引到顾客。（StubHub公司2011年便收购了能够列出各项活动的网站Zvents。）而大公司也随时都可能自己创新，比如StubHub就希望展示自己的ShowDrift移动应用。这款运用可以扫描用户的音乐库，并在用户最喜欢的演出来到他们的所在地时通知他们。

    拉缇戈说：“我们一直在关注竞争的态势。”毕竟，没有人想在抢饭碗的竞争中落后。（财富中文网）

    译者：严匡正                  

    Given their largeness, it may not matter. Ticketmaster brought in $1.37 billion in revenue in 2012. StubHub does not share revenue, but has 1,300 employees and 8 million daily visitors; it is widely considered to be larger than Ticketmaster, even though it sells in the secondary market.

    Andrew Group, a graduate student in New York, is often tasked with reselling his family's season tickets to the Yankees. He considers StubHub to be "the king of the game," he says. "It has a track record of reliability. One thing I've noticed with a lot of other sites that makes me wary of using them is that their websites just look shady." When he wants to buy tickets, he uses Ticketmaster. Sure, "the fees suck" for both, he says -- but they are a small price to pay for confidence in the transaction and a large audience. "As a seller, you need to put your tickets on the place that has the most eyeballs. With StubHub, you know they're going to sell."

    Challengers know they can't win against the incumbents on scale, so they are learning to offer more than tickets to thrive. Ticketfly markets itself as not just a ticketing site but a tech engine that powers all parts of a venue's web presence. Fanbase, the company's customer relations management tool for promoters, shows a listing of every individual that has purchased a ticket to a venue or band, offering details such as whether the person shared their purchase on social media, whether they resold their ticket, and even what time they showed up for the concert. The granularity allows venues "to identify and reward mavens," Dreskin says. FanFueled, another primary marketplace, offers "return on influence" by doling out cash and rewards to customers who use social media to promote an event.

    TickPick seeks to differentiate itself from StubHub with lower fees (10% for seller, vs. StubHub's 15% for seller and 10% for buyer) and the ability to bid different prices on different seats at the same time, technology for which it has filed a patent. "You're the seller, and you list a ticket for sale on StubHub at $100," Goldberg says. "But I'm the buyer, and I'm thinking, 'I'd pay $80,' but there's no way for you to hear me." You can also set an expiration date for an open bid.

    For some upstarts, the big ticketing companies are treated as more friend than foe. Jack Groetzinger's free ticket index SeatGeek is like a Kayak or Priceline for tickets, scouring a number of partner sources -- from StubHub to lesser-known secondary sellers like Razorgator -- for all available tickets to a given event. Each partner kicks a small fee to SeatGeek for the referral.

    Are any of these companies making a dent in the incumbents' market share? Yes, but not a large one. Ticketfly, which has raised $37 million in funding and has 105 employees, will do $250 million in sales for 2013. Its mobile sales are up 100% since January 2012, and its percent of sales from mobile devices is double that of Ticketmaster: 20% to 10. As for TickPick, the upstart has grown 1,000% in the past year, but it clears less than $1 million each month in transactions and sold only 5,000 tickets in October. To compare, SeatGeek manages $6 million per month and sold 52,000 tickets in October.

    Some believe that the fragmentation of the market suggests consolidation down the road. "I see a potential big merging of the primary and secondary sites," Goldberg says. "A lot of the general public already sees Ticketmaster and StubHub as the same -- they don't know the difference. That's a big problem right there."

    He has a point. Ticketmaster already does some reselling through scalper site TicketsNow, which it bought for $265 million in 2008; it also owns "ticket exchanges" for the NBA, NFL, and NHL. And yet the company's biggest rival is not any of the companies mentioned, but rather AEG. That company, which owns the Staples Center, has traditionally provided white label technology used by other sites but plans to grow a consumer-facing business with Fair AXS, an advance-purchase lottery system. And still there are more: Tickets.com, another big primary, is owned by MLB Advanced Media.

    At the end of the day, "fans want to get in to see the bands they love," StubHub brand director Michael Lattig acknowledges. "Whether that's through a primary or secondary, I think at this point they're comfortable either way." Which means "there's definitely the potential" for consolidation -- making it all the more crucial for the smaller companies to attract customers before the larger companies wise up to their innovations and copy them. (Or buy them, as StubHub did in 2011 when it acquired events-listing site Zvents.) And there's always the risk of homegrown innovation from the larger company, as StubHub hopes to demonstrate with its ShowDrift mobile app, which scans a person's music library to notify them when favorite acts come to town.

    "We're always watching to see what the competition is doing," Lattig says. After all, no one wants to throw second in a food fight.