Don't Forget Your Tickets
Don' Forget Your Tickets is a podcast devoted to the unsung heroes of the spectator sports and events industries, the Ticketing Managers. We explore who they are, their well-guarded industry secrets, and how they entered the field. Beyond that, we delve into a broader ticketing realm, inviting experts from various fields to share their insights and stories. Our primary aim is to add value and highlight deserving individuals.
(The podcast was originally named TicketingPodcast.com)
Don't Forget Your Tickets
Kjetil Sørtun (interviewed by Preyan De Silva) on Next-Gen Ticketing and Personalised Fan Experiences - - A Live Special from Emirates Stadium in London
How Can “Headless Ticketing” Unlock the Future of Fan Experiences?
Ticketing is no longer just about selling seats—it’s about empowering clubs to build their own fan journeys. But what if your ticketing system was as flexible and open as the platforms transforming banking, retail, and media?
At Don’t Forget Your Tickets at Emirates Stadium, Kjetil Sørtun, CTO at TicketCo, joined Preyan De Silva, Head of Ticketing at Wimbledon – The All England Lawn Tennis Club, to explore Next Generation Ticketing and the concept of “headless ticketing”—a flexible, API-driven approach that gives clubs control over their data, fan experience, and innovation pace.
In this episode, they discuss:
- What “headless ticketing” actually means for sports organisations.
- How clubs can experiment with sales channels, apps, and new fan touchpoints—without vendor lock-in.
- Why owning your data is the key to understanding fan behaviour and unlocking growth.
- How the future of ticketing mirrors the transformation seen in banking and finance.
Whether you’re a tech enthusiast or simply curious about how clubs can future-proof their ticketing strategy, this episode offers deep insights into the next wave of ticketing innovation.
Sit back and enjoy the conversation.
This Live Special episode of Don't Forget Your Tickets was recorded at the Don't Forget Your Tickets conference at Emirates Stadium, January 23rd 2025, as the seventh out of 12 on-stage interviews that day. Kjetil Sørtun was interviewed by Preyan De Silva.
Don't Forget Your Tickets is powered by TicketCo and hosted by TicketCo’s CEO, Carl-Erik Michalsen Moberg. The podcast was originally named TicketingPodcast.com
What does the future of ticketing look like? In an industry where fan expectations are higher than ever? Technology needs to evolve to create seamless, flexible and scalable ticketing solutions. And don't forget your tickets at Emirates Stadium. Kjetil Søthund, CTO at TicketGo, sat down with Preyn De Silva, who's head of ticketing at Wimbledon, the all England Lawn Tennis Club, to discuss next generation ticketing. How can new ticketing strategies impact revenue streams and the overall customer journey, and what should clubs do to prepare for this shift?
Speaker 2:Sit back and enjoy the discussion. A good preliminary talk, didn't we? But this one, compared to the biometric stuff, is very, very open, so good to dive into all of the stuff that you've got sort of going on in your head and the things that you think they're going to be happening in the next generation headless ticketing. Plenty to dive into there. So before we start, do you just want to go into a bit of your background so that everyone's sort of aware and then what we're going to sort of be covering, how broad it is.
Speaker 3:Thank you very much, chetil Sertan, cto of Ticketco. I've been a developer, system architect CTO in different companies for plus 20 years, actually been part of starting two new banks in Norway from scratch, one 20 years ago and one five years ago, which was a really interesting experience because you can see how much that has been changed in the last 20 years. I actually planned to study in finance but I discovered early in my career I was better to talk to machines than to talk to people, so I switched to talking more to machines, but I learned to talk to people as well. Machines don't answer back. Really. They don't. They do today, by the way, but didn't do back then and it's been an interesting journey seeing how IT has changed over the last 25 years.
Speaker 2:Things that were kind of defined by companies back then is no more defined by customers and how we interact with systems. So it's been this next generation ticket, but the term headless ticket has also been thrown into this. So give us a bit of explanation about that and how that links.
Speaker 3:If you look at any system finance system, ticketing system, fan engagement systems they're kind of divided into three layers. On the bottom you have the data what you know, and most of the systems knows the same things. So the structure of the data is the same in any kind of system. It's know about the customers, know about transactions, it's know about tickets, it's know whether it's used or not used. And then you kind of on top of that you have the functional layer what you do. And the functional layer is where the system started to be different. Good system has an open platform where you can use those functions in different clients, but kind of more traditional systems and more closed function where it's kind of you need to use this client to access that data. And then you have the top layer, which is how you interact with the customers or other systems, how you make the user interface easy.
Speaker 3:20 years ago we built completely different user interface than we do today and you engage fans across multiple channels. You have mobile apps, you have web pages, you have access control. You have different ways of interacting. So ticketing is kind of opening up and making the functions available for anyone. The data is the clubs, the function is the clubs and you decide how you want to interact with your fans and that's how you can experiment and do small tests with different clients. Is the mobile app more important for my fans than the web page? And you kind of are able to do that without kind of closed in by the vendor. So you open up the platform and the finance industry has done that for the last 20 years. It's kind of anyone can build a finance app today as long as you kind of have security to access the data, because every API is open and available for the clients.
Speaker 2:What are the struggles with that? Opening up the data?
Speaker 3:When you're kind of opening up, you're creating a different contract. A web page is a very soft contract where you can change it every day and it be better and better because you learn how you interact with humans. When you're interacting with systems, you need to have a very strict contract. You can't change it when you first kind of publish it. People will build their code on top of it and you need to be able to support that as long as you have that contract. So it's require a little bit more understanding of what you really want to share. What should be the functions of my system? How should those be shared with other systems? But as soon as you're kind of learning and getting better at that, you're opening up a completely new ecosystem where it's easier to run experiments, easier to kind of test things, easier to build new products towards your customers.
Speaker 2:So, would you say, you'd have to, as an organization, be really joined up with all of your areas, your departments, that you're all striving for the same thing the end result. But the collaboration and the requirements all need to be agreed upon before doing this and then maybe, perhaps, making a technical mess.
Speaker 3:When we kind of introduce new APIs, we have a best guess, we think this is the right way to do it and we share it with inside organization and with our companies that we work together with. And then you get feedback. They tell you that this doesn't make sense, or this makes sense, or this is easier, and you always kind of look for the easiest way of integrating. It should be possible to, with as little effort as possible, kind of get access to the data and the functionality.
Speaker 2:Where would you suggest an organization starts? Because it's so broad. How do you start? What's the first five things to get written down? And here's the plan. Ask him for a friend.
Speaker 3:I think you need to start asking yourself if I start today, what would the first thing I will offer my customers, what is the next thing I will give them? What do I want to have today that I don't have? And you're starting to test. It could be small changes. You offer tickets in a different way. You offer a one click buy tickets to existing fans. You offer them to to buy a ticket to the next match as soon as this match is over. So you try to make it as easy for the fan to be a fan. We think kind of the ticket is kind of the experience with a match starts when you buy the ticket and ends when you go home, and the goal then is kind of to get you to start a new journey with the next game and by testing out what engage your fans. When do they want to buy tickets? How do you ensure that they actually want to come back? And that communication starts with understanding the data and do tests with the audience, see what triggers.
Speaker 2:So the first point is to look at more of the engagement stuff. What the fans want, Well, I guess what's on their agenda for experience. What would you say was next?
Speaker 3:Yeah, when you kind of start building or doing those experiments, you start learning. I think the winners of any industry is the people or the organization that can move fast. They can learn faster than the others. They can test out new concepts, like we heard about earlier today by building a fan zone or building a different. They try to make a different product, they try to engage the fan, they try to make the fan leave more money with the club because they want.
Speaker 3:And I think those experiments are the things you need as an organization to run all the time. You need to understand how can I make it easier to be a fan and how can I make the fans want to be closer to me. And that is kind of opening up your platform, testing out, see how they interact. Some tests will be failures because they didn't stick with your fans. And I think all the clubs are different. They have the same data, they have the same functions, but the way they interact with the fans are different because they have different products. And I think that's where any organization needs to test and ticketing is just a small part of that. That is kind of securing that you are allowed to enter. You kind of have a ticket to ride.
Speaker 2:So can we go a bit more into opening up with some sort of specific examples.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we do that with clubs in Norway, for instance, where they have the CMS system and they log into there and they have access to all the tickets immediately. So it's kind of you don't have to go to the ticketing system or the ticketing place, you kind of have it where you as a fan are and you can buy tickets there. And if you introduce an app for your club, tickets should be kind of part of that and that will be the same ticket as you buy online on the ticketing system. So we try to enable our clubs to have access to the same data, the same functions that we use our own. What we use is available for anyone and it's important that the clubs owns the data that they want to kind of test, they want to learn, they want to build a better product using the data and the functions that are available for them.
Speaker 2:What would you say? The biggest challenges are then around opening up.
Speaker 3:I think for any club, you kind of work 11 months to win games and then you have one month to turn around and start the next season. I think being able to be curious, testing out, look at what could I do different? How can I engage the fan differently? How can I test out different ways of engaging my fans? I think it's easy to just do what you did because you know that it's working. It's hard to challenge the fans to change, but we are changing every day. Apple and Google and Facebook are introducing us to new way of interactive systems. They introduce new functionality on your phone. We know it's there, we just need to start using it. We talked about access control today, different way of making it simpler. But you need to kind of offer the old way and the new way at the same time. You need to kind of ensure that the existing fans can do what they always do and you need to engage new fans to do it the way they should do it when they're starting today.
Speaker 2:Who's doing it well at the moment, or who would you say, or where, location-wise, are the early adopters of doing it well? I asked you you this question before and you said it's already happening. But it's not new. But it's just it's more about the risk or the mindset change.
Speaker 3:You want to go into that a bit I think there are a lot of clubs out there that test of different stuff, different way of working, and most of the systems offer different approach to do that. I think the first thing you need to know is that the data is your data. You as an organizer needs to own the data, because the data is where you, kind of, are able to segment and understand your customers are able to understand which experiment you should do. So I think we see, especially in the leagues we have customers that they try different approaches. We have, for instance, subscription for season passes. So instead of paying upfront, you pay 12 partial payments during the season, so you have a season pass for life and you just continue to run.
Speaker 3:Those are different ways of thinking. Instead of having a renewal every year, you just kind of say I'll renew it for you and you are a fan as long as you pay. And there's a lot of functions or functionality you can build around that. You can offer different parts of the product. You can talk to your local newspaper and make a joint subscription. You can build different ways of making the product more than just a ticket to a game, and I think that's how you can make the club, the organization, your product better for everyone, because it's kind of tailored for your fans.
Speaker 2:So almost thinking of a real life example of, say, a traditional method of sales online sales the way it is now, how could it look? Can you talk us through that, talk us through the journey of how it could look at the changes? With what you've just been talking about, with opening up, can do with benefits.
Speaker 3:I think the first thing is you need to kind of know who's buying. So you need to start to identify the buyer and as soon as you do that, you know the purchase history. You know what they normally do, so you can make it easier to make a one-click checkout. You can even give them an offer you think they would like to have and they can say yes and they can say no. So instead of kind of starting every purchase journey from scratch, you're starting from what is the most likely product you want to buy and then you try to communicate to them from they bought the first product, so they use the ticket and you try to upsell.
Speaker 3:You try to engage them, you try to give them a better offer and if you have a sellout game, you might ask them if they want to come. If they don't, you want to buy the ticket back and sell it to someone else. So you try to make them engage from the start to the end. To make it as few clicks as possible. You should not ask for data you already have. You should ask for acceptance to sell them something yeah, I think still happens, isn't it?
Speaker 2:we are asking people to put their details in again when they already have it. And being a bit smarter about it, would you say. It's using technology better with personalization, with the data, to make the landing into the experience better.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we work with app vendors that kind of create apps for the clubs and there you have a personal kind of interaction with your version of the app. You have more data. You know when they open it, you know what they click on, you know when they are motivated to buy. Today we kind of give the customer 15 minutes from a selected ticket to have to buy. You don't have to do that going forward you can say that I'm holding it for you until three days before the game and if you don't take the offer maybe I sell it to someone else.
Speaker 2:But you give them an opportunity of feeling the most important person Because you know their previous history and you can trust them or you've got good data on them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, data is essence. You need to know your customers. You know how they kind of like to buy, you know when they would like to come to a game and you try to nudge them to come early and earlier. You try to nudge them to be closer and closer. Sometimes they back off because they don't want and sometimes they kind of take the offer that you have.
Speaker 2:So we're using systems to do the analysis of the makeup of our customers.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think this is where you create smart agent. This is where you kind of use modern technology like AI, machine learning, smart agents that help you kind of segment your data for you. You learn how your customers is behaving over time and you can use that to make predictions. You can use that to understand what is the next best action for your organization in total, but for this customer in special. We see in the last two years how AI changed the way we look at the world around us. I think any organization or any system need to kind of bring that in, and modern prediction technology like deficient intelligence is helping you to understand your data, is helping you to understand how your fans are different or equal to others.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you can save time with AI. I guess for some places, some organizations, it depends where they are and there's a trust issue again. It seems whenever I'm on stage there's an issue of trust and biometrics previously, but yeah, how far away are we from all of this? Lots of people doing this, lots of organizations doing this.
Speaker 3:It starts with the data. It starts with owning the data. It starts with understanding how the systems work on the inside. Ai is not dangerous. You can use it for dangerous things, but technology is well proven. It's been there for 50 years. It's just that we have more machine power now to run it faster and better and the model get bigger and bigger. You don't share the data with an external organization. You kind of use their models to analyze your data and enrich it. So I think the fear of technology I think the organization needs to understand it's an enabler. We're not sharing with anyone. We're not giving away your data. We're using algorithms to enrich it and that's something that organizations and customers need to understand. The main goal is for the club to fill the stadiums. The main goal is for the fans to have a good experience. We should not kind of try to jump over ethics and security and stuff like that, but we should use the technology that is available for us to make the product better.
Speaker 2:Great, thank you. We're out of time, but just one more question, I think, which is just probably need a part two on this, where I think it would be really useful to get to sort of specifics of you're doing it like this and this is what it could look like. I think this is all great stuff and it's sort of, you know, mind-blowing a bit and and quite daunting, I would imagine, for some, whereas others will. Other organizations will be embracing it, no doubt, so lots of exciting things to come. Anything to conclude on?
Speaker 3:I think look at the ticketing system like an enabler. Look at this as data that you need to grow your club. Look for a system that gives data back to you, sharing data, opening up open platform where you as an organization, as the owner, can decide your direction. It should be up to you to define how you interact with your fans. It's like the banks. Like I mentioned earlier, banks are the same product, but they different in the way they talk to customers. Some want to be the family bank, some want to be the savings bank, some want to be the business bank, but in the end, it's just a bank account. So they change the way they build their story on top of functions, how they interact with you as a customer, and you, as a football club, should do the same. You should own your interactions.
Speaker 2:Define your data data, define your target. The technology will do the rest yeah, just add water. Thank you so much, thank you.
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