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
Dominik Schreyer (interviewed by Thom Airs) on The Future of Ticketing - A Live Special from Emirates Stadium in London
What Will Buying a Match Ticket Look Like in the Future?
As ticketing technology evolves and fan behaviors shift, how will clubs adapt to keep stadiums full and fans engaged?
For the final episode from Don’t Forget Your Tickets at Emirates Stadium, Professor Dominik Schreyer from WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management sat down with Thom Airs to explore the future of ticketing, spectator behavior, and the role of data and psychology in shaping matchday experiences.
In this episode, they discuss:
- The evolving landscape of ticket sales—has the market peaked, or is there room for further growth?
- The rise of no-shows and how clubs can use behavioral insights to bring fans back to stadiums.
- Why younger audiences engage differently—and what that means for the future of ticketing.
- The role of AI, automation, and new technologies in shaping the fan journey.
- How smaller clubs can drive innovation and set the pace for industry-wide change.
This conversation provides a fascinating look into the trends shaping football ticketing in the coming years—and what clubs can do today to stay ahead of the curve.
Sit back and enjoy the final conversation from Don’t Forget Your Tickets at Emirates Stadium.
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 last of 12 on-stage interviews that day. Dominik Schreyer was interviewed by Thom Airs.
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 will buying a match ticket and actually showing up look like in the future. We've now reached the final interview of our Don't Forget your Tickets conference at Emirates Stadium. Over the past few weeks, we've brought you conversations with some of the most influential voices in football, covering topics ranging from fan engagement and financial sustainability to cutting-edge ticketing technology. For this closing episode, we're looking ahead into the future, to where ticketing is heading next. We do this with a professor called Dominic Schreier from WHU Otto Brysam School of Management, who sat down with Tom Ayers to explore the future of ticketing, spectator behavior and how data and fan psychology will shape the stadium experience of tomorrow. Sit back and enjoy the final conversation from Don't Forget your Tickets at Amarantz Stadium.
Speaker 3:Come and hitch yourself up on one of these stools. Dominic, Just give me a second Might be a tricky proposition, but this is the final one and save the best till last, I think is an apt thing. There's lots to talk about when it comes to the future of ticketing. Some of you might have received an email via Dominic, via the mailing list for this event in which he conducted some market research. Dominic, what did you ask people? What did you get back from those who responded?
Speaker 2:Well, that's a kickstart, so I'm a professor. Well, that's a kickstart, so I'm a professor. My name might get an idea of what could happen. In order to prepare and to adapt, and what we do is typically we use the Delphi method. This is what we did, also in the survey. We develop projections, which are sentences about how the status quo of a scenario might have changed in the future, and then we ask experts to evaluate these projections. Right, because I don't have a clue, right, I'm just guiding everyone through this process. I don't have some kind of magic crystal ball or anything. I don't have some kind of magic crystal ball or anything. What we then ask them is to evaluate whether this projection is probable, impactful or desirable in case of occurrence, and we also ask them to give an argument to reason for whether you believe this will be true or not in the future, and then you can make a synthesis out of this. And that's exactly what we did before this conference, because I wanted to do something different, right, something from the audience for the audience, so to speak, because, after all, every one of you is an expert and I'm a bit on the sidelines, even though I work with the clubs, and there are maybe three different things that were pretty interesting. So the first projection was about how the market will develop, right, so the sentence was by 2030, the European sports not football, but sports market will have grown by 15% with regards to the number of tickets that will be distributed per year. And when I thought about this projection, I said thought it's like a warm-up, right? This is really an easy ask, because if you look at the data for professional football, for example, there's a wafer data that shows that from season 2022-23 to the upcoming season, like the last one, the football ticketing market grew by 7% in one year. Right, and it's still five years to 2030. So I was like, yeah, this is very, very likely. Turns out it's not because, on average, the participants in the survey which is not a full-fledged study, it's a snapshot they said it's like it's 54% on average, 54% acceptance of this projection.
Speaker 2:You could flip a coin Could be, could be not. Then, when you look at the arguments, it's interesting to understand where is this perception coming from? Right? And here the core question is is where should market grow? Emerge from right.
Speaker 2:And there's the obvious thing right, you could expand your stadium. There's in the premier league, there's more demand for seats than there is supply, so they start expanding the arena. So this could be one argument, right. Then there's different sports, right. So we see a lot of also kind of remixes, like the kings league, the eichen league, baller league, like those small field tournaments that do things a bit different. So this could be a source of growth. And then we talked about women's sports today. Right, I'm not too bullish on that.
Speaker 2:We are very at the beginning in germany at the moment. It's more like plateauing at a very low level, but it is an option. But on the flip side, there are quite some arguments that counter that. There's, for instance, the problem of aging cohorts. If you look at the stadiums, most of them, and when we work with season ticket holder data from clubs, on average the season ticket holder is like 45, 46, 48 maybe, but there are almost no very young season ticket holders.
Speaker 2:Tickets are sold out. There's no access to season tickets, to match day tickets. Well, in the Premier League they mostly go to tourists, right, which I understand from an economic point of view. But this is a problem, which I understand from an economic point of view, but this is a problem. And even if there would be tickets. I'm not too perfectly sure whether the next generation would actually want them, because it turns out they seem to be more interested in stars than be very loyal to teams. They also prefer highlights over watching or experiencing 90 minutes matches. And there's market research, actually from the us, that shows that 50 of gen z never experienced or watched a live sporting event. Right, and I think based on that, it makes sense to be a bit sceptical about the future of ticketing at the market. And yeah, that was a long answer, right.
Speaker 3:That might worry some people in the audience that we've potentially peaked as a popularity and that the growth may be slowing or plateauing as you say. What can you say to enthuse them? What opportunities are there in the future and what are those problems that they face at the moment?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think what the industry should understand is that what's going on there is very typical. It happens in all the industries, right? So, if you will, they face some kind of innovators dilemma, right, so everything's. Will they face some kind of innovator's dilemma, right, so everything's going well. There are records after records, stadiums are still sold out, so you cater to the needs of your core audience, right, they pay for your left back or your striker or whatever. But there are different target groups.
Speaker 2:And it brings me a bit back to what Girls on Ball talked about, right? So the question of who is actually your customer, who is your fan? Because there are many people out there that are not yet in the stands, that could be in the stands, but the industry kind of loses them, and I think that, from the mindset, clubs would be well advised. It's tough to say it from the outside, right, but to put a bit more emphasis on the consumer journey, on the experience and I don't want to overstress that, right, I'm not one to talk about fan experience Like everybody's, just fan experience, I don't want to go this way, but there is so much technology out there and I don't want to push technology into the market just for the sake of using technology, but this can help ease barriers or increase perceived value.
Speaker 2:And when I talk to ticket providers in the ecosystem from time to time, I do that because when you're working with the clubs you are on all these conferences I always ask them what they can do for soccer, what they can do for sports brands, because obviously they want to also go into the market. Right, and their USP is often it is tech based. Right, we are API first. It's great, great, you're API first. First, we are based on blockchain. Oh, wow, that's really cool.
Speaker 2:We have I don't know biometrics, right, excellent example. That's also awesome and for me at the sidelines makes total sense. Why wouldn't you do this? Why wouldn't you want to have a blockchain based ticketing solution or facial recognition or other biometrics? It makes things easier, right. And then I ask the operators what's the response from the clubs? And the answer is they always ask whether they also sponsor, so whether they also want to be on the sleeve or wherever, because from the club perspective, it makes sense. You need the cash right now. You don't care too much about the future, because the future will happen not tomorrow or the day after that, but in five or ten years, and this is an innovative dilemma. It's a problem.
Speaker 3:Another problem that clubs are facing, but potentially at the higher echelons of the game no-shows, when people already have a ticket, perhaps a season ticket holder, and they don't go for whatever reason, and it has been touched upon today earlier by previous speakers. What's the problem of a no-show and what are the potential solutions there?
Speaker 2:The problem of no-shows in a league like the Premier League, right If somebody has a ticket which is often purchased at a discount as a season ticket holder, as a season ticket holder, as a season ticket holder.
Speaker 2:Most of them are season still today. Most of them are season ticket holders. Then this is like a problem for the club because typically they could have sold the ticket at base level or even above that. Right, you don't buy a beer or a bratwurst or whatever. Support is not that good. All this is a problem. And what's interesting on no-show behavior, also circling back to our discussion of what clubs could do or should do is that the mechanisms of why people attend the match or not are very, very simple. Right, it's all about, like the way they attendance the is based on perceived value and perceived opportunity costs, right? So I'm not sure whether Do you have a season ticket?
Speaker 3:I do yes in the championship.
Speaker 2:In the championship. So imagine you're in the Premier League, right?
Speaker 3:I can only dream.
Speaker 2:Yeah, then dream for a moment with me, tom Dream, dream with me. So which club would you prefer to host? Manchester United or Ipswich Town? No offence.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you want to go to the bigger games, you want the bigger opponents. I can, yeah, understand that crazy.
Speaker 2:Took me 10 years to figure it out, based on research, right. So, but it's all about your opponent. The problem is you can't host liverpool or manchester united every other week, right, so you need to think about creative solutions. You need a different usp, right. You need a special social experience, right, or a different atmosphere. You need to step up your game.
Speaker 2:The problem with that is your fans, your customer. They just get used to it, so you need to reinvent yourself all over, ideally every other week. Right, you can use storytelling for that. There's so much ways you can frame this, and technology can help you with that. Right, if things are just easier.
Speaker 2:And this brings me back just to add that to the second point from the survey right, because I also asked participants whether they see a future for certain technologies, right, and it's a bit disappointing, to be honest, because the industry seems to be relatively conservative, right. So, and the arguments are always the same dynamic pricing, that's good, there are some benefits, but the fans don't want that. Blockchain, ooh, that's great, but implementation costs, and fans don't like this. Virtual reality ticketing, experiencing things in the metaverse, I don't know, fans don't like it. So it's also with biometrics. It's always the same arguments. And this again brings you back to the innovator's dilemma. Because other substitutes for your product. They will emerge on that right, they will bring this in, they make things easier and in a few years you will see what this brings you to.
Speaker 3:If no-shows are a problem at a club that are habitually selling out their games week in, week out. You're a fan of Dusseldorf, fortuna Dusseldorf I've probably pronounced that horribly, apologies. Arguably they have a stadium that's too big for them. To sort of paraphrase a chant that we sometimes sing over here.
Speaker 2:What did they do? What's gone on at your local club in Dusseldorf? Well, dusseldorf and me that's a complicated relationship, right? So actually I'm a Borussia Dortmund fan, but if you live in the city and if you work with the club, then you begin, you know, to have a second club also, by the way, I have much sympathies for Arsenal London, right, so I have a jersey, but back to the way I'm. I have much sympathies for ours in london, right, so I have a jersey, but back to this.
Speaker 2:So what they did is we worked with them on the new project called tuna for everyone, where we were involved from basically day one, and when they started, they began to think what are the barriers? So why are people not coming to the game? And it is a problem that many people in a city can't afford the match, right, so they would love to, but they don't have access or they don't have the money, because if you take, like, a family with two kids take them to the game, it's like ridiculous, right? So what they did? That there were roughly 20 000 empty seats on average, which is like, with an average of still about 30 000. It it's not bad, right, but it's a huge stadium.
Speaker 2:Secondly, club and they decided that for every other game they will allow people from the city to enter at the bellow and when they win they were able to enter for free, and this was paid by sponsors. Local sponsors that thought, well, this is good to give back to the community and this is paid by sponsors. Yeah, local sponsors that thought, well, this is good to give back to the community and this is success. They now hosted six matches, so three last year, this season will be four and maybe next season more. We will see about that.
Speaker 3:Does that form part of a long-term strategy, then? Is that something they will do forever more? Or is it a short-term gimmick to get fans in and potentially grow the fan base? Or is that something they're committed to doing season after season?
Speaker 2:so the actual plan is for the first five years and then we will see. I think it's important to know how they became fans, right, it's most. Most will tell you the story that your dad took you to the game, right. But if your dad can't take you to the game or doesn't, then you don't come into this world. So people need to experience it right, and there's some data that shows that after one visit people might come back. After a second the probability increases, but it takes three matches and then you're more or less hooked right, and if you want to grow then you need to attract new audiences through different ways.
Speaker 3:You've got some interesting data and some thoughts about the ageing sort of arc of a fan and when fans are at their peak loyalty and when that might dip and then when it might return. Do you want to share that with the audience about sort of age demographics and how regularly they're likely to attend games?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so like what do you want to achieve as a club? You want people that are highly identified with your club, right? And what's interesting is that most of them again coming back to who's your target group are targeting basically us, right, male fans in their prime, I'd say, right, that can afford to attend a match, but we are also like we have time issues, right. Opportunity costs of attending are really very high and actually we did survey fans from different clubs a few years ago also a national team, different sports, different clubs, and at every club we saw a very similar pattern, right. So identification is very, very high when you're very young. Then it decreases until, well, 40, 42, 45, and then it comes back.
Speaker 3:Because life gets in the way, those fans go off have children absolutely.
Speaker 2:You're in the prime or in the busiest part of your life, right. You have kids, you have your wife, you have a flat, whatever you want to succeed in your job. So many things are there and that you also need to take care of. But it will come back, because when you develop this as a kid, there might be a troubled time, but once you're aging, you have more spare time. It will come back. But again, the point here is you need to attract the kids, right, and there is some risk that we're losing out on a generation.
Speaker 3:It's a scary thought. Some of the things you're saying are not the most positive for the industry. Some of it's quite sobering for the industry. What do you say to the clubs that say, Dominic, what are the answers in this case? What would you advise clubs to? Be Less conservative, take more risks.
Speaker 2:That's a difficult question, right? Maybe we could come back to the survey, because there's a third point, right? And the third point is that, while most of the technology is well, the crowd is not too euphoric about that. Almost everybody agreed on the artificial intelligence aspect, so the projection was about whether you could basically outsource your customer service to an AI agent which is possible already with minimal human interaction, and this seems to be very, very likely. Ai agent which is possible already with minimal human interaction, right, and this seems to be very, very likely.
Speaker 2:And I think this is interesting for two reasons. The first reason is it's about cost. Here. It's not too much about the customer journey Nobody really touched this but the argument here is cost we can have this cheaper and customer service Nobody really want to do it, and you know translating facts. This is not what people are deeply passionate about, it, right? So it's a different bit in argument. It's not about value too much. It's more about reducing your cost. It could be a path to adapt to new technologies. Can we end on a positive? No, no, yeah, yeah. Coming back to a positive note, the thing is that AI is so hyped at the moment that it makes you feel you somehow have to do it. We have peak AI cycle, maybe a bit above that already, so it's everywhere people talk and this makes you think.
Speaker 2:And the last question of the survey was about whether half of all the clubs in Europe will change their ticketing provider by 2030. Because typically if you want to change, everybody fears migration, right, so you don't want to make mistakes with that. It's trouble. So I wanted to see whether there's a chance that the market could adapt by changing providers. And interesting thing is here that also there's. Like people thought this is very likely. Maybe that's the ticket code people. Right, there's some desirability there.
Speaker 2:But the argument here is it's not very likely for the big clubs, but it's more likely for the smaller clubs. And this makes perfect sense because if you are a smaller club, you need to risk something. Right, there is a need to differentiate in some way to make things more easier. So I think that innovation could go like through a bottom-up approach up to the big clubs. Maybe they could start in hospitality or wherever right where prime seats are. I could imagine facial recognition there or augmented reality. You know, that tells me you're Tom and I'm super friendly to you because you're my prime customer. I can see things there, but innovation needs to come up from the bottom, from the smaller clubs. And again, this is the innovation dilemma all over again.
Speaker 3:Is it therefore an exciting proposition? If you are a smaller club and you have capacity in your stadium Is now one of the best chances to be innovative, to do something that really stands you out from the crowd.
Speaker 2:Yeah, everybody needs a USP right, and this can be, as I said, atmosphere, it can be the experience, right. I really liked the idea about sending the flower bouquet right. This is a good idea because you understand what's going on in your ecosystem.
Speaker 3:There it's different, it's differentiated, and I'm pretty sure that most of the people will take this back from this conference because it's unique that was from Brighton CEO earlier, if people weren't in the audience that Brighton used their database on Mothering Sunday, that if they're playing, they will leave a bouquet of flowers for mothers in their seats, and yeah, ideas like that clearly are good.
Speaker 2:I would even bring this to the top. I wouldn't send the flower to the women in the stadium, but to the men, and they should bring it to their women back home, Because this would also make it easier to come back right, Because we all know happy wife, happy life.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, Dominic. Well, we end on a positive note. But some challenges clearly in the industry. Dominic Schreier there, Thank you very much indeed.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me. I'm, I'm, I'm.
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