In an exciting development for live event organizers and arts venue leaders, DynamO have integrated with Spektrix to provide their users with a fully automated data-driven pricing tool. Spektrix provides complete ticketing, marketing and fundraising software to over 600 theaters, festivals and arts centers. As the market leader in the UK and Ireland, and the fastest-growing platform in the US and Canada, Spektrix clients processed over $1.26 billion of sales in 2022. This partnership aims to empower Spektrix users with enhanced revenue generation, increased ticket sales, and improved crisis resilience. By leveraging DynamO's innovative pricing technology, box office teams can revolutionize their ticketing strategies and offer fair, ethical pricing that adapts to changing market demands.
One of the key advantages of adopting DynamO Pricing’s integrated, cutting-edge technology is the ability for Spektrix users to generate higher ticketing revenue. Smart and simple pricing tools allow arts organizations to set ticket prices in response to fluctuating demand and market conditions. Ticket prices can be adjusted in real time to reflect market conditions, allowing businesses to maximize profits without jeopardizing customer satisfaction.
Moreover, the integration allows venues to sell out more tickets and fill bigger venues. The flexible pricing tools enable organizers to adjust prices dynamically, ensuring that every seat is occupied. With DynamO Pricing, ticketing and box office teams can unleash the full potential of their venues, transforming their events into unforgettable experiences for a larger audience.
Having a pricing structure that can be adjusted on the fly is essential for event planners in today's volatile environment. With the help of DynamO Pricing, cultural leaders can quickly adjust their ticket prices to reflect the shifting dynamics of the market and maintain resilience in the face of crises and ambiguity. The data-driven pricing strategy allows event organizers to keep their competitive edge and adapt quickly to market changes, regardless of whether demand is rising or falling.
Manual price adjustments are a thing of the past. With DynamO Pricing integrated, the time and effort spent on re-pricing events are drastically reduced. The automation provided by DynamO's technology streamlines the process, enabling event organizers to focus on more strategic initiatives, such as marketing and audience engagement. This time-saving feature empowers organizers to allocate their resources efficiently, resulting in improved productivity and increased overall revenue.
Spektrix users can easily find out more about DynamO Pricing through the Spektrix Partner Directory. By creating an account on DynamO's user-friendly dashboard, users can seamlessly link their DynamO and Spektrix accounts, granting them instant access to the powerful pricing tools. With just a few simple steps, organizers can launch dynamically priced events, harnessing the full potential of flexible pricing in a matter of minutes.
Furthermore, DynamO Pricing prides itself on its commitment to exceptional customer support. Their team of professionals is always ready to assist and guide users through any challenges they may encounter. The dedication to customer satisfaction and reliable assistance sets DynamO apart, establishing them as a trusted partner in the pursuit of maximizing ticketing revenue.
The integration of DynamO Pricing's data-driven flexible pricing tool with Spektrix represents a major leap forward in the ticketing industry. Spektrix users can now unlock a range of benefits, including increased revenue, higher ticket sales, and enhanced crisis resilience. By leveraging the power of DynamO Pricing's innovative technology, box office and ticketing teams can transform their ticketing strategies, optimize pricing, and offer fair and ethical ticket prices. With this partnership, Spektrix and DynamO Pricing are shaping the future of ticketing, providing an invaluable resource for event organizers looking to achieve greater success in an ever-evolving industry.
Want to learn more? Get in touch with us today to explore how we can specifically assist your business. You can reach us through our website's contact forms or simply send us an email at info@dynamopricing.com. We look forward to hearing from you!
A new report has found that 91% of live music fans believe that dynamic or surge pricing should be illegal in the UK. The Music Fans’ Voice survey gathered data from more than 8,000 music fans across 8 cities between February and March this year. But what does this mean for arts and culture venues and events? And how can we optimise revenue and attendance, while also managing audience concerns?
At DynamO we’ve been helping cultural organisations navigate this challenge successfully for years, so here are some of our top tips:
The results of this survey likely conflate scalping, surge pricing and demand-based pricing - three very different practices:
This conflation is understandably driven by frustration from one-off, high-demand events - like the Oasis saga - which are not representative of how responsible dynamic pricing works in audience-focused organisations with meaningful and ethical pricing strategies in place - like most theatres! The survey responses suggest a lack of understanding around what true dynamic pricing actually entails - which is designed to balance affordability and sustainability, and can often include lower prices.
So how can we get audiences on board with a practice that can ultimately be beneficial for everyone? Transparent communication and clearer segmentation is key, and can help you better appeal to both cost conscious and cost ignorant attendees. Cost sensitive audience members prefer to buy tickets for less popular timeslots if the same performance can be enjoyed at a lower cost, whereas people who care more about time constraints will pay more for higher demand performances if a certain timeslot works better for their schedule.
Some practical steps include:
Increasing revenue is needed to meet rising costs. Dynamic pricing offers an alternative to simply raising all prices and completely excluding price-conscious audiences - an increasing practice amongst a small percentage of West End venues. It enables you to make the majority of inventory affordable, and let the premium seats flex based on demand - with capped limits.
Dynamic pricing revenue could similarly be channelled toward support funds or access schemes, making it part of the solution, not the problem. For example, the top 5% of high-price tickets could fund free or discounted tickets for underrepresented audiences or grassroots venue support - redistribution, not exploitation.
One of the most encouraging findings from the report is that almost all respondents agreed that live music events are an important part of UK culture. In order to keep this culture alive, it’s important that we’re able to find financially sustainable ticketing models - particularly in the face of the sector’s “imminent burnout alongside significant skills and workforce gaps,” plus diminishing government and philanthropic funding.
Dynamic pricing isn’t a case of greed - it’s about ensuring events remain viable by implementing time and cost-saving tools, while matching value with demand. It works particularly well in venues and events with:
In music events with one-night-only performances, there’s a much greater sense of urgency. But as an industry at large, the cultural sector has the ability to take a more balanced approach - including pre-set pricing stages, transparent calendars and fair access tools.
It’s understandable that audiences might be weary when ticket prices feel unpredictable or even unfair. Your work as a venue or event isn’t just about transparency - it’s about building a sense of shared values and trust. If you’re looking to explore dynamic pricing and want to do so in a way that places your audiences at the heart, remember to:
If you’d like to have a conversation to learn more about dynamic pricing and how it could help your organisation achieve financial sustainability, we’d love to hear from you. Get in touch at info@dynamopricing.com.
“I’m too busy to implement a complex new pricing tool”
With modern software and data analytics tools, dynamic pricing is accessible to any team, however busy, thanks to automation. DynamO developed a very straightforward and easy-to-use interface and provides free support and assistance. Setting up the dynamic pricing parameters for a typical theatre performance (3-5 different ticket categories) takes 2-5 minutes for our clients. Even very small theatres and music groups with only 1 person managing ticketing are achieving great results using DynamO.
“We have lots of one-night shows and we don’t have autonomy on price-setting (we have to set prices in line with promoters / producers), so dynamic pricing can’t work for us”
Dynamic pricing can be applied to a wide range of events, including one-time performances, festivals, sports events, and more. Predicting the success of a one-time event can be very tricky as success depends on multiple variables: big names, promotion partners etc. However, dynamic pricing actually helps to mitigate the risk associated with one-off shows or short runs. Over time it becomes a highly effective tool to support performance lifecycle evaluation and decision-making.
When first implementing dynamic pricing you can talk to your partners about whether they want to do it or not, and if not you don’t have to dynamically price their shows. Once you have dynamically priced a few shows you can show them the data to evidence the potential ROI they are missing out on and they will likely choose to participate, as we’ve seen with numerous clients in this position.
“If the prices are always changing how can I forecast accurately?”
Forecasting is always an educated guess about the future. With dynamic pricing, forecasting is actually more reliable than with fixed / static pricing, because it reacts to market fluctuations and generates additional yield on popular shows while boosting audiences at less popular performances / events. Ticketing managers can predict based on their past experience as they usually would. The only change they need to make is that they should expect better results both in revenue and tickets sold than ever before. A typical DynamO client generates 14-17% average revenue growth while reducing unsold inventory by over 20%.
“We often have to paper / discount heavily at the last minute to fill a show, dynamic pricing will only exacerbate this late booking behavior - we want to encourage early bookers!”
Dynamic pricing can help encourage early booking and aid in avoiding last minute discounts to fill an event. In many cases prices increase as the event date approaches and availability decreases. There are many logics that can be applied in dynamic pricing and it’s never guaranteed that tickets will be cheapest at the beginning of the sales period, or at the end of it, or anytime in between! While it can provide a kind of gamification opportunity to ticket buyers, there is not a simple and consistent rule that they can follow. With dynamic pricing they can’t just wait and be guaranteed a cheap ticket.
“As a not-for-profit organization, I don’t think it’s a good fit - dynamic pricing is designed for profit-making companies.”
All kinds of cultural institutions can benefit from dynamic pricing. Optimizing ticket sales allows you to break down cost barriers across your programming and reach a wider audience, while ensuring financial sustainability. Dynamic pricing strengthens any mission-focused organization’s pricing strategy. It can result in wider availability of cheaper tickets and longer periods of availability for high-demand performances. Organizations such as the Hungarian State Opera, Operetta Theatre, and Palace of Arts have demonstrated how beneficial this approach can be. With the additional revenue generated, these institutions can further improve service quality and invest more in their artists, creating a positive social impact.
“Ticket buyers don’t want another layer confusing them - it’ll stop them from completing their purchase”
“Dynamic pricing is only for profit driven organizations. It won’t help us reach new audiences or build lasting relationships with our communities.”
Arts organizations need income in order to operate and bring their unique value to audiences and communities. Historically in the UK this has been generated through a combination of national or local government funding, philanthropic giving and earned income (i.e ticket sales). With a 16% real terms cut in arts funding since 2017, the shortfall needs to be picked up for the cultural sector to continue doing their vital work. Philanthropy in the UK is not as strong as in North America and although it has trended upwards since 2018 evidence shows that we can’t rely on this. The area where organizations have most control is their earned income.
Maximizing this is fundamental to survival.
Increasing ticket revenue supports all organizational goals whether that is better-paid artists and staff, higher production values or more community and outreach work. Without financial stability, organizations and the value they bring for their communities is at risk.
“Dynamic pricing isn’t good for audiences, they won’t respond well…”
Anna Hetényi, Head of Ticketing at Müpa (Palace of Arts), shared her experience with combining dynamic pricing and their established loyalty program:
"DynamO implemented their dynamic pricing solution with maximum flexibility, fully accommodating our specific needs at Müpa. They seamlessly integrated their system with our well-established loyalty program, allowing us to preserve its benefits for our loyal customers. For instance, during our pre-sale periods, we offer tickets at fixed prices, and once these periods end, we switch to dynamic pricing. This approach has enabled us to maintain customer satisfaction while optimizing our revenue through a tailored and adaptable pricing strategy."
“Dynamic pricing is just about increasing prices, it’s not fair on the audience”
In contrast to the belief that dynamic pricing simply increases ticket prices and locks out some audiences, it can be the key to understanding the true market value of your ticket inventory, and being able to price strategically. As part of a well-rounded pricing strategy, you can maximize ticket revenue and make tickets available to the widest possible audience at the same time.
