Ballena Technologies' Seats3D product offers fans a 3D venue rendering and a peek at what the view would be from any particular seat, as seen here at AT&T Stadium, Arlington, Texas.
Spectra by Comcast Spectacor has acquired Ballena Technologies to integrate into the Spectra Ticketing & Fan Engagement’s ticketing and fundraising platform. Though the two companies have partnered for the last four or five years, their growing overlap of clients, now at 60, and the ability to more closely integrate the technology to the platform made the acquisition an attractive one.
“We’re really excited about it,” said Craig Ricks, vice president of Marketing, Spectra Ticketing & Fan Engagement. “It’s a great, logical acquisition. And additionally, not just for Spectra Ticketing & Fan Engagement, but also Spectra in general. One of our big emphases is to make sure we’re providing a great experience on behalf of all the fans that come to our events and to our clients’ venues, and this is one of those things. We also want to be technological leaders in the industry, and this bodes well for both of those areas of emphasis.”
Ballena Technologies is a market leader in sports and entertainment venue visualizations. Ballena products serve over 100 venues that are home to NCAA, MLB, NBA, NHL, NFL and MLS teams as well as racing, concert and many other attractions. Current Ballena clients who use a non-Spectra Ticketing system will be able to continue to leverage the Seats3D and SRMS solutions to help fans buy, renew or upgrade tickets through current partnerships.
“We’re excited about the transaction and think that Spectra is a wonderful home for both our clients and employees,” said Rich Sherratt, Chairman and CEO of Ballena Technologies in a press release. “This will help to continue to innovate the product line to serve the needs of our clients and their fans.”
With the acquisition, Spectra Ticketing & Fan Engagement clients will be able to take advantage of a tighter integration between the Ballena Seats3D and Seat Relocation Management System (SRMS) with their Spectra Ticketing & Fan Engagement solution to drive sales and elevate the fan experience. The 3D visualization technology creates a virtual rendering of the venue, giving fans a realistic view from any chosen seat. The feature is especially valuable for season ticket renewals.
“If I’m doing a renewal and there’s some shuffling of seats based on priority points, previously I would have to go to the stadium or arena and set up an appointment and go manually pick my seat,” said Ricks. “Now, it can all be done online. There’s a designated time, and a season ticket holder can go in and virtually view all availability. It’s got a great view from seat feature, and it’s this rich, immersive 3D rendering. So it’s this great fan experience where they can see what the seat would be like and what the view would be like.”
It was a great tool for Texas Christian University four years ago during the $164-million renovation of Amon G. Carter Stadium. At the time, they wanted to be able to reseat all the season-ticket holders and donors in the new stadium, but it was still being built.
“Using the architectural drawings and renderings, Ballena was able to create this virtual experience of what the new stadium is going to look like, and season- ticket holders were able to select their seats based on these virtual renderings,” said Ricks.
Sports teams will also be able to integrate a 3D venue rendering and view from seat into the shopping cart during the single-ticket purchase process enabling fans to preview their seats with a virtual view of the field or floor to help drive sales and increase online conversions.
“Common themes we see a lot out there are giving a great fan experience,” said Ricks. “It’s about what can we do to elevate the experience of the whole process of purchasing tickets. Then also, how can we enable our clients to drive more revenue? We’ve seen time and time again that when you empower fans and season-ticket holders and donors to make their own process and select their own seats, conversions go up, sales go up, revenue goes up. It’s a model the airline industry kind of coined and live entertainment is now enacting on that in earnest.”
By bringing Bellena Technologies into the Spectra family, they are able to embed it even more closely into the fabric of their ticketing and fundraising platforms and act as a single voice to the clients.
“When they’re looking at making some kind of strategic renewals or reseating or relocating, we can all act as a singular team to execute the project on their behalf,” said Ricks. “So it’s just taking something that’s working really well and adding on top of it. I also think downstream there are more opportunities to embed it even closer with our technology.”
Some clients are even going beyond tickets and using the technology for parking as well, further adding to the holistic fan experience of ticket buying.
“Depending on what market you’re in, parking is incredibly important,” said Ricks. “If you take a look at the whole season-ticket holder buying experience and if they’re going to renew, if you can not only enable them to view their seats, select their seats, upgrade their seats and add in a few more singles, but then also in that same process view the overheard aerial map of all the different parking locations and select a parking lot and that’s all in the same encompassing process, again, that just gets back to this great experience.”
Interviewed for this story: Craig Ricks, (949) 823-1636