Goldstar FlyBy
Discount ticket distributor Goldstar has introduced a new product, FlyBy, which uses drones inside a venue to show its customers where their seats will be located and the view of the stage from their seat.
"Remember, there are a lot of people out there who have never stepped foot inside a theater and don't know what to expect," said Patch Canada, Goldstar's director of communication. "This is another way we are trying to make people comfortable with going to shows."
Goldstar, traditionally a platform for venues and promoters to find an audience by selling excess inventory, normally at half price or better, currently works with about Now they're helping the audience find their seats.
Goldstar CEO Jim McCarthy said the company currently works with about 4,000 venues and arts organizations, with 8 million customers in the U.S. searching Goldstar for events to attend.
McCarthy pointed out that the FlyBy product is still experimental. "The product was developed to help with a consumer's lack of knowledge or anxiety about where their seat is going to be and what they'll be able to view from that seat," said McCarthy. "Seating charts are nice, but I think everyone will agree that getting an actual look would be even more helpful. The real purpose of the product is to prevent barriers to people buying tickets. The drone is a fun, clever way to break that down."
The first drone is currently being employed in the Pasadena (Calif.) Playhouse. "We want to see how venues and consumers like it," said McCarthy. "So far, it's a big hit. Our intension is to do this for a number of our partners, and we're already looking at places to roll it out next."
Goldstar doesn't own any drones; they team up with a production company which implements drone technology.
You can see Goldstar Flyby in action at the Pasadena Playhouse here.
Goldstar's other big news is that it has signed a deal with Tessitura Network, Inc., headquartered in Dallas, to be Tessitura's preferred provider. The deal was announced by Goldstar VP of venue relations Wendi Lebow at the 2016 Tessitura Learning & Community Conference held last week at Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, National Harbor, Md.
"We provide an enterprise solution for arts and cultural organizations," said Jack Rubin, president of Tessitura Networks, Inc. "We have over 550 organizations that we work with in different categories. One of the categories is third-party channels for inventory movement. The goal of all arts and cultural organizations is to fill their venues with happy patrons and sometimes that's a challenge. Goldstar is a leader in the sector of filling seats with value-oriented customers."
"The way that the integration will work is by making it seamless for the exposure and sale of inventory," explained Rubin. "The partnership with Goldstar will use the extensive application interface and will readily and easily access inventory. This will make it easy and straight forward for our license holders to exchange information."
The partnership will provide integration between Tessitura software and Goldstar's platform. "We've been working with Tessitura for a number of years," explained McCarthy. "And we've been participating pretty heavily in the Tessitura community, which is a pretty active community. I've never seen a group so fired up about their ticketing system as I have with the Tessitura managers. Tessitura really does a great job of creating fans in the venue world."
McCarthy said that Goldstar has been working with Tessitura for most of the year, and building the technology for the last few months in anticipation of signing the deal. "We already work with around 200 Tessitura venues around the country," he said. "The substantive change is that we now have the ability to digitally integrate with Tessitura's ticketing system."
Rubin said that Tessitura has been eyeing Goldstar to become the preferred provider for their network for some time and he believes now is the right time. "Goldstar has been providing valuable services for arts and cultural venues for years," said Rubin. "They've proven they can establish a relationship between the venue and the customer. Our license holders have recognized this and expressed to us that formalizing arrangements between Tessitura Network and Goldstar at this time will be beneficial to everyone."
McCarthy used The Chicago Lyric Opera as an example. "When a customer buys a ticket to an event at the Lyric Opera, we will be ticketing them directly from the Tessitura ticketing system. We'll present them with the ticket with a barcode; the experience will be completed in the Goldstar platform; it will be as if they bought their ticket on the Lyric Opera website. On the backend, it will be exactly the same transaction which means it will unburden the box-office staff from having to do will-call lines. They'll have all the information in their system and it makes it all super smooth."
McCarthy said the new partnership with Tessitura will make ticketing seamless and move faster. McCarthy did not want to disclose the financial impact the deal will have to Goldstar. "I don't want to put a dollar amount on this. We have numerous relationships around the country and our commitment is to making our partner's lives easier."
Interviewed for this story: Jim McCarthy, (626) 204-3960; Patch Canada, (703) 727-4439; Jack Rubin, (888) 643-5778