USSSA Space Coast Complex has moved to Brevard County, Fla., and will open in early January with TicketForce as their ticketing partner.
TicketForce and United States Specialty Sports Association (USSSA) Space Coast Complex, Viera, Fla., are partnering on ticketing for the multi-field venue, including all ticket sales —online and walkup.
This state of the art, multi-sport complex will be holding its first event on Jan. 5, 2018, after moving 75 miles from Osceola County and leaving the Disney Sports family.
The new home of USSSA will feature four National Collegiate Athletic Associations (NCAA) regulation softball fields, four NCAA regulation baseball fields, four practice fields, and an 18,000-sq.-ft. indoor training and rehab center. It’s expected to host everything from youth baseball to fast-pitch and slow-pitch events.
The field is currently home to the USSSA Pride, a National Pro Women’s Fast-Pitch team, and earlier this year was awarded the hosting rights to the 2018 Women’s Baseball World Cup, which will take place in August. This will be the first time the tournament will be held in the United States.
The agreement with the Tourist Development Council (TDC) of Brevard County is for 20 years. The facility will host 40,000 events a year. All the events are ticketed. The facility will be operational in the beginning of 2018.
“The TicketForce platform stood out for its online and mobile capabilities, the option to add additional products to the sale before check-out, as well as overall flexibility,” said Kevin Reynolds, GM, USSSA. “We are excited to show our association and our guests this system. They can purchase online with no added fees to print at home or save on smart phone tickets. They will be able to avoid the lines when they arrive, park the car, head to the entrance and enjoy the event in our state of the art complex.”
Reynolds said that he chose TicketForce because they have “a dynamic ticketing system that can do a lot of things and not just sell tickets.”
The TicketForce system is designed for both presales and walkup sales, which the facility expects to be a major part of the ticketing process.
“I also liked that TicketForce doesn’t nickel-and-dime their customers with this fee and that fee,” said Reynolds. “We have low ticket prices here, and we want to keep the price low and not alienate the fans with printing fees and download fees.”
Reynolds is also impressed with the technology of TicketForce. “We have a lot of people coming from towns that want pictures and merchandise, and TicketForce allows us to integrate all that into the system, as well as concessions,” he said. “TicketForce makes it all easy and we determined they would be the best fit.”
The USSSA concessionaire is a local company, Collins Catering & Events, and the merchandise company is Boombah, a manufacturer of shirts, uniforms, and hats. “Merchandise is a healthy percentage of our revenue,” he said.
“We have people who come for three-to-four days at a stretch, from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., and we need to serve that dynamic, so we change 35 percent of the offerings everyday,” he explained. “The same concession food would go stale after day one, so changing the selections is a great way to keep up the F&B sales.”
The contract with TicketForce is for three years, and Reynolds expects to sell about 500,000 tickets in year one at the new site.
Lynne King Smith, CEO, TicketForce, said that her company is “thrilled with the deal for Space Coast Complex.”
King Smith said the talks started with USSSA “around six months ago” and the contract was signed in early November. Ticket sales will start in in January. “We’re set up for digital sales, but USSSA has a lot of walkup sales; we’re particularly strong in that area, and that’s a big component of what we will bring to them,” she said.
“There’s a lot of good technology out there, but we really understand their needs,” she said.
TicketForce, based in Phoenix, has several Florida-based clients including Florida Theatre, Jacksonville; Tampa Theatre; and Palm Beach State College. Last year, TicketForce clients sold more than $80 million worth of tickets.