The Paciolan leadership team at Pacnet '18 (from left): Christian Lewis, vice president of business development; Keith White, chief technology officer; Steve Demots, chief revenue officer; Kim Damron, president and CEO; Deana Barnes, senior director of client partners; and Craig Ricks, senior vice president of marketing. (Courtesy Paciolan)
As ticketing company Paciolan finishes preparations for its annual Pacnet gathering of clients and business partners, President and CEO Kim Damron foresees a breakthrough year.
“That means a bunch of different things, breaking through with our clients and collaborating with them to create better solutions,” Damron said, “but also breaking through to new audiences and … helping our clients create and find more customers for their database.”
Pacnet ’19, which will take place Feb. 10-13 in Newport Beach, Calif., packs more than 40 sessions covering everything from optimization strategies to digital marketing and parking to, yes, data, reflecting the fact that ticketing is no longer just about selling tickets.
“It’s about creating the whole experience with your customer from end to end,” Damron said. “It’s about donors and how everyone is focused on donations, whether you’re a performing arts venue or a college athletics organization. … It’s really about how you create your relationship with all those different kinds of consumers and how you get lifetime value out of that consumer.”
One emphasis will be making sure clients know how to get the most out of Paciolan’s partnerships with brands such as Salesforce, StubHub, Facebook and Google.
“Google has to be part of the equation because it’s the No. 1 place to buy tickets, bar none,” Damron said. “They estimate they have over 10 million live event customers that purchase tickets at least once a month. They have active, engaged audiences.”
And StubHub is “a destination whether you’re buying primary or secondary tickets. It’s a destination to buy, so we’ll be covering a lot on our expanded partnership,” she said.
Beyond the nuts and bolts of ticketing, one track on the first day of the event is devoted to leadership, leading off with a panel of three women who are athletic directors at NCAA Division I schools: Heather Lyke of Pitt, Jennifer Cohen of Washington and Desiree Reed-Francois of UNLV. Damron will moderate the panel.
“One of my absolute passions is growing more female leaders in corporate America,” said Damron, who got the idea for the session when she was on a panel with Cohen and Reed-Francois at another conference. “It was so powerful to just hear their candid stories on how they got to where they were and inspired so many people.”
Pacnet has evolved “from a tactical conference to a high-level strategy conference,” Damron said, and Paciolan has done some evolving of its own since its start in 1980. “We are a 38-year-old company, but what we’ve tried to create here is a start-up mentality,” Damron said.
