Here’s some good news for social marketers in the music business: Your efforts to get people to buy concert tickets are working. Survey data from Live Analytics, Live Nation’s analytics division, shows that concert-goers are especially receptive to the sharing and social features of today’s ticketing platforms. They’re likely to buy through social links, and those who do attend more events than other types of ticket buyers and spend more money.
Music represents a large portion of Ticketmaster sales. According to information shared exclusively with Billboard, concerts accounted for 62% of all Ticketmaster purchases during a three-year period while sporting events represented 15%, arts accounted for 17% and family represented 6%.
But people who bought tickets through social media links almost always bought concert tickets. Eighty-five percent of social media purchases were for concerts — 23 percentage points higher than concerts’ share of overall purchases. The remaining 15% of social media purchases were split 8% for arts, 5% for sporting events and 2% for family events.
The concert attendee appears to be the right kind of consumer to target with social marketing. Social media purchasers attended more events than the average ticket buyer (1.27 vs. 0.85), purchased more tickets in a given year (2.95 vs. 2.25) and spent more money in a given year ($160 vs. $126).
One reason concert-goers are so apt to buy through social links is their relatively heavy social use. Nearly four out of five (79%) concert attendees used Facebook at least once a week in 2012 while 12% used it daily. Other event attendees were less likely to use Facebook at least once a week: 76% of family event attendees, 74% of sporting event attendees and 70% of arts events attendees.
These figures show why ticketing companies have made social a priority. Today’s ticketing platforms let ticket buyers share their purchase with friends and purchase tickets directly within Facebook. Platforms also help venues and promoters schedule social messages about show announcements, on-sale dates and other important announcements.
Social has also enhanced the ticket-buying process for reserved seating events. Ticketmaster has added a social capability to its interactive seat maps that lets buyers see where their friends will be sitting. Live Analytics’ survey found that 38% of people surveyed in December 2012 would use the feature to upgrade a purchase in order to sit near friends. Forty-two percent of people said they would purchase a single ticket to be near friends that had already purchased a ticket, and 46% said they would purchase tickets for a group to be near other friends.