Welcome to the Insights Quarterly Newsletter!

This quarter marks the launch of the largest functional release in Paciolan's history, version 6.9! Version 6.9 includes a long list of enhancements covering ticketing, development and marketing along with a major enhancement of WBST for use in your box office and phone room. As we develop each release our primary focus is to provide the tools you need to you run your business more effectively. For example, in v6.9 and in subsequent releases you will find improvements in reporting as well as new ways to segment and price your inventory. You will also find usability improvements to bring new staff members up to speed quickly.

Throughout the development process we relied heavily on your input to prioritize functionality, incorporate enhancement requests, refine processes and improve overall product quality. Initial feedback from our early v6.9 client implementations shows that our efforts were effective! The University of Wyoming, New Era Tickets, TicketsWest, and Theatre Under The Stars (TUTS) all provided rave reviews. Read more about v6.9 functionality and early feedback from your peers in the article below!

In addition to fantastic product news, our baseball clients continue to hit the ball out of the park! All five of Paciolan's Major League Baseball (MLB) teams were in contention to make the playoffs up to the last day of the season. After a one game playoff for the Wild Card, 3 of the 5 are in the midst of Division Series play! Equally noteworthy, online adoption during the regular season for these five teams in total was just under 50% -- 32% higher than the MLB average!

Earlier this week, we announced the Performing Arts Holiday Season Program aimed at helping our performing arts clients maximize ticket sales during the holiday season. Clients are now able to incorporate paid search campaigns and MySpace pages, in addition to creative ticket packages supplemented with compelling email campaigns to drive prospective ticket buyers to buy. Contact your client partner to participate in this new initiative.

College football season renewals recently came to a close. While participating college athletics' numbers were up dramatically, the Pac-10 Conference scored the largest overall online adoption numbers realizing 48.3% of season renewals online! Cal was at the head of the pack with a whopping 76% online adoption rate representing a 35% increase over last year!

Lastly, on behalf of all of us at Paciolan, we want to thank you for participating in our Annual Customer Survey. Your input helps us stay focused on initiatives that align with the demands of your business. The results, which are overwhelmingly strong, will be presented at PACnet 08 – I look forward to seeing you there!

Sincerely,

Dave

Paciolan and Our Beta Partners Launch v6.9!
by Mike Ruppert, Paciolan

After nearly two years in development, Paciolan and our friends at Trade Centre Limited (TCL) in beautiful Halifax, Nova Scotia launched the first v6.9 beta implementation on September 5, 2007. WBST v6.9 went live that day, with t.Res, e.Venue, Access Management and t.Credit v6.9 going live two days later. With 17 outlets at grocery stores in the greater Halifax area, TCL relies heavily upon WBST for its user-friendly interface. With many improvements in the WBST product in v6.9, operators found the web interface to be even easier to use, while at the same time offering greater flexibility.

t.Res, e.Venue, t.Fund, t.Credit and Access Management also received hundreds of enhancements and quality improvements with v6.9, and those are also being tested in a production environment by TCL and our other beta customers. The University of Wyoming went live on all of these products, as well as WBST, the week of September 10. A couple of weeks later, Theater Under the Stars in Houston was upgraded to v6.9 on September 26. Paciolan team members from product management, customer support and professional services traveled to each of the first 3 beta sites to ensure a smooth transition from v6.82. As with any beta implementation, there were a few bumps in the road, but overall there were so many improvements that these bumps seemed quite minor and were quickly resolved.

We asked our September v6.9 beta customers what their favorite new features were, and they quickly volunteered the following:

• Hover-over seat map functionality, in which you can hover your mouse pointer over any allocated seat in the seat map and display detailed information about the customer to whom the seat has been allocated (configurable by user)
• Automated pro-ration of combo items
• Online order and donation history in e.Venue
• Reorganized, more intuitive Access Management maintenance menu
• New promoter settlement report, similar to the event audit but more "buttoned down" for quick and easy settlements with promoters
• Ability to export many more standard reports to Excel
• Ability to limit item packages and promos to specific seat statuses
• Ability to copy promos
• WBST will-call pickup from all sales channels
• Improved patron inquiry, featuring more donor information
• Streamlined donation entry processes

Everyone at Paciolan would like to thank our amazing beta partners - TCL, University of Wyoming, and TUTS - for all of their help with testing this huge software release. v6.9 is easily our most thoroughly-tested release in years, with many weeks of internal QA testing, internal business testing, and customer business testing all conducted before we released the beta version of the software in early September. But due to the enormity of this release, beta testing is an even more important phase in testing our products to help us identify and resolve any remaining product deficiencies as early as possible.

So, many, many thanks and our sincere congratulations to our September betas:

• Peggy Dooley, Cheryl Fader and Linda Poulton at Trade Centre Limited
• Bill Hamilton and Lynn Claus at the University of Wyoming
• David Greiss, Tony Jilek and Faye Hosein at Theatre Under the Stars 

All of you have made great contributions to our product improvements, and we deeply appreciate them!

For more information on v6.9, contact your Client Partner.

Learning Center Series
by James Evans, Paciolan

The Learning Center Series continues to provide supplemental instruction for Paciolan products and offers access to Paciolan staff who help you better understand the ever-growing functionality of our products.

Over the next few months, we have innovative topics that are designed to help you get the most out of your Paciolan system. The topics were based on the feedback we received from you. Most importantly, there is no cost to attend!

Mark your calendars for the upcoming sessions.

We look forward to seeing you online!

Performing Arts Holiday Program
by Augi Garred, Paciolan

The Holiday Season Performance Program is designed to help performing arts clients energize sales during the peak season. The program highlights valuable tools and techniques to drive incremental ticket sales including paid search, MySpace marketing and other promotional ticketing best practices.

Paid Search
Do prospective patrons search Google or Yahoo before searching your site for tickets? This is the question that David Greiss at Theatre Under The Stars (TUTS) asked himself before initiating a paid search campaign. Paid search is a marketing tool that allows venues to buy key words or commonly searched terms and place advertisements in the search engine results page. TUTS decided to implement a paid search marketing campaign, and was extremely pleased with the results.

During a traditionally difficult time to sell tickets, the musical Sweet Charity was coming to town for a two week run. To compliment a traditional media campaign and boost sales, TUTS engaged Paciolan to promote the event through paid search. Paid search yielded immediate dividends as TUTS realized $11,500 in incremental online ticket sales. TUTS also reached 1,200 prospective new ticket buyers, and spent a whopping 2/3 less per ticket sold via paid search when compared to marketing efforts via traditional media, making the campaign a resounding success.

TUTS was impressed with the initial campaign results and decided to implement another paid search campaign for another show, "Whistle Down the Wind". TUTS’ second effort was also a success realized as they realized over $13,000 in incremental online tickets sales.

"Paid search is an important component of selling tickets online to any show. We were happy with the results, and will use paid search to reach out to the online community for more shows in the future," David Greiss, Director of Sales & Marketing, Theatre Under the Stars.

MySpace Marketing
A challenge that many performing arts venues face today is trying to reach younger audiences to build and cultivate new patron relationships. To increase awareness and educate this younger audience about the performing arts and TUTS' array of relevant events, TUTS launched a branded MySpace site. MySpace is the largest social networking site on the Internet, with over 100 million registered users. It leads all major consumer destination websites in most time spent online per visit.

TUTS built a customized MySpace site with integrated branding, event pictures, video clips, an event calendar and buy-now links to make an engaging online experience. TUTS vigorously promoted the site and refreshed it frequently to maintain new content. TUTS has been pleased with their MySpace presence and its ability to target a younger demographic. "We use MySpace as a tool to engage new audiences that we haven't had success with in the past. We're very excited about its potential to reach a younger demographic," said David Greiss Director of Sales & Marketing.

Holiday Pick-a-Plan Designer Series
The American Musical Theatre of San Jose (AMTSJ) wanted to drive additional ticket sales during the peak holiday season. They created a holiday pick-a-plan designer series allowing patrons to select three events from a list of available shows. AMTSJ targeted lapsed subscribers and patrons who historically purchased during the holiday time period from offline brochures and email marketing campaigns. Through this comprehensive effort, AMTSJ sold 225 new pick-a-plan ticket packages worth $18,581 during the holiday season!

Event Pre-Sale and Promotion
AMTSJ had a pending on-sale for Lord of the Dance coming to the venue this fall. To reduce stress on the box office and to provide season subscribers with additional benefits, AMTSJ offered an Internet early presale targeted to current subscribers. They promoted the presale via PACMail and leveraged a promotional code to buy tickets online. Within two days of sending the PACMail, AMSTJ sold $16,000 worth of tickets.

To find out more about these topics and hear how your peers successfully launched these campaigns, we invite you to view the recording of the Holiday Season Performance Program webinar.

Interested in creating a paid search campaign or MySpace presence for your venue? Contact your Client Partner for details.

Football Renewals Score Big Again
by James Kim, Paciolan

Over 41% (260,000+) football season renewal applications were processed online this season by 85 college athletics organizations. Paciolan partnered with colleges again providing best practices education and email campaign management assistance to achieve the highest online renewal rates in program history. The program ran from January 1st through August 31st with 47 colleges taking full advantage of Paciolan's email marketing assistance.

Online renewal rates of colleges that participated in the email marketing program collectively achieved 46% whereas colleges that did not participate reached 31%, resulting in significant increases in box office efficiency.

A twist on this year's program features colleges grouped by conference competing against other conferences for the highest online renewal rate. The Pac-10 Conference won top honors with over 48% online renewal rate, increasing over 33% from the previous year.

The common tactics deployed by the successful colleges involved:

• Sending approximately three graphically-rich emails (announcement, reminder and deadline) promoting season renewals
• Offering an Internet-early renewal period - with incentives such as extra priority points and order fee reductions, etc. - resulting in considerable printing and mailing cost savings
• Offering incentives for online renewals such as discounts on order fees and a chance to win prizes such as media guides, athletic apparel and free tickets to other sporting events

Paciolan will provide similar marketing assistance during the upcoming Bowl season. To begin planning to streamline the bowl ticket process, please contact your Client Partner.

The Prescription for Website Enhancement
by Joey Grassi, Paciolan

What is The Prescription?
The Prescription for Website Enhancement is a monthly tablet showcasing cutting-edge HTML features from the websites of your peers. The first three doses of The Prescription included "The Next Generation of Clickable Maps" featuring 3D maps with view-from-seats, "Quantity Rules" for Buy-One, Get-One-Free and Family Plan promotions, and "The Calendar Method", which is used to sell related events by date.

Free Samples

1. The Next Generation of Clickable Maps

Click on the below image to see the live maps in action. Check out the "tool tips" as you hover over the sections (available in view from seat or plain version)!

2. Quantity Rules!

This custom HTML code can be used to sell Buy-One, Get-One-Free promotions, Discounted Group Tickets, or Family Plans. We can customize this code to apply to a particular promotion, item, price level, or price type of your choosing.

3. The Calendar Method

Use this custom code to sell groups of related items based on event dates. Click on the images to see the Calendar Method. Note: You may need to close your web browser after visiting the previous site.

Future refills will feature Item Packages in Promos, hiding event and on-sale dates, and redirecting with item groups.

Is The Prescription right for me?
Yes! If you want to spice up your website and put a spark in your customers' online shopping experiences then The Prescription is, as one happy client called it, "Just what the doctor ordered."

Consult Your EOS
If you haven't received The Prescription but are ready to start on your way to a healthy and exciting website, contact your eCommerce Operations Specialist (EOS) and ask to be added to the e-mail list today!

The former Internet Service Coordinator (ISC) team has undergone a transformation into the eCommerce Operations Specialist team. The team has expanded their focus to implement cutting edge functionality on your websites to expand eCommerce effectiveness. The Prescription Newsletter is just one of many new initiatives the team has already rolled out.

Air Force Lightning Tickets
by Craig Ricks, Paciolan

The Air Force Academy Athletic Association (Air Force) is offering a new service this fall by enabling fans to use bar coded tickets as a payment for concessions and merchandise. These stored value tickets known as "Lightning Tickets" are available for football single tickets and are included in Family Value Packs.

"Lightning Tickets provide Falcon fans a superior 'cashless' experience. Fans simply use their bar coded ticket to buy concessions or merchandise throughout the stadium," stated Chris Peludat, Assistant A.D. for Tickets and Marketing. "The athletics department then gains rich fan data including what, when, and where they prefer to purchase. With that information the athletics department is able to create powerful marketing programs to drive revenue."

Lighting Tickets were first tested during the TCU football game on September 13th, and are now available for purchase through all sales channels including online, walk up, and over the phone. Fans purchasing single Lightning Tickets pay an additional $5 and receive a $7 stored value to be used for concessions or merchandise. The Family Value packs include 4 Lighting Tickets with $5 retail value on each ticket. These Family Value Packs are available for the UNLV game on October 6th and for the SDSU Game on November 17th.

Lightning Tickets are also included in men's basketball Courtside VIP season tickets which include a $15 concession credit per ticket per game, and Center Court Club season tickets holders which include a $5 credit. Additionally, Lightning Tickets will be available for all single tickets sold for men's basketball and men's hockey games.

As part of their new ticketing infrastructure, Air Force introduced Access Management and digital ticketing services this fall and now scan all bar coded tickets as fans enter Falcon Stadium. To extend the value of this digital ticketing infrastructure, Air Force worked with International Micro Systems (IMS) to implement the stored value ticket system called STADIS. The same bar coded ticket that provides entry into the stadium is scanned at the concessions stand and retail stores as payment.

"This technology puts us at the forefront of this movement and allows us to better serve our fans," said Air Force Senior Associate Athletic Director Michael Saks. "We are excited to offer this with all single-game tickets that we sell for football and other sports."

Air Force plans to enable all season ticket holders to 'opt in' to the program and load value on their season tickets next football season. The athletics department also plans to leverage their infrastructure to enable sports camps to benefit from the system. Parents will have the ability to purchase credit on a bar coded bracelet allowing sports campers to pay for items throughout the week without carrying cash.

Museum Market Update
by Craig Ricks, Paciolan

Paciolan continues to galvanize its commitment to museums, zoos, aquariums and attraction venues with new product enhancements, services and support. "Our latest release and ongoing efforts to embrace the market represent our commitment to these wonderful clients that have shown us their loyalty for so long. We are extremely pleased to partner with these great venues for years to come with ongoing innovation and services," stated Dave Butler, CEO, Paciolan.

Product Release
The latest product release was a collaborative effort between Paciolan and the Museum Client Advisory Team (CAT), which was instrumental in shaping the requirements and new features. By working closely with the client advisors, the following enhancements were created and are now generally available:

• Member Admission Scanning
• Member Entitlement Tracking
• Online Member Pricing
• Online Membership Sales
• Online Miscellaneous Item Sales
• Membership Integrated with Fund Development
• PCI Compliance

Venues leveraging the new release are also able to take advantage of high speed credit authorization to quickly process high volume transactions both online and at the ticket window. What's more, venues on the latest release also comply with new security requirements of the Payment Card Industry (PCI) to secure valuable patron data.

Managed Services
To address the needs of the market, Paciolan created a Managed Services offering unique for museum clients running t.Gen. Managed Services provide venues with current software features, bundled training and professional services to maximize system performance. It enables venues to reduce the burden of ticketing system maintenance, tap into Paciolan experts to optimize the system, and leverage the latest enhancements in ticketing technology.

ASTC Conference
Paciolan will actively participate in important industry events beginning with the Association of Science and Technology Centers (ASTC) conference on October 13-16 in Los Angeles, CA. During the conference Paciolan will exhibit at booth #301 and will showcase new technology and industry best practices. Paciolan is sponsoring the Development Luncheon, and the Development, Marketing and Membership Networking Reception, both on Sunday the 14th. We invite any clients attending the conference to join us during these events.