The 2020 AFL season has wrapped up with a Grand Final that was both thrilling and different in many ways.
As well as being the first night Grand Final, it was also the first to be held outside of Victoria. Brisbane’s The Gabba rose to the occasion, putting on a brilliant event that Ticketmaster was very proud to be a part of.
Working alongside the AFL throughout the 2020 AFL season, Ticketmaster utilised many of our newer products to ensure event-day success.
The Grand Final utilised our newly released SmartQueue technology to help ensure fans had a transparent and stable ticket purchasing experience. SmartQueue automatically queues all sessions just prior to onsale and then ensures that consumers flow through the transaction process in numbers that allow the system to maintain stability and speed.
For ticket delivery, fans were directed to use Mobile Tickets to ensure contact tracing compliance and the response has been overwhelmingly positive, with some matches having almost 100% of tickets forwarded to fellow adult attendees. This was in part due to the intuitive Ticket Forwarding technology being easy to use, and our comprehensive communication campaign for both Mobile Tickets and Covid expectations in the lead up to event day, and once at the venue. As an additional side benefit some events have seen a +70% increase in Mobile Ticket recipients opting into third-party marketing.
“At Ticketmaster, we love what we do and the fan is the reason we’re all here. Fans want to enjoy exceptional experiences that create life-long memories and our goal is to make that happen, so being able to come together again and see fans in stadiums enjoying the magic of live is an incredible feeling and also hugely rewarding,” Maria O’Connor, Ticketmaster Australia and New Zealand chair, said in an interview with The Ticketing Business.
“Fans expect a different, safer experience and Ticketmaster is leading the way in providing that. The power and flexibility of our platform allows us to pivot, innovate and deploy technological capabilities that will meet the needs of venues of the future.”
With more 450,000 AFL tickets scanned this year and more than 130,000 fans scanning through Optus Stadium and The Gabba throughout the 2020 AFL finals series, having clear communication and functioning technology throughout the journey has been the key to our success.
