Blogs

The sea­son for giv­ing back is espe­cial­ly mean­ing­ful this year, with COVID-19 tak­ing a dra­mat­ic toll on peo­ple and orga­ni­za­tions around the world. Whether your venue has been able to reopen or not, you can look to the tools in your tick­et­ing sys­tem to help you recap­ture rev­enue and engage with your audi­ence. Read on to dis­cov­er 8 tick­et­ing tools for giv­ing back. No mat­ter your indus­try, our fea­ture-rich solu­tions are here to help sup­port your venue’s efforts to boost fundrais­ing ini­tia­tives this year!

Attrac­tions from all indus­tries are deal­ing with the chal­lenges of social dis­tanc­ing and how to oper­ate safe­ly in a COVID envi­ron­ment. We had the priv­i­lege of shar­ing the IAA­PA Edu­ca­tion stage with Matt Blumhardt from Hol­i­day World & Splashin’ Safari and Daine Apple­ber­ry of Audubon Nature Insti­tute to dis­cuss ways to enhance the guest expe­ri­ence, boost rev­enue, build brand loy­al­ty and serve guests safe­ly dur­ing this chal­leng­ing time. Below are our top 5 take­aways and rec­om­men­da­tions from the session.

Ski sea­son is just around the cor­ner, and it’s excit­ing to see so many ski areas announc­ing their plans for re-open­ing. Is your tech­nol­o­gy ready to sup­port a great guest expe­ri­ence? Pro­tect your guests and staff with these 5 pieces of tech­nol­o­gy that can help you solve the social dis­tanc­ing chal­lenges of today while build­ing the foun­da­tion for a bet­ter guest expe­ri­ence tomorrow.

In this fea­ture, we were thrilled to inter­view an acces­so LoQueue® leg­end, Scott Kel­ley. Kel­ley holds the unique dis­tinc­tion of being the 2^nd employ­ee hired in Amer­i­ca for our acces­so LoQueue team. As a Prod­uct Sup­port Man­ag­er, he has stepped foot in every park that has imple­ment­ed our acces­so in-park solu­tions like tick­et­ing and vir­tu­al queu­ing over the last two decades. He and his team vis­it each park to run cables, set-up the onsite equip­ment, and trou­bleshoot con­cerns once imple­men­ta­tion is com­plete. Kel­ley has also played an inte­gral role in the inno­va­tion and growth of our vir­tu­al queu­ing solutions.

It’s been quite the year for the live enter­tain­ment indus­try, but if there’s one thing the coro­n­avirus can’t can­cel, it’s the hol­i­days! At acces­so, our teams are gear­ing up to help sup­port venues as they launch their hol­i­day-themed events, and it’s been noth­ing short of inspir­ing to see the cre­ative approach­es our clients are tak­ing. We’ve seen a large increase in dri­ve-through or pop-up walk-through events fea­tur­ing movies, con­certs, cir­cus­es, hol­i­day light dis­plays and more. Make your event a suc­cess in the era of ​“6 feet apart” with our top 6 tick­et­ing tips for hol­i­day events.

With the esca­la­tion and con­tin­ued risks of COVID-19, the tra­di­tion­al process of vis­it­ing muse­ums and cul­tur­al attrac­tions has trans­formed in many ways. As vis­i­tor-fac­ing sites are begin­ning to reopen, many are find­ing that they have to rethink the vis­i­tor jour­ney end-to-end in order to facil­i­tate a seam­less, con­tact­less experience.

Find­ing ways to safe­ly serve your guests while 6‑feet-apart is no small task! Luck­i­ly, with a proac­tive approach and the right insight, you can re-imag­ine your guest jour­ney to solve the social dis­tanc­ing chal­lenges of today while build­ing a stronger foun­da­tion for tomor­row. Down­load our free e‑book to access our step-by-step guide on serv­ing guests safe­ly and suc­cess­ful­ly in the age of COVID-19. You’ll learn how guest expec­ta­tions have changed dur­ing the pan­dem­ic and what you can do to build loy­al­ty, dri­ve rev­enue and deliv­er an excep­tion­al guest experience.

There’s no doubt that the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has forced venue oper­a­tors to have some dif­fi­cult con­ver­sa­tions over the past few months — how do we reopen safe­ly? How do we staff appro­pri­ate­ly? How do we make up for lost rev­enue? While the answers often vary by indus­try, there’s one con­stant we’ve seen across all venues: the dom­i­nance of the onsite tick­et counter may soon be end­ing. In order to pro­tect staff and guests, venues are embrac­ing online tick­et­ing as their dom­i­nant sales chan­nel. This may seem like a daunt­ing process, but it doesn’t have to be! By fol­low­ing these best prac­tices, you can prime your eCom­merce store for suc­cess, safe­ly serve your guests, unlock new oppor­tu­ni­ties for max­i­miz­ing rev­enue and trans­form the guest experience. 

The impacts of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic have been intense and far-reach­ing. From the dev­as­tat­ing loss of life to the eco­nom­ic impact of indus­tries being brought to a grind­ing halt, the vast major­i­ty of peo­ple across the world have been impact­ed by this cri­sis in one way or anoth­er. As we begin to emerge from sev­er­al months of quar­an­tine, it’s encour­ag­ing to see venue oper­a­tors take care­ful steps to reopen­ing safe­ly. We are all enter­ing an age that rede­fines the norms to which all of us had become accus­tomed – a time that will most sure­ly be defined as a ​“new nor­mal,” if not a ​“new abnor­mal.” Guest expec­ta­tions will most cer­tain­ly change, and oper­a­tors will be faced with the chal­lenge (and oppor­tu­ni­ty) to meet and exceed those re-shaped expec­ta­tions. Read on to dis­cov­er 4 trends that we pre­dict will emerge from the age of social dis­tanc­ing, and what they mean for your venue.

Sum­mer 2020 can be your best camp sea­son ever with a lit­tle help from tech­nol­o­gy, which has evolved to cov­er the mul­ti­step process of camp enroll­ment – final­ly mak­ing reg­is­tra­tion and exe­cu­tion sim­ple and stress-free for both pro­gram providers and par­tic­i­pants. A cloud-based solu­tion like the new Camps Mod­ule, a fea­ture of the award-win­ning acces­so Pass­port® online tick­et­ing sys­tem, may be exact­ly what you need.

In 2019 we launched our ​“Peo­ple of acces­so” series to fea­ture some of the extra­or­di­nary indi­vid­u­als who are essen­tial to our team. We shined a spot­light on our Direc­tor of Euro­pean Tick­et­ing Oper­a­tions Robin Good­child, Prod­uct Own­er of Tick­et­ing Research and Devel­op­ment Valerie Wieren­ga and most recent­ly Glob­al Imple­men­ta­tion Direc­tor Jus­tine Dong. In this month’s fea­ture, we are excit­ed to intro­duce you to our Vice Pres­i­dent of Sales, Mechele Larmore.

You’ve put blood, sweat and tears into plan­ning the launch of your first mobile app. It’s going to be a fea­ture-rich, (most­ly) bug-free appli­ca­tion that you believe cus­tomers will love and adds val­ue to your busi­ness. You have a robust go to mar­ket strat­e­gy includ­ing thou­sands of planned dol­lars towards mar­ket­ing the app as soon as it’s released on the Apple & Google Play stores. But how do you know it’s suc­cess­ful, post-launch? How can you prove that it enhances the cus­tomer expe­ri­ence and simul­ta­ne­ous­ly dri­ves toward your company’s goals? If you can con­tin­u­al­ly prove your app’s val­ue to inter­nal deci­sion-mak­ers via cold, hard KPIs and metrics.

Noth­ing beats being able to shop from the com­fort of your own home! But with the hol­i­day sea­son in full swing, keep­ing your infor­ma­tion secure may be hard­er than you think. The increased num­ber of trans­ac­tions dur­ing this time could leave you as a prime tar­get for a mali­cious hack­er. Have no fear, we are here to help! Read on to dis­cov­er 6 secu­ri­ty tips for hol­i­day shopping.

From excit­ing trade show exhibits to enlight­en­ing edu­ca­tion­al ses­sions, the annu­al IAA­PA Expo is packed full of oppor­tu­ni­ties to learn from the bright­est minds in the attrac­tions indus­try. Each year, we leave with sev­er­al key take­aways on where the indus­try is head­ed and what attrac­tions oper­a­tors can do to posi­tion them­selves for suc­cess, and this year was no excep­tion! Read on to explore our three biggest take­aways from IAA­PA Expo 2019 and see how you can imple­ment them to cre­ate pos­i­tive guest expe­ri­ences and dri­ve increased revenue.

The sea­son for giv­ing is here! With Thanks­giv­ing soon approach­ing and end-of-the-year dona­tion cam­paigns on the hori­zon, how can you be sure your orga­ni­za­tion is max­i­miz­ing your poten­tial to do good? Read on to dis­cov­er tips for opti­miz­ing suc­cess­ful, effi­cient dona­tion campaigns.

Meet acces­so Glob­al Imple­men­ta­tion Direc­tor Jus­tine Dong, whose pas­sion, pro­fes­sion­al­ism and appetite for adven­ture have made her an invalu­able part of our team. We recent­ly sat down with Jus­tine to learn more about her time in the indus­try, what changes she’s seen over the years, and the impor­tance of expe­ri­enc­ing oth­er cultures. 

Enhanc­ing the guest expe­ri­ence is crit­i­cal to the suc­cess of your attrac­tion. Under­stand­ing where your orga­ni­za­tion shines and elim­i­nat­ing points of fric­tion can help you curate bet­ter expe­ri­ences that result in high­er spend­ing, pos­i­tive word of mouth and increased guest loy­al­ty. One area that is espe­cial­ly prone to fric­tion is the Food & Bev­er­age sphere: As guests try to expe­ri­ence every­thing you have to offer, wait­ing in line for food can cause undue frus­tra­tion. Guest expec­ta­tions are ris­ing, and with 41% of Quick-Ser­vice Restau­rant oper­a­tors plan­ning on devot­ing more resources to tech­nol­o­gy to improve the guest expe­ri­ence in the next year, expec­ta­tions will only con­tin­ue to grow. These changes can sound daunt­ing, but they don’t have to be! By embrac­ing inno­v­a­tive tech­nol­o­gy that empow­ers guests and staff alike, your orga­ni­za­tion can be well-equipped to exceed guest expec­ta­tions. Read on to dis­cov­er what your orga­ni­za­tion needs to know about F&B technology.

In the theme park and attrac­tions indus­try, there are few things as impor­tant as the hap­pi­ness of our guests. The ques­tion we should always be ask­ing our­selves is ​“how can we ensure a pos­i­tive guest expe­ri­ence that results in repeat vis­i­ta­tion?” Based on this year’s IAA­PA Expo Europe con­ver­sa­tions, this is a ques­tion that many of you are ask­ing. From the edu­ca­tion­al ses­sions to our dis­cus­sions at the booth, there was a height­ened focus on under­stand­ing and trans­form­ing the guest expe­ri­ence. Read on to dis­cov­er our most valu­able insights from the show and see how you can apply them to help you exceed guest expec­ta­tions at your park. 

Now that we have set­tled back in from a fun-filled week of learn­ing and net­work­ing at our 2019 acces­so Client Sem­i­nar in beau­ti­ful down­town Den­ver, we’re excit­ed to share the high­lights with you! From the feed­back we have already received, this was one for the record books! This year’s Client Sem­i­nar housed over 250 atten­dees from 95 client sites for in-depth soft­ware train­ing, col­lab­o­ra­tive round­table dis­cus­sions, fes­tive fall evening events and an excit­ing new ​“Answers Por­tal” unveiling!

Based on my con­ver­sa­tions at this year’s NSAA Con­fer­ence, the need to attract and retain qual­i­ty work­ers is still top of mind for ski area oper­a­tors, and with the indus­try pre­dict­ed to grow in the next five years, this need will become even more press­ing. Is your resort ready to han­dle this addi­tion­al demand? Read on to dis­cov­er best prac­tices for staffing your ski resort, from recruit­ment to reten­tion and beyond.

Today’s con­sumers have a wide vari­ety of enter­tain­ment options and out­lets vying for their atten­tion. For the­atres and per­form­ing arts cen­ters with lim­it­ed bud­gets and staff time, it can be chal­leng­ing to devel­op mar­ket­ing cam­paigns that engage patrons enough to close the sale. Luck­i­ly, there are ways to opti­mize your mar­ket­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions and tick­et­ing oper­a­tions in order to dri­ve sales and pack the house! Read on to dis­cov­er five cost-effec­tive and easy ideas for mar­ket­ing to sin­gle tick­et buyers.

The idea of lever­ag­ing data to tai­lor cus­tomer expe­ri­ences is not a new one, but in the wake of recent high-pro­file data usage scan­dals, it is cer­tain­ly under­stand­able that both con­sumers and busi­ness­es are wary of the prac­tice. How­ev­er, though four out of five con­sumers are con­cerned about data pri­va­cy, recent stud­ies have found that the major­i­ty of con­sumers are will­ing to share per­son­al data in order to be pro­vid­ed with mar­ket­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions more unique­ly suit­ed to them. In fact, 72% of con­sumers will only engage with per­son­al­ized mar­ket­ing messages!

I hear it all the time in my trav­els vis­it­ing large and small venues across North Amer­i­ca: from sports are­nas to non-prof­it the­atres, venues just do not have enough time and labor resources to pro­vide the cus­tomer ser­vice they wish they could. Bud­gets are tight and labor costs con­tin­ue to rise, result­ing in lean­er box office oper­a­tions and often, stressed out staff. The solu­tion in the past has been to either reduce box office hours or cut back on staff, but there’s a third option: to extend your tick­et­ing oper­a­tions with a white label call cen­ter. Read on to dis­cov­er three ways that part­ner­ing with a white label call cen­ter can ben­e­fit your venue.

A client sem­i­nar is a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to learn from indus­try experts. Atten­dees have the chance to par­tic­i­pate in ses­sions that focus on spe­cif­ic edu­ca­tion­al top­ics, ask ques­tions and share ideas with oth­er atten­dees. Most client sem­i­nars act as an inten­sive train­ing camp that usu­al­ly take place over the course of sev­er­al days. From inter­ac­tive time with a new prod­uct to open dis­cus­sions, mul­ti­ple speak­ers and teach­ers take the time to share their per­spec­tives and help­ful hints relat­ed to the top­ics at hand. Attend­ing a client sem­i­nar pro­vides many ben­e­fits, includ­ing improv­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills, gain­ing expert knowl­edge, and renew­ing moti­va­tion and confidence.

Scarci­ty is a pow­er­ful dri­ver in pur­chas­ing behav­ior. Con­sumers tend to place addi­tion­al val­ue on items they believe are in lim­it­ed sup­ply or dif­fi­cult to acquire, mak­ing them more inclined to pur­chase. If you’re not lever­ag­ing the prin­ci­ple of scarci­ty to sell tick­ets and pro­mote events at your venue, you are miss­ing out on a great oppor­tu­ni­ty! (See what we did there?). Read on to dis­cov­er new ideas for using scarci­ty in your mar­ket­ing pro­mo­tions so you can sell more tick­ets, increase rev­enue and reach new audiences.

One of the biggest oppor­tu­ni­ties for rev­enue growth in insti­tu­tions of all sizes is third par­ty tick­et sales, but this can be eas­i­ly off­set by the labor bur­den of rec­on­cil­ing vouch­ers. Luck­i­ly, there’s a fix for the old-school vouch­er process with Ingres­so, our real-time dis­tri­b­u­tion plat­form that uti­lizes a sin­gle dig­i­tal con­nec­tion to allow venues to sell live inven­to­ry direct­ly from their muse­um admis­sions soft­ware. With a dig­i­tal rein­ven­tion of your third-par­ty live tick­et sales, you might won­der what you’ll do with your new-found time when your insti­tu­tion stops sell­ing tick­et vouch­ers. Below are some ideas. 

From inter­na­tion­al con­glom­er­ates to sin­gle-loca­tion attrac­tions, ski resorts to live enter­tain­ment venues, pop­u­lar his­tor­i­cal sites and more, every busi­ness relies on a chain of sup­pli­ers to keep day-to-day oper­a­tions run­ning smooth­ly. And, regard­less of mar­ket seg­ment, scope of oper­a­tions or num­ber of employ­ees, every busi­ness can ben­e­fit from tak­ing a clos­er look at how to make the most of each link in their chain.

Our 2019 acces­so Client Sem­i­nar is an oppor­tu­ni­ty to receive hands-on soft­ware train­ing, meet new peo­ple and explore the excit­ing city of Den­ver. Learn more about the tracks we’re offer­ing this year and explore what’s new in our blog!

Let’s start with two sim­ple ques­tions. Are mem­bers impor­tant to your insti­tu­tion? Is time impor­tant to our mem­bers? If we can answer affir­ma­tive­ly to both, then why do we often unin­ten­tion­al­ly cre­ate hur­dles to their expe­ri­ence inter­act­ing with our insti­tu­tions? Whether due to lack of time or resources, we often miss oppor­tu­ni­ties to increase, serve and retain our mem­bers bet­ter. But it doesn’t have to be that way! Ryan Bur­tram shares five insights into how you can bet­ter attract, retain, and engage members.

Last week, the acces­so team trav­eled to sun­ny San Diego for the 2019 Nation­al Ski Areas Asso­ci­a­tion Tradeshow and Con­fer­ence to meet with some of the great­est minds in the indus­try. We left the event feel­ing inspired and excit­ed about the future of the ski indus­try! Read on to hear why.

It’s the end of snow sea­son and sea­son pass sales are well under­way. Are you focused on the right areas to ensure a strong sale? Read on to dis­cov­er our top sev­en tips for increas­ing ski sea­son pass sales. 

A tick­et is one of a venue’s most prized pos­ses­sions. Every sin­gle tick­et rep­re­sents an oppor­tu­ni­ty to pro­vide a mem­o­rable expe­ri­ence to a con­sumer, and every tick­et sale gets you one step fur­ther to a sold-out show. Work­ing with dis­trib­u­tors and pro­mot­ers can be an amaz­ing way to push that last bit of tick­et inven­to­ry over the thresh­old and reach new audi­ences, but if you’re using tick­et vouch­ers or bulk tick­ets, have you con­sid­ered all of the risks? Read on to dis­cov­er sev­en rea­sons why you should stop sell­ing tick­et vouch­ers, and how you can do so with­out dis­rupt­ing your valu­able partnerships.

It’s that time again! Sea­son renew­al time can be both exhil­a­rat­ing and stress­ful for a venue. There are so many excit­ing pos­si­bil­i­ties of get­ting patrons offi­cial­ly signed on for anoth­er won­der­ful year of pro­gram­ming, yet so many pieces and parts to jug­gle – from deci­sions on pric­ing struc­tures to sea­son mail­ers, adver­tis­ing and more. Are you focus­ing on the right areas to ensure a smooth tran­si­tion for your loy­al cus­tomers and new sub­scribers? Read on to dis­cov­er our top sev­en tips for a suc­cess­ful renew­al season! 

Tick­et spoof­ing is a major prob­lem fac­ing the tick­et­ing indus­try. Every day, our acces­so ShoWare tick­et­ing call cen­ter receives at least one phone call from an upset patron who has fall­en vic­tim to one of these schemes, con­vinced that an unscrupu­lous ven­dor was actu­al­ly the pri­ma­ry tick­et­ing source for an event. These sto­ries can be heart­break­ing, and unfor­tu­nate­ly, there is very lit­tle that can be done once the tick­ets have been pur­chased. Once the patron real­izes they pur­chased from a bro­ker, it can be chal­leng­ing to help them under­stand it was actu­al­ly their error. Read on to dis­cov­er the lat­est tac­tics used by these ven­dors and our best advice for tack­ling this issue.

In Octo­ber, we kicked off the ​“Peo­ple of acces­so” blog series with the goal of high­light­ing some of the incred­i­ble and pas­sion­ate pro­fes­sion­als that make up the acces­so team. Begin­ning with CEO Paul Noland and on to EMEA Direc­tor of Tick­et­ing Oper­a­tions Robin Good­child, we’ve returned to the states to share some insight from one of the lead­ers of our office in Lake Mary, Flori­da – acces­so Prod­uct Own­er of Tick­et­ing Research and Devel­op­ment Valerie Wieren­ga – to take a clos­er look at the acces­so com­pa­ny cul­ture, the impor­tance of invest­ing in oth­ers and what it’s like to be a woman in technology.

As a mem­ber of the QA team at acces­so, I spend most of my time test­ing enhance­ments and fix­es that are request­ed or sug­gest­ed by our clients for our acces­so Sir­iusware POS soft­ware. It‘s reward­ing to help our clients with these spe­cif­ic requests, and often, the result­ing improve­ment is some­thing that all clients can uti­lize. Here’s a glimpse into client-dri­ven devel­op­ment and three recent fea­tures that have come about as a result of requests from our customers.

In the fast-paced enter­tain­ment and leisure indus­tries, change is the ulti­mate con­stant. In order to stay on top of these changes and remain com­pet­i­tive in the mar­ket­place, busi­ness lead­ers are embrac­ing con­tin­u­ous learn­ing pro­grams as a way to nur­ture their most valu­able assets – their peo­ple. Read on to dis­cov­er what is dri­ving the need for con­tin­u­ous learn­ing and to explore options that make sense for your orga­ni­za­tion, whether you are a theme park, muse­um or ski area!

At acces­so, many of our team mem­bers come from back­grounds work­ing with­in the indus­tries we serve. We pride our­selves on being expe­ri­enced oper­a­tors who run a tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny serv­ing the attrac­tions space, ver­sus a tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny that hap­pens to serve the market. 

acces­so EMEA Direc­tor of Tick­et­ing Oper­a­tions Robin Good­child is a shin­ing exam­ple of this, hav­ing spent 16 years in amuse­ment and attrac­tions man­age­ment before join­ing the acces­so fam­i­ly. His pas­sion for peo­ple first attract­ed him to the indus­try in 2000 and has served as the dri­ving force of his career ever since. So, we sat down with Robin to learn more about his time in the indus­try, his change of course to the sup­pli­er side and what he sees as the great­est pri­or­i­ties for our Euro­pean clients. 

Every busi­ness wants to cre­ate an amaz­ing app expe­ri­ence, some­thing that increas­es con­ver­sions and has lov­able and use­ful fea­tures all wrapped up in an engag­ing user inter­face. Imple­ment­ing effec­tive mar­ket­ing copy with­in your app is equal­ly impor­tant, yet is often under­stat­ed. It’s easy to think that engag­ing web­site copy will trans­late into sim­i­lar­ly engag­ing app copy, but that isn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly the case. We’ve come up with these 5 tips to remove that learn­ing curve and give your in-app mar­ket­ing a boost to grow user sat­is­fac­tion, increase app store rat­ings and dri­ve con­ver­sions for your brand. 

It’s the stereo­typ­i­cal tribu­la­tion of vis­it­ing a theme park: stand­ing in line for seem­ing­ly hours on end, sweat­ing in the hot sum­mer heat, packed into stalls like cat­tle with hordes of impa­tient and scream­ing chil­dren. Oh, if only one could avoid all that! As many oper­a­tors know, that’s quite possible.

It’s that time again! Sea­son renew­al time can be both exhil­a­rat­ing and stress­ful for a venue. There are so many excit­ing pos­si­bil­i­ties of get­ting patrons offi­cial­ly signed on for anoth­er won­der­ful year of pro­gram­ming, yet so many pieces and parts to jug­gle – from deci­sions on pric­ing struc­tures to sea­son mail­ers, adver­tis­ing and more. Are you focus­ing on the right areas to ensure a smooth tran­si­tion for your loy­al cus­tomers and new sub­scribers? Read on to dis­cov­er our top sev­en tips for a suc­cess­ful renew­al season! 

In the the­atre world, con­nect­ing with new audi­ences is extreme­ly reward­ing. Yes, open­ing night per­for­mances and sold-out hous­es are both excit­ing and grat­i­fy­ing, but at the end of the day, there’s noth­ing quite as spe­cial as know­ing that you helped an audi­ence mem­ber dis­cov­er a per­for­mance, an idea or sto­ry for the very first time. Our Ingres­so solu­tion is designed to fuel expe­ri­ences just like that by con­nect­ing events to new audi­ences from all around the world. We are pleased to be part­ner­ing with the Adel­phi The­atre in London’s West End to intro­duce audi­ences to the Tony Award-nom­i­nat­ed hit musi­cal Wait­ress this year. It’s com­mon to hear of shows that promise some­thing for every­one, but Wait­ress has so many dif­fer­ent lay­ers and mes­sages, and car­ries an incred­i­ble back­sto­ry of empow­er­ment that can inspire many peo­ple in dif­fer­ent ways.

The world today is more con­nect­ed than ever, and we real­ize our busi­ness not only impacts our clients and employ­ees but the glob­al com­mu­ni­ty as well. That’s why we pro­vide vol­un­teer time each year for our team mem­bers to give back to a char­i­ta­ble orga­ni­za­tion of their choice.

We are less than a week away from one of the attrac­tion industry’s largest trade shows of the year. The Inter­na­tion­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Amuse­ment Parks and Attrac­tions (IAA­PA) will soon be bring­ing attrac­tions, sup­pli­ers and ven­dors togeth­er for a week of edu­ca­tion and col­lab­o­ra­tion in Orlan­do, Flori­da for the 100^th anniver­sary Expo! Sev­er­al trade shows come and go through­out the year, but are you tak­ing advan­tage of all the great oppor­tu­ni­ties they can pro­vide to you and your com­pa­ny? Whether you are think­ing about attend­ing a trade show for the first time or going to your 50^th show, make sure you are ben­e­fit­ing from every­thing they have to offer!

We’ve just returned from a week of learn­ing, net­work­ing and fun at our 2018 acces­so Client Sem­i­nar in sun­ny San Diego, and based on the feed­back we’ve received, this has been one of the best years yet! It was so much fun to catch up with famil­iar faces and to meet some of our new clients. This year, we were pleased to wel­come over 225 atten­dees from 106 venues for inten­sive soft­ware train­ing, col­lab­o­ra­tive round­table ses­sions, breezy beach­side break­fasts and trop­i­cal-themed evening events. Read on to dis­cov­er more high­lights from our week in paradise.

A hot top­ic in and around muse­ums is the vis­i­tor jour­ney. Not just reserved for the muse­um com­mu­ni­ty but in many expe­ri­en­tial leisure indus­tries, the guest jour­ney has become cen­tral to con­ver­sa­tions around road map­ping, plan­ning, exhi­bi­tion prepa­ra­tion and engage­ment in gen­er­al. If your venue has not yet begun this explo­ration, you may be ask­ing what is a jour­ney map and why is it impor­tant to my orga­ni­za­tion? Read on to dis­cov­er why jour­ney map­ping is impor­tant and what it can do for your cul­tur­al institution.

Turn­ing a guest’s ini­tial vis­it to your eCom­merce site into a sale is the goal of every busi­ness but as we all know, inter­rup­tions often get in the way. Many vis­i­tors are sim­ply brows­ing, with no intent to pur­chase. Oth­ers may be in the process of research­ing and com­par­ing options; still more may sim­ply just get dis­tract­ed. Recent research sug­gests that there are over 1.6 bil­lion web­sites in the world, so how do you ensure that yours is primed for suc­cess? As a fol­low-up to our blog on max­i­miz­ing eCom­merce sales, we’ve got three more eCom­merce site fea­ture tips that can help you close the sale!

His­tor­i­cal­ly, muse­ums and cul­tur­al insti­tu­tions have relied heav­i­ly on large annu­al gifts from gen­er­ous phil­an­thropists to ensure upkeep and oper­a­tion. How­ev­er, while aging baby boomers cur­rent­ly play a high-pro­file role in char­i­ta­ble giv­ing, they will soon make way for the next gen­er­a­tion of donors. Gen X and mil­len­ni­al phil­an­thropists are like­ly to change the land­scape for dona­tions, and oper­a­tors in the cul­tur­al mar­ket must adapt to meet future fundrais­ing goals.

It’s hard to believe that in less than 3 months, we will be pack­ing our bags and head­ing to sun­ny San Diego for a week of learn­ing and relax­ation in par­adise! In our last blog, we cov­ered how an indi­vid­ual can jus­ti­fy a trip to acces­so Client Sem­i­nar for them­selves, but what if you’re still not con­vinced it’s right for your team? Maybe you’ve attend­ed a few times in the past and are ques­tion­ing the val­ue of return­ing. Allow us to present 3 com­pelling rea­sons why you (or some­one from your busi­ness) should attend our acces­so Client Sem­i­nar.

As tech­nol­o­gy pro­fes­sion­als with back­grounds in the theme park, cul­tur­al and attrac­tions indus­tries, we know that gain­ing new cus­tomers is vital to the con­tin­ued suc­cess of any venue. How­ev­er, it’s impor­tant to remem­ber that a tick­et sale is only the start­ing point. Once a guest has pur­chased a tick­et, what’s next? Ide­al­ly, the answer is: an expe­ri­ence that dri­ves more sales. Whether you’re in the attrac­tions indus­try, a retail envi­ron­ment or B2B ser­vice, upselling is a crit­i­cal com­po­nent in dri­ving rev­enue. While most indus­try pro­fes­sion­als under­stand the ins and outs of upselling, it’s impor­tant that the prac­tice of upselling not get lost in the ever-present dri­ve to attract new guests. 

Work­ing in the leisure and enter­tain­ment indus­tries can be excit­ing and exhil­a­rat­ing. Whether you man­age ski resort tick­et­ing or a per­form­ing arts cen­ter box office, you are part of the priv­i­leged few who often enjoy behind-the-scenes access to every­thing your venue has to offer. At the same time, it takes quite a lot of pas­sion and ded­i­ca­tion (and some­times, a few extra cups of cof­fee) to bal­ance all of the unique aspects that come with man­ag­ing venues. Do you need a fresh dose of inspi­ra­tion, insight and some R&R, too? What if you could get all of that in a trop­i­cal set­ting and trans­form your career dur­ing the same week? Well, you can! Pack your lap­top, sun­screen and flip flops, and get ready to join us in sun­ny San Diego, CA from Sep­tem­ber 16^th-21^st for acces­so Client Sem­i­nar 2018!

It’s lunchtime at your theme park and the lines are wrapped all the way around the piz­za shop next to your newest thrill ride. Your guests are get­ting impa­tient, the staff is feel­ing slammed and it’s only 12pm. If only you could direct your guests to the piz­za shop in the kids’ area that has vir­tu­al­ly no lines. Now, you can!

A loca­tion-based expe­ri­ence man­age­ment plat­form is a tool that allows venues to send real-time, inter­ac­tive con­tent to vis­i­tors before they arrive, dur­ing their vis­it and after they leave. Orga­ni­za­tions from theme parks to hotels, quick-ser­vice restau­rants to hos­pi­tals are lever­ag­ing this tool to cre­ate bet­ter expe­ri­ences for their guests that pay off in a mul­ti­tude of ways.

Man­ag­ing a sin­gle venue can be chal­leng­ing and com­plex, so when your busi­ness grows to include mul­ti­ple loca­tions, it can be dif­fi­cult to find ways to accom­mo­date that growth with­out see­ing expo­nen­tial increas­es in cost – and gray hairs! Luck­i­ly, new advances in tech­nol­o­gy have made it eas­i­er than ever to man­age oper­a­tions across mul­ti­ple venues. Mak­ing sure you have a clear plan for man­ag­ing your tick­et­ing and point-of-sale imple­men­ta­tion can do won­ders for reduc­ing stress, stream­lin­ing oper­a­tions and help­ing you scale your busi­ness in a way that ben­e­fits your bot­tom line.

As with many in our indus­try, my jour­ney has tak­en me from oper­a­tions to sup­port, from front line to lead­er­ship, and from Orlan­do to around the world. The one con­stant that I can always count on in any role or any cul­ture is that world class guest ser­vice is always paramount.

With the abun­dance of cus­tomer touch-points avail­able today, ensur­ing that each inter­ac­tion with your fans is as effi­cient, seam­less and mean­ing­ful as pos­si­ble is crit­i­cal to acquir­ing and main­tain­ing loy­al­ty. And, as the cus­tomer expe­ri­ence begins long before they step foot onsite, nowhere is this more impor­tant than with the pur­chase of a ticket.

Con­grat­u­la­tions! Your com­pa­ny has decid­ed on a new soft­ware solu­tion to bet­ter fit the needs of your com­pa­ny and the clients you ser­vice. Now what?

Accord­ing to research con­duct­ed by the Nation­al Ski Areas Asso­ci­a­tion (NSAA), the indus­try has faced two pri­ma­ry chal­lenges in recent sea­sons: the aging out of its core tar­get demo­graph­ic, as baby boomers begin to move away from ath­let­i­cal­ly-dri­ven vaca­tions and activ­i­ties, and expense. How­ev­er, with the help of impact­ful tech­nol­o­gy, you can seize the oppor­tu­ni­ty to craft mean­ing­ful expe­ri­ences that your skiers want and deliv­er them in valu­able ways that break down the price barrier.

There is an over­whelm­ing amount of pres­sure these days on tech com­pa­nies to cre­ate a mil­len­ni­al-mind­ed work­place. A place with per­son­al­i­ty and cul­ture. Some­where its peo­ple can go to have break­fast, play games, hang out with their friends, and make a sol­id cap­puc­ci­no with the per­fect amount of froth. A place with good bones and thought­ful lead­ers who are sup­port­ive, inclu­sive and flex­i­ble; who aren’t afraid to show­er their teams with the recog­ni­tion they deserve for a job well-done. Most­ly – and, impor­tant­ly – they’re seek­ing a great place to work; to col­lab­o­rate and inno­vate on chal­leng­ing new ideas; to learn and to grow pro­fes­sion­al­ly and, per­haps, per­son­al­ly (if they’re lucky).

Whether your skiers choose the high-tech route or a less-con­nect­ed approach, they all ben­e­fit from the incred­i­ble amount of tech­no­log­i­cal invest­ment that has been made across the ski indus­try over the past decade. Let’s take a look at where this invest­ment has been in the past, where it is cur­rent­ly and where we see this head­ed in the future.

As we enter the new year, we want to take the time to reflect on 2017, cel­e­brat­ing the inno­va­tions and acqui­si­tions that have pro­pelled acces­so even fur­ther as a lead­ing inter­na­tion­al tech­nol­o­gy solu­tions provider, and to take a look at what 2018 has in store for the mar­kets and indus­tries we are so proud to serve.

As 2018 quick­ly approach­es, it’s time for orga­ni­za­tions to give seri­ous thought to how they will address the cus­tomer expe­ri­ence in the com­ing year. In recent years, com­pa­nies in all indus­tries have rec­og­nized that it’s no longer safe to com­pete on prod­uct and price alone, and have pri­or­i­tized cus­tomer expe­ri­ence (CX) efforts accord­ing­ly. Increas­ing­ly, mar­keters are tak­ing a data-dri­ven approach to CX that allows them to deliv­er high­ly-per­son­al­ized, immer­sive expe­ri­ences that make cus­tomers feel spe­cial and want to return to their brand again and again. As a result, we antic­i­pate that 2018 will bring the high­est expec­ta­tions for a valu­able and mem­o­rable expe­ri­ence from cus­tomers yet, as well as the high­est risk of los­ing these cus­tomers to the com­peti­tors who can beat you to it.

User Test­ing is the prac­tice of con­nect­ing with real users to observe them inter­act­ing with your prod­uct and to under­stand the goals they want to achieve while using it. It often sur­faces pain points in the dig­i­tal expe­ri­ence that may be a bar­ri­er to achiev­ing these goals. This insight is indis­pens­able to build­ing a prod­uct that users real­ly want, will con­tin­ue to use, and will ulti­mate­ly rec­om­mend to oth­ers. Sim­ply put, User Test­ing can be an effec­tive way to pre­dict your Theme Park app’s suc­cess and profitability.

Mil­len­ni­als make up the largest gen­er­a­tion to date, rep­re­sent­ing more than one quar­ter of the Unit­ed States’ pop­u­la­tion and pos­sess­ing more than $600 bil­lion in buy­ing pow­er each year. By 2020, mil­len­ni­als are expect­ed to account for 30 per­cent of retail sales in the Unit­ed States.

Edu­ca­tion, net­work­ing, col­lab­o­ra­tion and some pret­ty stel­lar musi­cal per­for­mances – where can you find all of these things in one place? At our acces­so Sir­iusware client seminar!

There will always be con­sumers who wish to deal in cash or swipe their actu­al cred­it card. But for those want­i­ng to refrain from more tra­di­tion­al forms of pay­ment and set­tle the score in oth­er ways, there are a vari­ety of new cash­less pay­ment options to save the day.

Sep­tem­ber has a ten­den­cy to sneak up on us in the theme park indus­try. With the begin­ning of the school year upon us, and the care­free sum­mer days behind us, it’s now time to focus on con­tin­u­ing the momen­tum into the fall. For many of our Clients, this means cel­e­brat­ing the next excit­ing hol­i­day, Hal­loween! Beyond the spooky dec­o­ra­tions and cos­tumed staff mem­bers, what can we do to help make these pro­mo­tions a suc­cess? After a sen­sa­tion­al sum­mer, how can we dri­ve sales and rev­enue? You may be sur­prised to find that mak­ing a few sim­ple changes to your eCom­merce site can help ful­fill both of these objec­tives. Here are a few tips that can help.

Have you ever expe­ri­enced cred­it or deb­it card theft? If so, you know the com­pli­cat­ed series of emo­tions that fol­low: con­cern, fear, anger, and inevitably a lot of frus­tra­tion as you deal with clos­ing your card and open­ing a new one. It can be exhaust­ing, and when it’s all said and done, not an expe­ri­ence that you want to repeat. Some­times it’s tempt­ing to play detec­tive and fig­ure out where the theft occurred in the first place. When a store has lost your trust in this way, do you think you would be inclined to return?

Run­ning a major enter­tain­ment venue isn’t all fun and games. Guests come to relax and enjoy them­selves, but oper­a­tors know that behind the scenes, it can be a chal­leng­ing busi­ness. Quite a lot of hard work and inno­va­tion go into pro­duc­ing that expe­ri­ence for the vis­i­tors. Savvy oper­a­tors are con­stant­ly on the look­out for how they can improve that expe­ri­ence, while reduc­ing over­all costs and stream­line their operation.

We’ve been work­ing hard to release many new fea­tures and enhance­ments in our acces­so ShoWare solu­tion. In fact, so many fea­tures have been com­ing out that we cre­at­ed a mes­sag­ing sys­tem to alert our clients to new enhance­ments every time they log into the site.

Katie Reil­ly intro­duces us to our acces­so ShoWare solu­tion’s new enhanced check­out and how it can help increase con­ver­sions in your eCom­merce store.

Wen­di Yanez presents cre­ative uses for patron account cred­its, a fea­ture of our acces­so ShoWare solu­tion which allows a bal­ance to be held on a customer’s account for future use. 

Drew Bel­mont dis­cuss­es how our acces­so ShoWare solu­tion’s inte­gra­tion with Good­Da­ta pro­vides advanced ana­lyt­ics and report­ing capabilities.