TA Live! Ticket Alternative Blog

Ticket Alternative sponsors the January GAPTA meeting.

Ticket Alternative was proud to sponsor the January GAPTA meeting held at the South West Arts Center in Atlanta. The bi-monthly meeting is attended by members of the ticketing industry in Georgia. The members include staff from the Atlanta Ballet, Atlanta Braves, Atlanta Falcons, Frederick J Brown Amphitheatre, Ticketmaster, Atlantix, Cobb Energy Center, Fabulous Fox Theater, Georgia Dome, Center For Puppetry Arts, Rialto Center for the Performing Arts and many more.

Every other month, the group gets together to share industry experience and discuss relevant topics over lunch. The meeting is held at a different venue each time and provides an opportunity to tour each venue and see their ticketing operations.

If you're interested in joining the group, please visit www.gapta.info or visit them on Facebook

Hard Rock Cafe Nashville Signs on with Ticket Alternative!

We're very excited to welcome Hard Rock Cafe into our fold of rapidly-increasing venues! We've worked with Hard Rock Nashville a few times in the past, but are now officially their ticket outlet.

And they're just added some great new shows:

Darryl "DMC" McDaniels w/ Broken Frame & November Monday, December 28, 2009 - 8:00 PM Tickets are at Ticket Alternative.

An Evening with Bucky Covington Tuesday, December 29, 2009 - 8:00 PM Tickets are at Ticket Alternative.

Sweethearts of the Rodeo Wednesday, December 30, 2009 - 8:00 PM Tickets are at Ticket Alternative.

Free T-Shirt & Koozie with any Gift Certificate Purchase - Black Friday Only!

Ticket Alternative is pleased to announce it's first ever Black Friday Special!

Receive a free Ticket Alternative t-shirt and koozie with the purchase of any Gift Certificate on Friday, November 27th only.

It's Easy! Simply place your order online here and we'll contact you to get your t-shirt size. Orders must be placed before 11:59pm on Friday November 27th.

Our Gift Certificates never expire and can be used for events at venues nationwide such as:

• Black Cat & Rock and Roll Hotel (DC),
• Juanita's & The Rev Room (AR)
• The Earl, Smith's, & the Loft (GA)
• Fredrick J. Brown Amphitheater - Coming in 2010 (GA)
• The Rock (MN)

And, don't forget about events like these:

• Various New Year's Eve Parties
• Taste Of Atlanta
• Decatur Beer Festival
• Naperville Ribfest

Choose from $25, $50, or $75 or $100 denominations. They are good for ANY event we sell tickets to.

What are you waiting for? Click here to give the gift of Ticket Alternative Events & Concerts nationwide.

 

Ticket Alternative donates a tree to Wednesday's Child program

On Saturday, November 21st, Ticket Alternative participated in an event that saw several local companies donate trees and presents to the Wednesdays' Child program at a Holiday party at the Hard Rock Cafe in Atlanta. Wednesday’s Child is a successful program that is part of the Freddie Mac Foundation’s national campaign to increase the number of adoptions of children in foster care.

TA employees Twans and Melinda along with company president Iain Bluett donated and decorated a tree, and placed presents around it. Wednesday's Child - Georgia is a partnership of the Freddie Mac Foundation, WAGA Fox 5 Atlanta, and the Georgia Department of Family and Children Services Adoption Unit and was filmed for a segment that will air on Fox 5 Atlanta on Christmas Day.

Several children visited with Santa and were treated to a fantastic lunch by the Hard Rock Cafe. The Camp Jam band performed during the party!

For more information visit: www.wednesdayschildga.com / www.myfoxatlanta.com

Check out the pictures below:

 
 
 
 
 
 

Up and Comers. Under 40 and rising.

From the article in the November 13th edition of the Atlanta Business Chronicle

Jamie Dwyer
age 38
Ticket Alternative

For concert-goers and music buffs, Jamie Dwyer is a hero.

The native Atlantan is co-founder and CEO of Ticket Alternative, which provides ticket sales for events without the burden of costly fees charged by some ticket agencies.

Dwyer oversees the numbers and strategy for the company, bringing to the table his passion for offering an affordable service in an industry often maligned for shady pricing practices.

Dwyer launched Ticket Alternative in 2004 with his friend Iain Bluett. By keeping service fees low, Ticket Alternative found it could increase the number of advance ticket sales for clients. Today the company does business in 48 states and has managed ticketing for more than 10,000 events.

Working with venues in Atlanta including The Loft and Smith’s Old Bar, the Atlanta upstart prints millions of tickets for independent distribution throughout the U.S. and now in the United Kingdom.

Most recently, Dwyer found himself thrust onto a national stage, speaking before government officials, when Live Nation and Ticketmaster announced their merger into Live Nation Entertainment. Since then, Ticket Alternative has seen its growth explode and has been working with larger venues as word of mouth spreads — led by Dwyer’s efforts to expand the company’s reach.

But Dwyer also holds the ticket to community involvement. He works closely with the 500 Songs for Kids Foundation, which provides musical entertainment to children in the hospital. Dwyer has been instrumental in helping to raise funds for the foundation and spread the word about the foundation’s cause.

Read the article here

A Fine Alternative. A Midtown Service Takes On Ticketmaster

From the article in the November edition of Atlanta Magazine
By Charles Bethea

Long before Ticketmaster’s merger with Live Nation was proposed last February, Iain Bluett was a stocky, lilting Brit hawking Polo at Lenox in 1992. “The Buckhead women would come in for their boyfriends, and I’d end up taking them out. The accent, you know,” he laughs. Now in his “mid-to-late thirties,” Bluett operates Midtown-based Ticket Alternative, a company that provides tickets for 400 venues nationwide. Most clients are music-related (though minor league baseball and college basketball have lately joined the roster), and three-quarters of them are based in Atlanta. First came Vinyl, then the Loft. Dozens followed.

Founded in 2004, Ticket Alternative did $6 million in revenue last year with a staff of about twenty employees. Bluett’s David slings rocks at the Ticketmaster Goliath—widely despised for its 40 percent surcharge and for controlling ticket sales for roughly 80 percent of U.S. entertainment venues. Where Ticketmaster or Live Nation can make about $5 off a $10 ticket, Ticket Alternative earns around $2.75. “It’s not hard to be cheaper than Ticketmaster,” Bluett says. “But we also have an in-house call center that does real client support. You can call and ask about parking or bringing booze.”

Bluett is also a former keyboardist for Atlanta band Film (originally fronted by Michael Johns of American Idol fame), whose taste tends toward pop and British rock. It was his love of the music industry—coupled with a distaste for Ticketmaster—that provided the impetus for the company. Also, Bluett’s online Atlanta Music Guide (with album reviews and concert updates) now gets some 70,000 page views per month. “Iain isn’t some CEO in a penthouse that can’t be reached,” says Patrick Hill, a concert promoter at the Earl who’s used Ticket Alternative since 2006. “I can actually call and talk to him. Ticketing services are often the first interaction a customer has with a venue, and we like the interaction Iain offers.”

Read the article here

The Frederick Brown, Jr. Amphitheater Switches from Ticketmaster to Ticket Alternative

We're excited to announce that Ticket Alternative has its first Ticketmaster venue in Georgia to switch over! Below is the press release from the venue:

***

"The Fred" has built its reputation through the years on small town values that have extended in part to providing superior customer service to a loyal and passionate customer base.  Being accessible and friendly is often cited by these customers as the reason the 2,500 seat venue is chosen over others to attend summer concerts under the stars.   

In 2005 the venue entered into a contract with Ticketmaster to provide ticketing services for the concert series that ran throughout the summer. The Fred has been utilizing this service through the box office and other outlets for the past four years. Some might say that this change adversely affected the home-town service once offered through the rustic box office nestled in the trees.   

In 2010 there will be a change. After examining several ticketing options and looking over numerous proposals, Atlanta based Ticket Alternative has been selected as the ticketing vendor of choice for The Fred.  

INTIX Quarterly article in Venues Today Magazine

(taken from Venues Today October 2009 edition)

On The Offensive
Ticketing companies get aggressive for regional business.
By Dave Brooks

History has a funny way of repeating itself. In 2002 when Daren Libonati and his group at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, launched their own in-house ticketing system, many wondered if the Paciolan-powered platform could hold its own against uber-robust Ticketmaster.

Fast forward to 2009, and Libonati is again asking if the provider is up for the job. Despite nearly seven years of impeccable functionality in a building that consistently ranks among the top 10-grossing facilities worldwide, changes in the marketplace have put another question mark around the Irvine, Calif.-based company.

Ticket Alternative in this month's Venues Today Magazine

 Ticket Alternative got a couple of mentions in this month's Venues Today Magazine.

First, the magazine profiled Ticket Alternative President Iain Bluett. Here's a transcript of the piece.

Hometown: Barnstaple in Devon, England
Pet Peeves: Not delivering something on time.
Hobbies: I love music and playing keyboards. I've recently started taking lessons flying airplanes.
Favorite sports team: Manchester United
What would you be doing if you weren't in the industry?: I would probably be managing bands. I used to work with this band called The Hiss
Favorite part of your job: Going to concerts. I go to as many as I can.
Hardest part about your job: Working five days a week and not four.
Most memorable event ever attended: Oasis playing the Tabernacle in Atlanta. I went back to London in July and saw them play with 90,000 at Wembley Stadium.
Who would play at your dream concert: Piedmont Park show featuring a Stone Roses reunion with Oasis and Fat Boy Slim.
One thing people would be surprised to learn. I'm a really good cook. I love to cook Indian food.
Best advice ever received: If the job is worth doing, it's worth doing well.

Also profiled this month were Dee Dee Hill of Smith's Tix/DataTix and Jan Addison of the Orange County Convention Center.

The Rock Nightclub - tickets now available

We're super proud to announce our latest venue signing. Drum roll please....... The Rock in Maplewood MN joins the Ticket Alternative family. The Rock Nightclub is the Metro's Premier Live Music Venue.

Visit their official website www.TheRockNightClub.com or follow them on Twitter @TheRockMN

Tickets for all shows are now available with more being added!

Current events on sale

Sept 23
D12
[find tickets]

Oct 1
Five Finger Death Punch
[find tickets]

Oct 9
Chevelle & Halestorm
tickets

Oct 11
Soulfly & Prong
[find tickets]

Oct 12
Fair to Midland
[find tickets]

Oct 21
Kittie & Soil
[find tickets]

Oct 25
69 Eyes
[find tickets]

Oct 26
Powerman 5000
[find tickets]

Nov 13
Flaw
[find tickets]

Dec 9
Hatebreed
[find tickets]

Ticket Alternative UK Ltd announces a new website - UKEventwristbands.com

On Saturday, August 15th Ticket Alternative UK Ltd launched a brand new website to allow customers order Tyvek event wristbands online. The website www.UKEventwristbands.com went live to support the growing demand for the company's latest product Tyvek® event wristbands.

"So many of our clients were requesting wristbands along with their printed tickets, that it was an obvious move for us" commented company president Iain Bluett. "We started selling them from our main site in the UK www.ticketalternative.co.uk, but the demand was so great that we knew we needed a seperate website just to be able to list all the different colors, styles and patterns."

The wristbands are sold in multiples of 250 for only £12.48 plus shipping. As ever, as long as you place your order by 3pm GMT your wristbands will ship the same day.

Visit the website online at www.UKEventwristbands.com

Black Cat in Washington DC switches from Ticketmaster to Ticket Alternative

Black Cat in Washington DC will begin selling tickets with Ticket Alternative instead of Ticketmaster. The first show listed with TA will be The Charlatans on October 3rd.

10 million tickets in stock!

In addition to advance ticket sales, we also print millions of tickets each year for independent distribution across the US. Our sister company, T.A. Ticket Printing, prints over 500,000 tickets a month from TAHQ in Midtown in Atlanta. You can go online and choose from over 60 different designs and colors. You can design your ticket online with our ticket designer, or simply submit your information to us and we'll design your tickets for you.

Currently, we're the only company in the US that offers SAME DAY SHIPPING so if you need 10,000 tickets by tomorrow, visit www.TATicketPrinting.com

Ticket Alternative clients win big at the Southeast Regional Festivals and Events Conference

Several Ticket Alternative clients walked home with Kaleidoscope Awards presented at the annual Southeast Regional Festivals and Events Conference held back in February. This year's conference took place in Knoxville Tennessee. The 2010 conference will take place in Macon Georgia.

Decatur Wine Festival - Best Event Program or Brochure Under $75,000
Decatur Arts Festival - Best Promotional Poster Over $75,000
Great Decatur Beer Tasting Festival - Best Event Photograph Under $75,000
Great Decatur Beer Tasting Festival - Best Promotional Poster Over $75,000
Taste Of Atlanta - Best Website Over $75,000

For more on the Southeast Regional Festival and Events Conference visit www.georgiafestivals.org

 
Left to right: Angie Macon (Decatur Arts Festival), Iain Bluett (Ticket Alternative) Cheryl Burnette (City Of Decatur), Stacy Weenick (Taste Of Atlanta)

Ticket Alternative president helps Pollstar writer land Leonard Cohen tickets

When Pollstar writer Jim Otey posted a blog about his struggle to buy tickets for a Leonard Cohen show, TA President Iain Bluett responded with a plan!

Jim was successful in securing the tickets he wanted during the next on sale.

You can read the full story here on Pollstar.com