Following five exciting weekends of rugby’s Guinness Six Nations, 370,000 Tixserve-powered digital tickets were delivered across both Twickenham Stadium, London, and the Principality Stadium, Cardiff, for fixtures against Scotland, France, Ireland and Italy.
Digital match day ticketing, hospitality ticketing and car parking passes were issued via the Tixserve platform and delivered into the relevant client’s Tixserve-powered digital ticketing apps.
The solution enabled the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) and England Rugby (RFU) to capture accurate ticket holder data, including ticket transfers; digitally allocate tickets to sponsors, clubs and visiting teams; hinder ticket fraud with patented security features; generate an active revenue stream; and ensure a smooth mobile entry experience for fans visiting both stadiums.
Digital Ticket Delivery
Both Unions’ Six Nations tickets were delivered into their branded digital ticketing apps – powered by Tixserve.
Using the Tixserve fulfilment solution, the WRU and RFU could easily design their interactive digital tickets with informative event details, an interactive map with transport information and seating plans – and uniquely included event content, sponsorship branding, advertising and mobile commerce functionality.
Both clients also used the push notifications function to communicate event information and announcements to all ticket holders before, during and after match days – with over 1 million notifications sent from the Tixserve-powered platform throughout the Six Nations series.
Verified Data
The Tixserve solution provided accurate data allowing the WRU and RFU to know every ticket holder/attendee and where they were seated at the stadium on match day.
Verified data included the ticket holder’s name, mobile phone number, e-mail address, up-to-date marketing consent, optional verified postcode, and match day code of conduct acceptance – with mandatory viewing of an optional health and safety video or advertisement.
The England V Ireland match on 12th March at Twickenham Stadium saw highlight statistics recording approximately 97,000 ticket transfers of the 68,000 total digital tickets; and a staggering 32,000 of fans who attended the event on the day were new to RFU’s database.
Steve Kitcher, Head of Ticketing at RFU, commented: “The RFU’s use of the Tixserve solution has delivered some great successes across the organisation in what is a relatively short space of time. Not only are we providing the England Rugby family with an efficient way to receive and distribute their match tickets, the data now available to us is providing information that will really drive our decision-making going forward.”
The WRU at the 74,000-capacity Principality Stadium had similarly impressive figures at the Wales V Scotland fixture with 60,836 ticket transfers and 52% of ticket holder data for fans attending the match being new and clean data for the WRU.
Matthew Clarke, Ticketing Manager at WRU, commented: “The move to a fully digital approach for Welsh Rugby internationals at Principality Stadium has been adopted with overwhelming positivity by supporters and stakeholders alike. The user-friendly solution delivered by Tixserve provides a robust digital ticket and has also opened up access to data in order to provide key operational messages to all attendees and offers future commercial opportunities.”
The accurate data gives both unions new and powerful marketing opportunities, allowing them to personally market future events to fans they now know may be interested in attending.
Visiting Teams and Sponsor Allocations
Competing teams playing against England (RFU) and Wales (WRU) were given secure access to the Tixserve-powered Distribution Portal to securely self-distribute their own ticket allocations. This process provided the RFU and WRU with full ticket traceability and accurate attendee data for all their home fixtures, whilst eliminating traditional paper ticket distribution costs.
Sponsors were also able to easily self-distribute digital tickets whilst getting full transparency on knowing when tickets had been delivered to their clients, and who those clients transferred their tickets to.
Digital Ticket Security
Digital ticket security was achieved by Tixserve’s patented security features whereby the QR code was protected / hidden until a predetermined time set by the WRU and RFU.
Once the QR code becomes active, its dynamic behaviour deters ticket duplication and the Tixserve system can identify individuals attempting to screenshot tickets.
On Android devices, screenshots were prevented entirely; and on Apple devices, a warning screen appears and marks the ticket as being screenshot. The WRU and RFU could monitor all screenshots, ticket transfers and any suspicious ticket activity in real-time via the Tixserve platform.
Revenue Generation
The rugby series also saw the adoption of Tixserve’s in-app mobile commerce and fan engagement tools. Both rugby unions added engaging and interactive content, services and offers to their digital tickets – allowing them to generate additional revenue before and during match day. Amongst other offers, the WRU advertised links to their official WRU store and the RFU offered in-app Click & Collect pre-order services during the series.
Patrick J Kirby, Managing Director of Tixserve commented: “The Six Nations campaign followed on from the successful Autumn Internationals and as a client-focused company the Tixserve team is delighted with the positive feedback from England Rugby and Welsh Rugby. The Tixserve product is now selling itself and a number of senior executives involved in live sporting and music events who used the Tixserve-powered mobile ticketing apps at Twickenham Stadium and the Principality Stadium were motivated to contact us resulting in very exciting new business opportunities in the UK and and other international markets.”
Beyond the Six Nations, this Summer sees more exciting upcoming events for both the WRU and RFU. This June, Stereophonics and Tom Jones will be at Principality Stadium for two sell-out shows. The Tixserve-powered digital ticketing app will be used by fans and will allow the artists and promoters to utilise the in-app revenue generation opportunities.
At Twickenham Stadium, the Premiership Rugby Final will return this June for another energised battle to see who becomes the Champions of 2022.
