Recommend Like a Friend: Cross-Selling AFTER the Ticket Purchase
- Jason Chang
- 2 hours ago
- 4 min read
The tickets are purchased. Your fans and patrons have committed their time, their money, and their energy to attending your next game or show. So what comes next?
This is where many of our clients, whether in athletics, the theater, or arenas, are missing a critical opportunity to grow revenue while improving experience. The live event purchasing journey doesn't need to end when the ticketing transaction does. In fact, it's just beginning.
The Balancing Act: Revenue Without Friction
In a previous blog post we talked about the best no-brainer options for generating additional revenue at checkout without risking conversion. The ticket sale is the primary action that you want your fans or patrons to take. But once that’s done, there's a big opportunity to grow revenue in a mutually beneficial way!
Buyers are most excited about attending your event right after their ticket purchase and that’s the time to recommend additional experiences or enhancements like a friend would. This means anticipating what they're already thinking about, solving problems before they encounter them, and making their experience better.
Listings on Your Ticketing Site: Awareness Without Friction
Think of your PAC Live Group Listings Page (GLP) and Event Listings Page (ELP) as a low-risk showcase for additional revenue streams. When you present offerings like premium packages, parking, hospitality experiences, or merchandise directly in your listing pages separate from the checkout flow, you're giving fans the opportunity to explore without the pressure of completing a transaction while the clock is literally ticking.
One good example is how the University of Notre Dame has an exclusive club dining experience prominently offered on football game ELPs. This builds awareness for every fan that shops for tickets. If the fan decides later that they want to add that experience, they can easily return to add it. And it doesn’t hold up the ticket purchase.
The University of Arizona takes a similar approach, using their GLP to highlight low-volume, high-touch experiences. These would absolutely bog down a checkout flow but they thrive here as a discovery tool for shoppers on the listing page. Fans can explore at their own pace, and those ready to buy tickets can do so without the pressure of an immediate decision on additional experiences.
The University of California, Irvine’s Claire Trevor School of the Arts found another simple solution: linking directly to their "Know Before You Go" (KBYG) page from the GLP, creating a gentle redirect to parking, merchandise, and other helpful information. No friction, just welcome recommendations that hit at the right moment.
Email: The Right Recommendations at the Right Time
Speaking of KBYG messaging, email becomes your most valuable channel for continued cross-selling when the ticket purchase is done. Fans and patrons are committed. Now they have to plan the logistics of their experience. This is where your KBYG recommend like a friend strategy becomes powerful because they genuinely want that email.
The Fabulous Fox Theatre has a streamlined KBYG email bundling directions, FAQs, and the option to prepay for parking into a single, well-designed message. These emails answer the questions your fans are already asking such as "where do I park?" By surfacing these options now, you're helping them plan while simultaneously creating additional revenue opportunities.
Without guidance, ticket holders might park at off-site lots, use a rideshare app, or take the bus. All of these options miss your revenue opportunity. By making parking convenient and visible, you solve a problem while capturing the transaction.
Lines at events are painful. Ford Idaho Center recognizes this pain and aims to make it easier in a couple ways. First with Mobile Merch shopping which eliminates the long store lines for the consumer. Second with a unique Fast Pass option that lets you skip the long entry lines at arena events. In both cases, people will pay to make their experiences smoother and more enjoyable by eliminating or reducing time spent queued up and waiting.
Beyond the KBYG email, there are other ways to leverage email in an engaging way. The University of Oklahoma has a secondary confirmation email that promotes merch for their “white out” games. This is a fun way to get fans to feel like a part of something bigger while also making it easy to find the apparel they need to do that. Yes, it’s an upsell, but it also makes for a memorable game-day experience.
The Real Goal: Exceptional Fan and Patron Experiences
And that’s what matters most: creating memories and experiences through live events. Your job as a ticketing leader is to streamline that experience, help curate it like a friend, and build revenue in the process. When you get it right, it's not transactional. It's human.
Ready to develop a comprehensive cross-selling strategy that maximizes revenue without sacrificing conversion? Reach out to one of our Client Partners. We'd love to help you build a system that works for your fans and your bottom line.
