Brown athletics' ticket sales moved into the 21st century this summer, but the upgrade has yet to take effect.
This summer, Brown updated the software that manages its ticket distribution, opening the door to online ticket sales and allowing the ticket office to market tickets more effectively.
Brown is now using the ProvenueMaX software system through Tickets.com, the school's online ticket sales partner.
ProvenueMaX will enable online ticket functionality to customers and advanced management capabilities to Brown's ticket office. The software is designed for venues that want complete, in-house control of their patron information as well as the ability to sell tickets online around the clock.
According to Tickets.com, the software will not only increase ticket sales but will also build stronger customer relationships by asking "source information" from the customers - such as how they found out about Tickets.com and what their e-mail address is.
Brown's marketing department hopes such information will allow it to market more effectively.
"We'll figure out who is interested, who's coming and who to target," said Cathy Fulford, box office manager for Brown athletics.
Fulford also said that with the new system, she can e-mail season ticket holders and roll over their seats from last year.
"In the past, we had to manually save seats," Fulford said. "Now we can (also) reissue seats that were not renewed to new ticketholders."
Fulford said the software shift was made because Brown's old method of ticket sales had become obsolete. Tickets.com is "good, reliable (and) growing," Fulford said, adding that the company gives software updates to Brown free of charge. In addition, the old software system had bugs in it that could not be fixed, and Tickets.com stopped supporting it.
In August, Brown rushed to install the new system in time for the football season.
"By buying the hardware, (Tickets.com) installed everything," Fulford said. "The new systems came with our stadium and everything in them. It's very user-friendly."
But the full benefits of the ProvenueMaX software may not have kicked in yet.
Kevin Dickson '07, who has attended soccer games at Brown, said he hasn't noticed an increase in the number of spectators this year.
"I didn't truthfully see more non-Brunonians at this year's soccer game than I saw last year," he said.
The University is not using online ticketing yet, due to security issues related to using credit cards online. Tickets.com is currently writing a new program that will encrypt credit card numbers so that Brown doesn't have them stored on its server, according to Fulford.
"(Online ticketing) will improve sales because of the convenience of it," Fulford said. Fans will no longer have to take the time to make phone calls or travel to the box office in person. Also, Fulford said, online ticketing will also allow her to keep much more accurate records of how much money each sport takes in.
Unfortunately, she said, "the old system didn't add correctly," she said.
Other schools are looking to Brown for leadership in selecting their own ticketing software. Representatives from Harvard University visited Wednesday to check out the new software, and Fulford said Yale University has been soliciting her advice as well.
"Everybody's just trying to figure out what's the best system," Fulford said.
If all goes as planned with the new software, Brown's theater program will also try to use the software to sell theater tickets. According to Fulford, it's too late for this year, but students might see the new theater ticketing capabilities by next summer.
