March 5, 2009

The Boston College athletics ticket office was named “2009 Innovator of the Year” at the Ticketmaster, Irvine Users Conference in Newport Beach, California. A wide array of initiatives contributed to the award including a three day ticket sale, a new student rewards program, and digital and voice services.

During football season, the ticket office created voice messages from ACC defensive player of the year Mark Herzlich to promote the ACC Championship football game. The promotion helped sell over 2,000 tickets to the game.

The department held a three-day ticket sale after Thanksgiving that sold over 12,000 tickets. All single event tickets for men’s basketball, women’s basketball and men’s ice hockey were half off online with no customer fees.

A new student rewards program was unveiled in the fall to track student attendance on a priority points system. Students printed tickets at home and those who accumulated the most points were given priority to high demand games such as men’s basketball’s February game with Duke.

The department also converted all its student tickets to “print-at-home” to keep lines down at Conte Forum and provide easier service for students. A 100% student lottery for hockey season tickets was also implemented that processed over 1,600 requests online.

“This online lottery process saved our internal staff about two weeks of manual work,” said assistant ticket manager Matthew Thompson.

The department also continued to implement their digital ticketing program with the Eagle Exchange which allows fans a convenient option to renew, transfer, buy, sell or donate their tickets.