To the national record with 36,000 season tickets sold
The Höxter Regional Garden Show attracted over 500,000 visitors with its diverse landscapes and events. Jan Sommer, Managing Director of the Höxter State Garden Show Höxter, and his team overcame several ticketing challenges using a digital solution.
Regional Garden Show Höxter
Digitalised package deals
Secure access management
Short-term revenue increases
“In addition to fair prices, egocentric Systems also offers a high degree of flexibility. We were able to map all our challenges [as a garden show] with the system.”
BETWEEN LANDSCAPE & CULTURE WITH JAN
Flower meadows as far as the eye can see, a world heritage site, and the cityscape of Höxter—all of this can be experienced at the Regional Garden Show. The site is wonderfully integrated into the surrounding landscape. However, something characteristic of a horticultural show poses a major challenge for ticketing. On a tour of the site, Jan Sommer shows us how the team solved digital offerings, reliable admission control, and season tickets with a ticketing system.
Digitalised package deals
Secure access management
Short-term revenue increases
Digitalised package deals
For Jan Sommer and his team, expanding digital ticketing options was extremely important for the Regional Garden Show: “One special feature here was that we paid particular attention to digital tickets and the topic of reselling. […] And that worked very well with egocentric.”
A responsive online ticket shop made it easy for anyone interested to book tickets, season passes, etc., on their mobile devices. The Landesgartenschau aimed to include the sights in and around Höxter, offering exciting combinations of different experiences. Pre-sales for these packages, tickets, and individual items were possible via an online shop, directly integrated into the website, and available in one order for buyers.
The team utilized many cross-selling opportunities in the shop throughout the entire garden show season: “We created a comprehensive package offer that also had interfaces to ticketing. In other words, you could book a guided tour together with admission and lunch [online]. We also mapped this via egocentric Systems.” Jan Sommer even wants to increase the digital focus for future projects. Mobile booking and cashless payment, in particular, are essential for him and create planning security for the event.
Secure access management
Höxter enchants with its extensive green spaces, offering plenty to discover. Despite coordinated entrances and exits, the area was designed to create a natural transition to Corvey Castle, the town center, and the surrounding area, avoiding a “cut-off” appearance. Setting up reliable access management with this requirement was not easy, recalls Jan Sommer: “A ticket that has already been scanned in the city must be invalid at another entrance. And you have to find solutions to ensure that the visitor can still get in.”
The solution for the Garden Show team was a combination of a cash register terminal and a mobile handheld scanner. The handheld scanners are easy to use and suitable for less-trained checkout staff. After scanning, an audio-supported signal is shown on the display to confirm the validity of the tickets or inform if a discount or similar needs to be requested. Combined with the checkout system, the team always has an overview of how many tickets have been validated and how the area is being utilized. To ensure a seamless introduction to the system, event experts from egocentric Systems were on-site to supervise the installation and provide training on using the hardware and software.
An additional challenge was the secure validation of the season tickets, which are valid for the entire six-month season. To prevent transferability, the Höxter Regional Garden Show decided to print photos on the season tickets. “So we set up cameras at the points of sale or created the option of uploading a photo directly from a mobile phone in the online shop.”
The latter option was integrated into the booking process with the ticket shop from egocentric Systems, prompting season ticket buyers to upload a photo of themselves during checkout. This feature was well received by visitors, as evidenced by the sale of more than 36,000 season tickets.
Short-term revenue increases
As mentioned earlier, the Höxter Regional Garden Show incorporated reselling into its sales and marketing strategy. This approach allowed them to create attractive offers with partners and reach new target groups less familiar with garden shows. Previously, the complexity of canceling ticket contingents had been a deterrent, according to Jan Sommer.
Through workshops with egocentric Systems, the team identified suitable sales and marketing measures directly integrated into the ticketing system or combined with other tools. A streamlined solution for reselling was devised to avoid cumbersome reversals: “Each reseller could create a user profile in our ticketing system and digitally deposit a certain amount of currency. With this credit, resellers could then produce tickets on-demand.”
This straightforward process enabled the Landesgartenschau Höxter to establish a broad network of resellers. “They also accounted for a significant portion of our revenue,” Jan adds with a smile.
In collaboration with egocentric Systems, Jan and his team successfully navigated past challenges associated with digital strategies. The ticketing system served not only as a digital assistant but also benefited from the support of event experts. Jan summarizes their achievement: “Shortly before the end of the horticultural show, we can already say that we have exceeded all our targets […] Two or three weeks ago, we welcomed our 500,000th visitor to the site. Half a million visitors is quite an achievement for a regional garden show!”
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