3D Digital Venue seat solutions a click away

Article posted by Coliseum, August 1^st, 2022

Image: Francis Casado & MJR Group Ltd./Coliseum

Francis Casado knows the 3D Digital Venue map just like the back of his hand and comes across as an authority on the subject and brims with confidence.

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Casado is one of the founders of Mobile Media Content – 3D Digital Venue, Spain, and is currently serving as the Head of International Business Development.

He is armed with 15 years of experience in the mobile and virtual reality (VR) industries and is a connoisseur on mobile monetization, VR, augmented reality (AR), social media, and sports fan engagement platforms.

3D Digital Venue

Founded in the year 2012 and headquartered in Barcelona, Spain, 3D Digital Venue is a ticketing platform for large event spaces and stadiums. It builds best of breed 360 degree 3D interactive venue management solutions that deliver greater fan satisfaction.

3D Digital Venue, powered by Mobile Media Content, provides interactive digital venue management solutions to sports and entertainment venues across the globe.

MMC

MMC is a global technology company founded in 2012 and headquartered in Barcelona, Spain, focusing on building 3D Digital Venue Management Solutions for the Sports and Entertainment Industry.

Takeaways

Seat Management Portal;
Venue Virtualization;
Social Distance Editor; and
Frontend Ticketing Integration.

Seat Management Portal

Achieve higher renewal rates of season ticketholders through 3D seat views of current and future nearby ones, and to allow renewal of season tickets before an existing venue is completely refurbished or when a new stadium is built.

Venue Virtualization

Virtualize any sports or arts venue through cutting-edge technology and get a view from every seat, including VIP spaces.

Social Distance Editor

Get the optimum seating layout for your venue respecting health and safety measures. Edit your seating plan according to your needs while keeping fans safe.

Frontend Ticketing Integration

3D Maps

Enhance ticket sales and substantially increase fan satisfaction rating using the interactive 360-degree 3D seat view from each seat.

2D Maps

Revamp your user interface with a new multiresolution 2D interactive representation of your arena.

In an exclusive ‘techstorming’ conversation with ‘Coliseum’, Francis Casado, Co-Founder and Head of International Business Development, 3D Digital Venue, Spain, provides an interesting insight into the world of ‘3D’ and provides details of their operations in the United States. He also points out how digitals tools have emerged as essential during the pandemic.

Remarked Francis Casado, “We created tools in the United States to engage with clients when you are not in a position to meet in-person and that happened during the pandemic which hit the US the hardest.”

Partnerships

3D Digital Venue has partnerships with the 27,500-capacity Kennington Oval in London, the 30,000-capacity Lord’s Cricket Ground also in London as part of which they created tier representation like interactive premium spaces for these venues.

He added, “We also created premium spaces at the 81,044-capacity Santiago Bernabéu Stadium in Madrid, Spain, home of the LaLiga club Real Madrid CF. This we did as part of the redecoration being carried out at the facility.”

Cleveland Cavaliers

The National Basketball Association (NBA) team Cleveland Cavaliers (US) started working with 3D Digital Venue four years ago – “A couple of years back, they took down all the premium areas and they created 62 new premium spaces and they sold them online during the pandemic with no fans stepping their feet into the venue and they were able to generate 10.2 million dollars in revenue just with our digital tool.”

Casado continued, “3D is nice. It is a perfect platform to create an interactive format. We invest in our videogame engine – the methodology that we have developed over the years – with which we are able to create multipurpose configurations in practically real time. For instance, the 20,000-capacity T-Mobile Arena in Paradise, Nevada, or the 20,000-capacity Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, California, they run 250 events per year and with our tool they were able to jump from one configuration to other practically in real time.”

3D Digital Venue Platform Added Value

Application Programming Interface (API)-driven;
Mobile first;
Visual front end;
Generate a single view for each seat/skybox;
Integrated in all purchasing processes;
Integrated in all venue digital channels; and
Cloud distribution worldwide.

He informed, “We created a platform that is integrated with many different platforms and currently we are present in 35 different ticketing platforms across the globe.”

Boosting User eXperience

Venue Virtualization and Premium Spaces

Venue owners need tools to improve venue comprehension of both interior and exterior areas; and
Venue Managers need digital tools to promote VIP and hospitality areas.

Ticketing Integration (API)

Enhance your ticket purchase flow with interactive seat maps 360 seat views using Digital Venue Upon API; and
Provide best close visual front end that maximizes conversion roles and reduces clicks both using 2D and 3D seat maps.

Seat Management Portal

A visual entertainment to promote relocation and seat upgrade using Seat Management Portal; and
Custom business rules + clearly differentiate available inventory.

Seat Management Portal

Season Tickets, Seat Upgrades, Packages

Standalone service 100 percent provided by 3D Digital Venue;
Users can easily pinch and zoom to seat selection level in any device;
Custom Business rule management;
Inventory management in real time; and
Additional package management.

He further continued, “At the Crypto.com Arena premium space, if you are a season ticket holder and you pay for your membership, it gives you access to all sorts of events at the venue. At the Crypto.com arena there are different setups of the suites – one for the NBA team Los Angeles Lakers, one for their peer team the Los Angeles Clippers and another one for concerts. These guys sell 6,000 tickets in the premium areas and with these 6,000 tickets they generate 50 million dollars of revenue. So, they need tools just to be able to sell these completely digital. During the pandemic, they were using our tools and they also requested to abide by social distancing to sell it in different staggered moments just to make sure they were able to sit down and accommodate people, etc.”

3D Digital Venue Modus Operandi

Elaborating on the workings, he stated, “Everyone knows what 3D looks like but then we apply and we convert this 3D into something that you can use with your smartphone or with your computer. So, there is a tool where you can log in with your username and password and you can check the seats that you had from your previous season (this counts for season ticket holders) and you can go to the location and click and get a view of all the premium spaces and can check the lounges and the restaurants as well,”

Added Casado, “At some point you can also decide if you have two seats from the previous season, whether you want to keep the seats and the most important thing here is that the club is able to customize the same so it is extremely important to understand if you want to allow your clients to upgrade their seats, if you want to allow them to downgrade their seats or you want to apply for the Business rows because sometimes venues want clients to at least purchase the same number of seats or more and does not allow them to downgrade the pricing on the number of seats because they are not just selling seats but packages and this is something very relevant that we do with these tools and it is normally very challenging.”

He asserted that if one wants to sell parking lot, food and beverage and merchandise on the same purchase flow, “Normally this is something that is never doable. So, we have been able to break those tools in conjunction with these partners just to provide this approximation. Through the 3D image one can check if I pay this amount for just two seats, how will the different configurations look like? One can select new seats in real time that one wants to add to their basket. One can pick the seats and one always has the opportunity to check how they look like, then one can proceed to their selection and then confirm it and can add different packages like the Lexus Membership, the parking lot and then proceed to the final stage and you see the total and then we collect the payment to finalize the transaction.”

Premium Seat Management Portal

Online Purchase Flow Experience

25+ clients using SMP;
10+ relocations and upgrades – Live now using 3DDV;
150k+ clients relocated/upgraded;
Five countries in operation;
Desktop conversion rate increase – eight percent to 15 percent; and
Mobile conversion rate increase – Four percent to 12 percent.

The above are the self tools that 3D Digital Venue have been developing in the United States and more than 25 clients used them during the pandemic because they were willing to sell premium spaces and be able to upgrade and relocate their people.

Maintained Casado, “Everyone knows that we built the 3D Map but during the pandemic we helped collaborate an organization’s event with their problems to locate members for instance with the social distancing tool. We created the tool that helped clubs facilitate people to get back into the stadium. And to this end, we developed the 2D Map and the 2DHD Map.”

In Game Seat Upgrade Technology

3DDVs in Game Seat Upgrade technology maximizes revenue on seats across your venue;
The technology provides flexibility to upgrade sports or live-events experience;
Venues/teams can upsell unused inventory before or during the event; and
Make your fans loyal attendees of your events.

With the maps, 3D Digital Venue also launched a new set of applications that are working really well in the US – In Game Seat Upgrade Technology.

He elaborated, “I am going to a particular event and I see two seats in the front row that are unoccupied and why don’t I upgrade myself to the front row by paying extra 20 bucks. We were able to implement this and provide support and flexibility to upgrade those seats but you can upsell the unused inventory and generate more revenue for your clients.”

Help Your Fans Convert Faster

Offer to your fans the best available seats or let them choose in a visual environment;
Pick your new location in a couple of clicks and boost their in-game experience; and
Make sure they have an experience they won’t forget.

The tool basically helps to offer your fans the best available seats in the house to be able to pick the seats in a visual environment and to make sure that you are converting these fans into loyal members and even to season ticket holders.

Increase Your Revenue

Generate additional revenue by managing inventory in real time;
In Game Seats Upgrade is integrated with your ticketing provider through AP calls. No need of manual intervention;
Seat Upgrades can be launched during the event; and
Identify potential season ticket holders.

Challenges

Narrated Casado, “So, the most challenging part was to create something that was independent of any platform so you need to create something that is in a browser and in the end it is applicable with the different teams and to be able to generate additional revenue for that. This is something which will be great for the clubs and we have them establishing revenue share with the estimation that they were able to access the technology. Thanks to that we have been able to start and to be certified by the Major League Baseball and right now quite a few teams are using this technology to be able to upgrade themselves.”

He added, “Our tool helps you to see the available inventory from the venue itself in real time. One can just understand from a row point of view or even from the CPU how this looks like. If you are happy with your selection you can just proceed and upgrade your seat through your smartphone.”

Seating Chart Viewer

A powerful Business Intelligence Web dashboard for Venue Managers;
Multiple layers of data:
- Seat status and categories;
- Revenue analysis and pricing simulations;
- Events/Season data scheme; and
- Filtering and Reporting Tools.
Specially crafted for Business Operations and Ticketing teams.

Closing Note

Swearing by the advantages of the tool, he stated, “Last but not the least, 3D is the perfect excuse for self tools and the last thing we are offering to the clients in the US is the possibility to use the different 3D maps. The Seating Chart Viewer has Business Intelligence dashboard where they can place their data and export and extract and engage in conversations with their business developers and ticketing people.”

He concluded, “The tool has different tiers at different stadium levels and different ticket plans and one can filter them with the applied dynamic pricing.”

3D Digital Venue has indeed helped venues boost fan experience and select the most premium seats at the click of a mouse. The platform has also helped venues’ cash registers jingle.

Francis Casado and his team wear the tech hat with a lot of élan offering ticket buyers the opportunity to view the venue, and their view of the performance area, during and after the ticket buying process.

Hats off to Francis Casado and his team as today the company integrates with over 35 different ticketing platforms in 20 countries, virtualizing some of the most iconic venues in the world.

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