You sold out Saturday. Eight hundred people came through the door, the night went well, and the money is in.

Now try this: on Monday morning, how many of those eight hundred guests can you email about your next event? Can you see which of them came last month too, which ones book a table every time, and which ones have not been back since the summer?

For a lot of venues the honest answer is "not many", or "I would have to ask the platform". That is worth thinking about, because those guests are the most valuable thing a venue builds, and the easiest to lose without noticing.

Two kinds of ticketing platform

It helps to separate two kinds of service, because they work in different ways.

A ticketing tool works for the venue. It sells your tickets and tables on your behalf, and the customer relationship stays with you.

A ticketing marketplace or app has an audience of its own. People download it, create an account and browse events from many venues. Selling through it can reach new people, which is genuinely useful. But the buyer is often the platform's customer first, and yours second.

Neither is wrong. The point is to know which one you are using, because it decides who ends up with the relationship.

What "owning your customers" actually means

It is more than having a list of names. In practice it means four things.

  1. You have the record. Name, email, phone, what they bought, when they came, what they spent. In full, and you can export it whenever you like, not just a summary.
  2. You have the right to contact them. The marketing consent a guest gives at checkout is given to you, not only to the platform. Without that, an email list is not much use.
  3. You are the controller of the data. Under GDPR the controller decides why and how personal data is used. If your platform is the controller of your buyers' data, it is, in a real sense, their customer.
  4. Nobody else is marketing to them on the back of your events. Your guests are not being shown another venue's night because they bought a ticket to yours.

Why it matters more than it seems

Repeat guests are the cheapest marketing you have. Someone who came to your venue once and enjoyed it is far more likely to come again than a stranger who sees an advert. If you can reach them directly, filling the next night costs you an email, not an ad budget.

The value stays when people leave. Promoters move on. Platforms change. Staff change. A customer list that lives in your own system is still yours when any of them go.

It is how you learn. Who comes on Fridays and who comes on Saturdays, which music brings people back, which guests book tables. You cannot see any of that without the records.

It is part of what your business is worth. A venue with years of customer history, and the consent to use it, is worth more than one that has to start from zero every season.

Where it quietly goes wrong

None of these are dramatic, which is why they are easy to miss:

  • the buyer has to create an account with the platform to buy, so they are the platform's account holder;
  • the marketing tick box at checkout is for the platform's newsletter, not for your venue's;
  • the export you can download has names but no emails, or no marketing consent, or only part of the history;
  • your guests receive recommendations for other events, possibly the club down the road, because they bought a ticket to yours;
  • if you leave the platform, the history stays behind.

Some platforms do none of this, some do all of it. The only way to know is to ask.

Eight questions to ask your ticketing platform

  1. Who is the data controller of my customers' personal data, you or my venue? Ask to see it in the contract or the data processing agreement.
  2. Can I export every customer record at any time, including email, phone, purchase history and marketing consent?
  3. When a guest ticks the marketing box at checkout, who are they agreeing to hear from? My venue, the platform, or both?
  4. Do you send my buyers emails or app notifications about other venues' events?
  5. Does a guest need an account with you to buy? If so, what happens to that account and its data?
  6. What happens to my customer data if I stop using your service? Can I take it with me, and do you keep it?
  7. Where does the money from my sales go, and when? Straight to my account, or held by the platform until after the event?
  8. Can I see repeat visits and spend per customer, or only totals per event?

The answers do not have to be perfect. They do have to be clear, and you should get them in writing before you commit a season to a platform.

Owning the data is a responsibility too

Owning your customer list also means looking after it properly:

  • only email guests who agreed to hear from you, and record when and how they agreed;
  • make unsubscribing one click, and honour it straight away;
  • do not overdo it. A guest emailed four times a week will unsubscribe, and you lose them for good;
  • keep the data no longer than you need it, and be ready to delete a guest's details when they ask.

A good platform should make all of this the default rather than something you have to remember.

What to do once you have it

The list only matters if you use it:

  • Email the right people, not everyone. Past guests of a regular night, or fans of a particular style of music, are far more likely to book than your whole list.
  • Reach out before each night, to the people who came last time and have not bought yet.
  • Bring back the guests who have drifted, the ones who used to come every month and have not been seen since the summer.
  • Recognise your regulars and your best table customers, so your team knows who is at the door.

How Floorful handles it

Floorful is a ticketing tool, not a marketplace. We built it so that the customer relationship stays with the venue.

  • Your venue is the controller of your customers' data, and Floorful is your processor. That is written into our terms and data processing agreement.
  • We do not market to your customers and we do not sell their data. Guests buy from your venue, on your own branded pages.
  • Marketing consent is collected for your venue, with an unticked box at checkout, and every choice is recorded.
  • You can export your orders, customers and reports at any time.
  • The money goes to your own Stripe account as each payment is made. Floorful never holds it.
  • The customer records are built in: visits, spend, favourite night and music, with segments and email campaigns that leave out anyone who has unsubscribed or already bought for that night.

If you want to see what your own customer list could look like, start a free trial.