Give the Audience What They Want

Nothing beats a live experience, whether it’s a concert or a major sports event. Sharing an in-person experience with thousands of people can be exhilarating.

You know, live events as a whole are back and back at full speed. And so in looking at concerts specifically, we’re able to understand what those customers want, both with the pre, during and post event opportunity or engagement with those fans.

We’ll dive into the results of the latest survey on audience trends for live events, and why CX is key to producing amazing experiences. On this episode of The CX Leader Podcast.

The CX Leader Podcast is produced by Walker, an experience management firm that helps our clients accelerate their XM success. You can find out more at walkerinfo.com.

Hey, everyone. I’m Sara Walker, host of this episode of The CX Leader Podcast. And as always, thank you for listening. It’s never been a better time to be a CX leader, and we explore topics and themes to help leaders like you develop great programs and deliver amazing experiences for your customers. Maybe it’s a concert with a headliner like Beyonce, U2, or Taylor Swift. Or perhaps your favorite NFL team is playing their rivals this weekend. Maybe you prefer events that allow for personal creative expression like Gen Con or Comic Con. While we all have our preferences, few things compare to meeting up with thousands of like minded people or fans at live events. But those gatherings don’t just happen out of the blue. Like any other business, the experience matters. ASM Global just released a new study that highlights what audiences are demanding regarding live event experiences. To help us dig into the results of this new study and its significance to CX leaders, we’ve asked Alex Merchán back to the podcast. Alex is the chief marketing officer for ASM Global, a venue management and live event production company. Alex, welcome back to the podcast.

Thank you, Sara. So glad to be back.

Yeah. It’s great to have you. As I indicated, we’ve had the pleasure of interviewing you about a year ago. I think March of 2023 was the last time you appeared on the show. But maybe to get us started in today’s conversation, you could give our listeners a brief reintroduction to you, to ASM Global as a company, and then maybe what you were hoping to achieve with this live events audience trend study that we’re going to be dissecting and digging into a little bit more today.

Well, thanks again for having me back. Uh, obviously not too many things went wrong last go if we got an invite here a year later. Um, so. So, yeah. High level look at ASM global, you know, over the last, call it five years, uh, ASM global, um, is on the has been on the forefront of not just, uh, content and live experiences, but but events all over the world. I think in your introduction, you touched on the type of content we’re talking about entertainment, talking about sporting events, music, talking about business and many things that that, uh, can be put in different categories. Um, but in essence, you know, what we do as the world’s leading provider and producer of these type of events are exciting thing is really getting to aggregate the feedback and the input of all the attendees that come to these kinds of events. You touched on, uh, you know, concerts. I think you referenced, uh, Beyonce or Taylor Swift, uh, two artists that have played and will continue to play many of our venues, uh, understanding at the local nuance what those guests mean. Really, really, uh, makes a direct impact on the business so we can ensure to provide them a great experience later on. And then on the other end of the spectrum, same with, uh, a trade show, a convention. Now that, uh, the business is back online, truly globally, we’re seeing in these B2B environments as well, uh, the needs and the demands of a live event experience and what that means in that environment so that we can continue to provide, meet and exceed those expectations at our events, at our venues around the world.

Yeah, it’s it’s fascinating. It’s like it’s it is really, you know, it’s as we get further away from 2020, it’s hard to remember what it was like before, but also just the way in which things have changed and then how you react to the change and expectations, what people are appreciating of live experiences. Obviously, you all are set up in a unique position to be able to bring some of that more aggregate or macro level data to not only your industry, but applied more broadly to CX. So with that in mind, what would you say are some of the most important findings from this recent audience trends, expectations for live events that you found?

Sure. I think the unique lens to first of all consider is our unique position where because of the volume and footprint we have, the advantage we have to truly own the largest CX database for live events. So that unique footprint gives us a position or an advantage within the industry. We’ve got a front row look at industry trends across music, sports, conventions. And so with thousands upon thousands of events and now millions of data points really allowing us to understand, I guess, two big areas we can talk about. One, the consumer, the the end consumer experience, and then also the B2B, which make makes the industry go around, right? It makes makes the wheels turn. Um, you know, and from our end of year study in 2023, one of the key areas, I guess, to start off from a consumer and fan perspective was really understanding the nuances and the differences, maybe, of what customers expect today in a post-pandemic world, in this environment. And if you watch the news or just business and trends, you know, live events as a whole, uh, are back and back at full speed. And so we’ve been seeing that. And in looking at concerts specifically, uh, looking at venues such as stadiums and arenas around the world, uh, and then looking at specifically the US, you know, artists like Taylor Swift, like Ed Sheeran, like Zach Bryant. Um, all coming through, we’re able to understand what those customers want, both with the pre, during and post event opportunity or engagement with those fans. Uh, some of the highlights that came out of this, um, you’d expect things such as, you know, the food and beverage experience, you know, people are spending multiple hours, hours upon hours, uh, getting there early, getting, you know, getting to to try some of the food and the offerings that are building. And we recognize that and know that that is a part of the experience. And so one of the things that did come up quite a bit was the variety. Not just the variety of, hey, I want a bigger selection, uh, for food and for beverage. I want some novelty items. I want to know that there’s some things out there that I may not expect, but really, when it came to it, a good a good bit of information came back showing us how how unique taste or needs had to be met.

And what I mean by that is the concern or interest for for vegan options, vegetarian options, or at least knowing that there were gluten free options that customers could get and not just know it’s available to them, but find out in advance where, where and how can I go about and get that right if I am going to be there and I do really need or require this expectation. Um, you know, as far as looking at some of the other information, fans now, we validated, um, are more interested and eager to seek out those premium opportunities. Um, they want the upgraded packages, they want the, the idea of can I arrive early and have a special entrance to not deal with the crowds?

Yeah.

Um, are there lounge areas that can be more comfortable and interact with other fans for this event? Are there inclusive packages? They may inquire, uh, include some of their elements as well. Uh, and we’re seeing those and being validated not just through through research, but also through some of the programs and offerings we’ve been putting out there and seeing the demand for these items, uh, performed very well. Uh, the excitement and the energy for the fans to come to these events, um, has been pretty solid. You know, one of the things that we did pull from the report and asking fans, you know, why they came, was this a favorite artist? And getting more into that one thing that specifically a younger generation, the 18 to 24 group, um, just under half, about 47% of those attendees to those big A level stadium arena acts, um, you know, felt that they needed a connection with their artist. They lacked the gap for the last few years of having the opportunity to to be with other like minded people, celebrating the moment,

Yeah.

Get to sing along or watch or take in that moment, um, in a live experience again, returning to that. And, and you know that that great percentage of people came from long distances to be there, um, that validates the need to bring people together. And I think that’s truly the backbone of what, um, what our industry is. And not only did it highlight, you know, great, exciting things that we could address to make sure the fan experience was better. Sometimes the data also has the opportunity to, uh, highlight or uncover some common pain points. So things that you can address to make the experience better. Uh, in in our space, one of the things that does come up often is, uh, ingress coming into the building.

Mm.hmm.

Long lines of excited fans, and they want to get in and, uh, find their seat and get settled in. And so we are able to assess and address ways of improving that experience all along. One of those ways, we actually partnered with a company, uh, Evolve, Evolve Technology to implement a product that streamlined that experience. No longer, you know, when you line up and go through the the the evolve system, are you unpacking your your wallet, your purse…

Yep.

…your bags, your pockets to get through? This is more of a just a walk through experience. And we put this product in about a dozen venues and quickly saw the difference, not just between those 12 venues and the other buildings that we have in our system. You know, in this case all across the US. But even within those buildings, we saw the improvement in scores, about 12 points a higher in guest satisfaction for the ingress, specifically their their experience coming into the building, uh, before the event. And it…

Right.

…also impacted their overall score. So it highlighted something we knew when we know historically can be one of those, you know, top concerns for an attendee. Um, but we are able to go out there and not just find solutions to fix it, but actually find some other new technologies to really redefine how things are done to make that a better experience. You know, it validates our efforts, which is always helpful. Uh, it allows us to double down on more, uh, experiential opportunities and how we continue to redefine that experience for that fan, for that guest.

Right. And I think it’s also a nice exemplification, maybe, of why you ask for feedback of your end customers, your fans in this, in this case, because if you’re hearing from them, I want more bespoke opportunities, like for for what I’m looking for personally, which is why you’re asking, right? Um, then to be able to deliver a solution for an improvement when you take the ingress example to get them in the door faster, to have more of those experiences, to be able to connect with the, uh, concert or artist or, uh, sports team that they’re looking to, you know, spend their, their time and, and resources on, then it’s a win-win, I guess, across the board from both the B2B and the fan perspective, which I think is really interesting. And it harkens back to how you opened this, um, the interview today, which is, you know, what you’re trying to do at the individual venue level or at the business level for ASM global, but also apply and aggregate some of those broader data points for the industry as a whole, which I think is, you know, a really exciting articulation of of what experience management customer feedback can, can do to not only improve, you know, one experience, but but many across the board.

Yeah. When you say many experiences, also many stakeholders here. Right. So we hear from the customers, we hear from the attendee. You know, ultimately we’re there to put on this amazing events so that they have these unforgettable experiences. Um, but we also, you know, have uh, have a key partner involved. And in many of these cases, these facilities, these buildings, these venues are owned by municipalities or governments. And, you know, those are our clients. And so, you know, our purpose is to really be able to drive economic growth…

Right.

…uh, through the power of these unforgettable live experiences. And so that B2B perspective is always in play. And, you know, one thing in our, you know, use of CX has been to not only capture the opinion and thought of those attending our events and having those memorable moments, but also those who look at those PNLs and numbers on a monthly or weekly basis want to find out how we’re performing. And so, you know, to give you an example on the B2B side and how we’ve been able to to leverage, uh, these tools to be advantageous to our business is not just to assess the health of a business, but at the local level, but allowing us, because of our scale and because of our unique position in the live events industry, is to provide a network wide look, uh, and kind of set up benchmarks…

Mm.hmm.

…or looking at yourself across like, like system or like venues across your groups. I’ll give you an example. In the convention center space. Now, you might be convention center. And you know, we’re in many destination flagship locations. So, you know, if if you know, you want to compare Los Angeles to Philadelphia, to Sydney to London, well, how do I how do I fit with these other, you know, a level, a plus level flagship destinations? Well, we are able to look at benchmarks across a whole and see how venues are performing…

Yeah.

…across very, very similar categories and in many cases, specific events. Um, another example would be with an event specifically, you know, auto show. If the Detroit Auto Show, we want to see what the the overall execution of the event was compared to the auto show in San Francisco. We’re able to do that because our buildings have and implement, you know, CX…

Right.

…with an oversight through our support team to be able to look at these and say, let’s look at the nuances and why was it different or why was it not different? And and how can we really use this information to improve and elevate, um, our overall execution? I think that that’s a value for clients on the B2B side that probably not as, um, talked about or whatnot, but but is very valuable. And that’s what helps really drive decisions. Um, it’s not just venue by venue or event by event. We have these set up systematically, uh, across our, our use of, of ASM Global Insights, uh, to look at it quarter by quarter as a company pushing out reports, uh, we push out this annual report, um, it allows for internal evaluation, allows us to talk to the business leaders to find ways of improving how they’re doing. The business information is powerful, but unless it’s applied, you really aren’t going to understand or see the impact of that. And so it helps us look at events, helps us look at like venues, uh, but more importantly, helps us really guide senior leadership as well as local venue level general managers and leaders at that level to understand how their business is running. One through reports and our communication. Two, they have access to live dashboards to see in real time what kind of feedback is coming from a B2B site or a B2C side, and that allows them to really evaluate their venue performance, look at feedback, and be able to resolve any open items, whether immediate or something they can address in the long term as well.

So to go back to the ingress example that you provided earlier, Alex, I you know, I imagine that a fan or an attendees improved satisfaction with being able to quickly move through the line and get into the event sooner. Great for your fans feedback score. But then the business application of that for your additional stakeholders, I have to think has a lot of legs, be it increased opportunity to purchase, you know, merchandise or spend more on food and beverage. If you’re inside the venue sooner, what does that then do from the municipality standpoint of less time with restricted traffic patterns, you know, you start to see the the different swim lanes that exist amongst the stakeholder groups. And I think it’s a very interesting, you know, your business is uniquely set up to apply to these different stakeholders in a unique way, which I think is something our listeners in a broader CX capacity can definitely appreciate, is how you take that CX insight and talk about the business value amongst, you know, various groups. Is there anything else you’ve learned as you’re kind of moving along this path with all these different stakeholders that might be relevant for folks listening to apply to their programs?

Yeah, Sara, you’re absolutely right. So it’s exactly that. It’s not just, you know, great. Uh, customer uh, satisfaction and great scores. The scores are great, but how does it translate back to the business? And and this is why municipalities pick us over anybody else…

Right.

…across the industry to come and make, uh, you know, make use of these facilities and bring these to life and, and really look at these things, assess them and optimize programs or, you know, actions that we might take so that we can reduce those lines, get people in sooner, um, you know, minimize any issues at the at the entrance drive revenue, get them to their seat faster so they can go get food, watch a show, get a, you know, second drink if they choose to partake, um, and walk away with, you know, a euphoric, memorable moment where they’re going to go back and look at the website and say, hey, what’s the next event coming back to this venue? Because I really want to come back. And so all that translates to a business success, which again, behind the scenes is critical to making sure that, uh, that, that our clients ultimately, you know, are getting their value and then some and we, uh, meet and exceed the expectations that are set up, uh, upon us.

So with this most recent survey that’s come out, or potentially the planned future ones, what is ASM Global planning to change or implement based on findings? And is there an expectation that you’re you’re updating what you’re asking with these programs as it goes along? Because I, I’m you know, maybe it’s a bit of an inference here, but when you started picking back up, you know, post-pandemic, maybe what you thought you were going to learn wasn’t, in actuality what you have learned. And you talked a lot about how it’s evolving over time. So how do you guys plan to to keep up with that evolution so that you can keep getting smarter and and not miss out on the opportunity to learn more?

That’s a great question. You know, since we last spoke, the first thing we did was actually expand our CX team, you know, and with that, not just having a, you know, a strong, um, you know, person to spearhead that, but bringing the right people along for analytics for, for, for data, for product and be able to really take it to the next level. So bringing that expertise to help us unlock more capabilities of CX in general, which again, will allow us to be more impactful to the business. So one of the first things that that we look to continue changing or improving upon is expanding our listening posts even further. Um, we we are focused in our dedicated to the entire customer journey, but there’s still other ways of improving, um, how we connect with our customers, you know, throughout their experience with us. And adding those additional touch points will be a critical thing for us to do, uh, in moving forward. We also recognize that in order to not be biased and only look at data from one perspective. We have been checking in with, in this case, our internal constituents, our internal local venue leaders for feedback. And, you know, we may have data, but they may have the color that explains why the data says what it says. And…

Right.

…so one thing we’ve done is already put the put in place or looking to activate. Now, in the back half of 2024 is our own CX or Customer Experience Insights Council, a council made up of different stakeholders that we can have those quarterly or regular check ins and, and really address the nuances because, um, there’s always more to unpack. Uh, and it’s great to have rich data and a lot of data, but but there’s always going to be nuances that not we don’t always know when we’re the ones at the keyboard. And so that collection of venue stakeholders, um, program sponsors, leaders, uh, and others involved, I think really is going to help us dynamically take this information to a different level, give us a much greater ability. Um, and then finally, a lot of our efforts have been both focused on the B2C side and B2B side, as we touched on earlier, uh, mainly in the US. And so looking at expanding, continuing to expand our efforts across, uh, internationally, you know, across all five continents that we currently do business, uh, and really looking to make both the B2C and the B2B sides more robust. And by that, it’s not just, um, uh, features or tools or listening posts, etc., but being able to understand what customers are saying and identifying solutions to saying, okay, how do we improve our listening opportunities there? Or how do we get better data on these specific actions? And so, um, we recognize that we’ve made a lot of progress over the last, uh, call it two years, but there’s so much more to be done. And we’re really excited about the back half of this year. And, uh, some of the big changes we look to bring.

Yeah. Well, and again, to kind of come full circle on what we’ve been talking about today, really the the vision that you have at ASM global to not only be able to affect the experience and drive change for the B2C and B2B audiences at the local level, but when and then apply those learnings more broadly from a macro perspective, industry perspective, you know, it’s really exciting to think about what that looks like and what learnings and opportunities can be identified. When you think about just the US or just North America, but then you apply that to the nuances of of a global program or a global benchmark or what works in APAC versus EMEA versus the US. And you could really be talking about a lot of opportunities to to learn and to drive and to grow, which it starts to get really exciting. And I think is is very true for any listening strategy, but certainly one that’s very nuanced in your unique industry and…

There’s…

,,.setup.

…not enough hours in the day or people on the planet to help us really pursue all the things we want to. Um, but…

Right.

…you’re right. But it’s exciting. It allows you to start making sense of that and prioritizing what you can go after.

Absolutely. All right. Well, I think we’ve come to that part in the show where if you could impart one piece of wisdom on our listeners, what we like to to bill as the take home value, you know, with what you’re looking to do with this survey in these industries, in this industry, what is one thing that you would recommend to another CX pro that they could take away and start applying to their business today?

Well, Sara, I think the first thing I’ll say and I’ll actually, um, take the liberty of giving you a two part answer.

Extra credit. We love it.

Now one that might be familiar and but one that I think adds a fresh take. Um, really would challenge anyone in this CX space to be curious. And by that, what I mean is, regardless of the industry you’re in, you have access to all this amazing information that can be very powerful to the business. But I challenge any CX professional to be curious about the industry they’re in and understand the industry, what makes it move forward, what’s important to the business leaders? Having that curiosity and opening up the ability to better understand the industry you’re in, I think will help us close that gap and be better aligned with other key stakeholders in our companies. Um, so rather than us yelling out numbers or data or figures just for the sake of its understanding which ones matter and why they matter, I think that will allow us to be heard a little bit better. And as we identify trends and analyze this data and see these unique things that that come out of the information, whether it’s qualitative or quantitative, I think that being curious will only facilitate, I think, greater success. And then the second part of this, which I think is said last time as well, is as a CX leader or leaders in any organization, I challenge and ask anybody to to be the champion for CX, to be that passionate advocate they’re building, um, in their business, in their company, in their industry. Um, because this information is great, but living in a dashboard or in a report will not help anybody. So sometimes it feels a little awkward sticking your neck out there a little bit. But if you believe in this, and hopefully you do and you’re passionate for the industry you’re in, I think it’s not just about being curious or understanding your business, but being that advocate, being really passionate about it and carrying that torch, I think will make a significant difference for any professional.

Yeah. Well said. I think you know two components to the secret sauce to make this work. And you articulate it there perfectly. Alex Merchán is the chief marketing officer for ASM Global. Alex, thank you for being on The CX Leader Podcast. Uh, if any of our listeners want to reach out to you to discuss more of what we talked about today, how those strategies can be applied to the to their business, uh, is there a good way for them to reach out to you?

Sure. Linkedin. LinkedIn, please. Uh, may not check it every day, but check it quite often. It’s a great way to meet other like minded professionals and, uh, get to know someone from there.

Awesome. And if you want to discuss this topic with one of our Walker experts, or have a great idea for a topic on a future episode, email us at podcast@walkerinfo.com. We’d love to hear from you! Be sure to rate The CX Leader Podcast through your podcast service and leave a review. Your feedback will help us improve the show and deliver the best possible value to you, our listener. Check out our website cxleaderpodcast.com. From there, you can follow the link to all of our shows and previous episodes with a blog that we update regularly. The CX Leader Podcast is a production of Walker. We’re an experience management firm that helps companies accelerate their XM success. You can read more about us at walkerinfo.com. Thank you for listening and remember, it’s a great time to be a CX leader. We’ll see you next time.