Hayley: When you were younger, what did you want to be when you grew up? I don’t imagine it involved ticketing…

Joshua: Really randomly, I wanted to be a fireman for a while.

A world away from music!

I kind of realised ‘Well… I don’t think I can do that’. 

And music was the next best option?

My Mum and Dad have always been amazing at taking me to live events and to see music. I went to my first concert when I was about nine years old. We went to see Robbie Williams at Knebworth. It was on such a big scale, 200,000 people... I always remember my Mum and Dad would use [my siblings and I] to get in the VIP bit at the front. They’d find somebody—one of the coordinators or something—and say ‘Our children really want to get to the front’.

They’ve always taken us to Glastonbury and stuff too, so music’s always been a big part of my life. I knew quite early on that I wanted to get involved in the industry and then our family friends set up a promotions company that initially started as a really small project. It started out as a small gig near where I grew up in Lytham and has since grown into this huge thing [Lytham Festival] where they’ve had The Strokes, Noel Gallagher and loads of other huge acts [on the line up]. Being around that when I was younger and having the opportunity to get involved was amazing, as was seeing it being built from the ground up as well, because they started really, really little. The first event they did, our family friend [performed] at it and sang happy birthday to my Dad! There were 1000 people there.

At what point were you able to get involved?

Because it was run by family friends, I started helping out when I was about 15, just doing a little bit of running, going to get sandwiches and things like that. There was one time I remember having to get a USB stick for a DJ... We had to run down to WHSmiths to buy one so they could play their set that evening.

Throughout uni, I worked the summers for them and by then they were doing a real range of events. One year, they did a horse festival where we managed all the bars. There was one year we were painting fences in the rain, in other years it was building VIP areas. I’d do a bit of loading in, I’d stock the bars for them. The bit that [nudged] me towards what I’m doing today though was when I started working in the office, when I turned 19. I worked with somebody who was doing the ticketing for them, so I worked on a ticketing system for the first time, booking people in and starting to understand the mechanisms [of a ticketing department]. 

[Overall though,] it was a real eye opening experience. Some days we’d work from eight in the morning through to four in the morning the next day, building bars and getting everything ready. They did big green field events, where it was just a field [when you first got there] and then five days later 20,000 people were there at an event. Often, Simply Red or Tom Jones! But it was an amazing experience and I [helped get] my other friends jobs too, so we were just like a pack that went round and sorted things out. If anything needed doing, we’d just jump on it. It gave you a really good work ethic too, especially because someone we knew was managing it. We wanted to do the best job we possibly could for them, because they’d given us such a great opportunity.

Everybody just mucking in and getting it done.

Getting it done, but getting it done to the best of our ability as well. All my friends who helped out had the same attitude too. And even though it was really long hours, by the end of it you could see the fruits of your labour in the sense that to begin with it was just a field and [by the time you’d finished] it was a huge event that people had paid money to come to and they’d go away having had a great experience.

Is there any music that reminds you of that time?

They were really into those 80s and 90s nights, so it was a lot of acts like that. I remember being sat on-site one time listening to 5ive do their soundcheck. Working on their Noel Gallagher gig though was amazing for me. I’ve always loved Oasis. I got to see them when I was little because my Mum and Dad took us to a gig at Heaton Park. Working on that was something special. Just to have Noel Gallagher walking past me… I was stood backstage in this van and the sun was shining, and [from nowhere] he just appeared. It was one of those moments like ‘This is why we do it’, because then he goes on stage and plays to 20,000 people and everybody loves it.

Was there a satisfying sense of ‘I’ve helped make this happen’?

It wasn’t often in the moment that I’d think ‘Without us here, this, that or the other might not have happened’. It probably was that first job that confirmed this was the industry I wanted to be in though, creating those experiences for people.

I grew up in Doncaster—a town about 20 minutes outside of Sheffield—and to me, the city came to represent all that was exciting and exotic in music and the arts more broadly. Was Manchester almost the equivalent to you as someone who grew up in Lytham?

100% actually. Obviously I mentioned Knebworth, but my first ‘proper gig’ was going to see Arctic Monkeys at the GMEX. When I was younger, literally the only reason we used to come to Manchester was to go to gigs. I actually never realised how close the Arena was to the city centre, because we always used to park over the other side, head to the Arena, enjoy whatever gig we’d gone to see, then head straight home.

But that gig at the GMEX was amazing, to see Arctic Monkeys playing a big venue like that just as they were rising up. What’s now Manchester Central is also just a really cool venue to go to as well, and they don’t really do music there anymore, so it’s special to have been to a gig there. Years later, when I worked on MIF21 there, it was a nice full circle moment, from going to my first gig there to then having Arlo Parks and Damon Albarn play there at an event I was involved in. They were the first gigs at the GMEX for 10 or 15 years. It was just after lockdown, so we did it all socially-distanced, with only 1,000 people able to go. 

“When I was younger, literally the only reason we used to come to Manchester was to go to gigs.”

What was your involvement in those gigs?

I was doing the ticketing management. MIF21 was crazy. Because of COVID, we went through six iterations of the festival. We had it as a full, big thing that everybody could come to [to start with], then it went to an online only festival and then it went to half capacity or just 1,000 people, whichever was fewer. So the venues kept changing and within my department, we had to build six or seven different [ticketing] scenarios for each show, with different venues and different capacities. 

It was really interesting to work on, even [taking] in all the information around socially-distanced events and really triple-checking, quadruple-checking everything to make sure it was OK. Plus, there was the payoff of actually being able to do gigs again, because there was a long time where people thought that that wasn’t going to happen. We did some of the first gigs in Manchester when things started opening up again, so to be a part of that was amazing. It [was that satisfaction of] seeing the fruits of your labour again after building all those seating plans and making sure people were safe to attend.

And hopefully a scenario you won’t need to deal with again…

It was a wild time to work across. Obviously no one wanted to go through that [time] at all, but being able to put something on to bring people together—in a socially-distanced way—was really cool. It was a very bizarre time, but also a time when people really appreciated coming out as well, so making that happen for people was cool. 

You seem to have such an affinity for Manchester! How come you decided to go to Leeds for Uni?

It was the course really. I really like the city, Leeds is a great place and there are some really good opportunities there. I got a job at the Arena there when I first started uni and some of my friends were doing gigs around the city. It was an exciting place to be and I really enjoyed my time there. 

And what brought you back here in the end?

After uni, I think everybody goes through that period of trying to figure out what they want to do. Or maybe they’ve got an idea in their head of what they want to do, but when they try to actually do it, it turns out not to be the thing for them. I did a season abroad—I went to Austria for six months—and that really helped me in terms of personal development, but also, in that time of life, in just getting me out of my head a little bit by going somewhere completely new. It really brought me out of myself in the sense of being able to speak to people and realising that putting a bit of extra effort in really does go a long way, and people really do appreciate it. 

When I moved back, I was still a bit ‘in between’ and it was my Auntie, who lives in Manchester, who said ‘You always talk about Manchester and the music scene. You’re going to move [here] and you’re going to live with us and you’re going to have a great time’. It was a huge opportunity. She really kicked me into gear and I’ll be forever grateful for that. 

Did you always intend to go into ticketing or did you approach the job search with an open mind?

I was open-minded, but there’s one thing I always say about ticketing and that’s that you do a lot of hard work before a show—so you get everything ready for on-sale, make sure customers are happy and so on—but after that you can go to the thing and enjoy it! I think in my other jobs, where I was running around all the time, you sometimes worked really hard before the gig, then worked even harder while the gig was on and even harder once the gig had finished. [With experience,] I realised I enjoyed being a part of everything—and ticketing is one of those things where you need to talk to every department, from tech to marketing to programming [and so on], you’re still communicating with everybody—but also getting to enjoy [the event] as well. That’s where I kind of fell into ticketing.

But also, I think another reason for that is that, when I first moved to Manchester, instead of looking for jobs, I looked at venues. [I’d look at a venue and think] that’s a place that I could work and get involved in something that I’m interested in. I ended up applying for The Lowry and got a part-time job there in the ticketing department, then just built my career up from there. They sold for multiple venues and different experiences around the country, so it gave me a really broad look at how to do ticketing on a mass scale.

That was my tactic too—just get in the building and work the rest out later. That said, the time that I spent working in box offices really highlighted for me what a big part of the customer experience ticketing is. I don’t think people often think of it that way.

Even when I was doing my part-time job at The Lowry, I wanted to give it my all. Because even if you’re just briefly speaking to someone on the phone, if you’re knowledgeable and confident and communicate [the information you need to share] well, it starts their whole experience off on the right foot.

And yet there aren’t that many places that have a physical box office anymore. Beyond the customer service angle, I’d say they also play a key part in customers developing a relationship with a venue.

I think that physical aspect of ticketing is still a really big part of it actually. There are venues that have moved away from that, but that can mean that as a customer you don’t actually get a bond with the venue itself, and I think more and more venues are realising that. I mean, the way that the industry is now, if they’re lucky enough to be able to do so, customers can choose to see a touring show in any venue across the country. 

Co-op Live, for example, has a physical box office and it has a box office for a reason, and it has a fan experience desk where people can come in and speak to someone in person on event nights. Same at The Bridgewater Hall. Working there, I realised how far that personal touch can go with people.

To bring it back to ticketing more broadly, let’s talk about ticket prices. How are they determined and why do they seem to be getting more expensive?

The boring answer is that the cost of everything has gone up. Not only touring costs, or the costs of running the buildings, but everything. People are being paid better as well, which I really appreciate and as we were just saying, being able to have access to that personal offering [of a physical box office] comes at a cost too. 

There are great things you can do with affordable ticketing though. For example, at Factory International, they have affordable options there for people, starting from £3 for some things. They try to offer £10 tickets to all of their self-produced shows there too. I do think the price of tickets in the arts is something that’s looked at with [a unique level of] scrutiny in terms of what justifies those prices though.

Is there anything you think the average customer wouldn’t consider when trying to work that out?

There is an assumption I think that, when you go to a venue, what you’re paying for is just whatever’s happening in front of you that night. But the majority of venues work seven days a week, taking care of all the admin that goes in before and after gigs, and doing all the work that goes into keeping current operations running as well as looking a couple of years ahead. What’s tricky as a customer is that, yes, you are paying to go to that particular concert [only], but actually that money goes towards keeping the venues up and running and possibly towards future projects too. There’s things like PRS as well—paying for the use of the music—that people might not necessarily see [or think of].

I guess it also comes back to the actual experience that’s on offer as well. For instance, you’d often expect to pay more to see a big artist in an intimate setting. How do you balance cost vs. value?

How do you put a price on anything? It does go back to the cost of things, but then you have to also factor in the experience as well. [In some cases,] you might not have that experience anywhere else ever again.

One big thing in the ticketing industry is dynamic pricing. In other industries, you don’t question it as much. For example, we could use the airline analogy. Those ticket prices fluctuate all the time, but if you really want to go somewhere, you’ll pay whatever it costs. I do think there are limits, of course, but it’s almost a given in some industries, meanwhile in ours it’s really [frowned upon]. Rightfully so sometimes, but also it comes back to supply and demand, and as we’ve said, you could be paying for a completely unique experience that you couldn’t get anywhere else. 

And at least in my experience—and speaking to other people in the industry—there’s minimal price resistance provided the offering is of a high quality. 

You can do a lot more with longer running shows, for instance in the West End. Some of the stuff they’re doing there is amazing, where they can offer £10 or £20 tickets or raffles for tickets [to huge productions]. It’s trickier when it’s more of an in and out show, where the costings go towards that operation. But again, it comes down to that thing of if you can pay extra to have the kind of experience you want, that’s who those tickets are on sale for. There are some newer venues that are trying to create a better fan experience for everybody though. Some of the ticket costs are still very, very high but hopefully they range from a reasonable price to… Another price!

But if you look at how the music industry used to make money, it doesn’t make money like that anymore. It now comes down to live events. At the same time, what I hope is that the experience is getting better [in line] with [increasing] ticket prices. It’s a problem if the price goes up but the experience stays the same.

It’s impossible to speak about ticket prices, without mentioning touts and ticket bots… 

That’s always going to be a thing, sadly. 

From a customer’s point of view though, I think it can often appear as if not enough is being done to tackle the issue because it’s still happening, whereas in reality, as fast as one side is finding solutions, the other is coming up with new ways to subvert the system.

There are some interesting conversations going on at the moment about ballots. For example, there was a West End performance which went on sale recently and I joined a queue to buy tickets and was 300,000th in the queue. There clearly weren’t going to be any tickets left when I got to the end of it and there were potentially a number of bots ahead of me. There are a lot of conversations going on about how to do balloting and make sure it’s fair and it’ll be interesting if some of the big leaders go into it. Even Glastonbury’s talked about it [for example].

Another thing to consider though is that ticketing’s developed a lot over the past few years, and obviously technology is always getting more advanced. I think in the next 10 or 15 years, it’ll completely change again, potentially incorporating more checks which could prevent touting and things like that. At the ticketing conferences I go to, AI keeps getting mentioned a lot. There’s a lot of talk about how that can be integrated. [The most important thing though is ensuring] that the people who want to go are the ones who have access to tickets. 

And it’s encouraging to know that conversations around making that the case are ongoing. So to bring it back to live events, what makes a good venue experience for you?

I think weirdly sometimes it’s about going to an event and not realising that people are working there. For example, to bring it back to ticketing, if ticketing is done well, you obviously understand that you’re buying a ticket, but beyond that you don’t have to think about any of the stuff that’s gone into selling you that ticket, or sending it to you before the show.

If you go to a venue and the people that are there know what they’re doing, that creates a great experience. My trifecta of customer experience is knowledge, confidence and communication. Because you can have the confidence and the communication, but if you don’t have the knowledge, you can confidently communicate the wrong information to someone, who’ll go away and realise that you didn’t know what you were talking about. And if you have the knowledge and the communication but without the confidence, [what you’re saying will be correct, but] they might still question whether you know what you’re talking about anyway. But if you have all three… There you go.

Who does that well in Manchester?

It’s tricky because if I’ve gone to a gig and all I’ve thought about there is the gig, the venue’s done its job. I always enjoy going to the O2 Apollo because I just think it’s a great gig venue—once you get in there, you can just enjoy the gig—and I do really enjoy the new Co-op arena. That’s really cool in the sense that it’s a venue that’s been built for the fan experience. It is obviously about the music, but everything outside of that provides ticket holders with that elevated experience that potentially they are paying a premium for. 

The age of a venue can sometimes really play a part in it too. Sometimes, there are certain things you can’t do [to improve the customer experience] because of something that’s [structurally impossible] to change. Same with new venues really, you don’t really know what you’re getting until you move in and then you move in and you go ‘Ooh, can we change all of this?’. But you work with all of it and try to create the best customer experience possible. It’s tricky though with live entertainment in that it is such a personal experience for people. One person can think something’s amazing, and another can think it’s the worst experience they’ve ever had. The main thing is that everybody in the venue is trying to make it the best that they can.

“If I’ve gone to a gig and all I’ve thought about there is the gig, the venue’s done its job.”

Do you think it’s shaped your music taste at all, having worked in such a variety of venues so far?

I think I’m a bit boring, ‘cos I just like guitar led band music. Manchester music! What it has changed is my cultural experiences, the kind of things that I go to. There were a lot of plays I saw [while I was at The Lowry] that I wouldn’t necessarily have seen otherwise, whether because I wouldn’t have had that opportunity or because I wasn’t aware they were on, they weren’t something I would have been looking for. Same at The Bridgewater Hall with classical music. I wouldn’t necessarily have sought out a classical concert otherwise, but being a part of it and seeing how amazing it is was really great. Same working at MIF and Factory too. With all their newly-produced work, it was really interesting to see something through from concept to the stage and all the steps in between that. 

Let’s talk more about Factory International. Where do you begin when setting up the ticketing department of a brand new venue?

It’s a lot of different consultation with a lot of different groups of people. The main consultation was with technical, literally mapping out the square meterage of things to understand the capacities and placings, drawing up twenty different seating plans for the hall and understanding the build of the venue to make sure that was correct. Then, once we got the seats in, it was going round and counting all the seats to make sure they were actually there! We went in on the first day and were like ‘Oh my days, we’ve forgot a row!’. But what had actually happened was that—because they know what they’re doing—they didn’t put in a Row O, which they don’t normally, because it gets confused with 0.

Working with Factory though—because it’s such a multi-changing venue and with the ethos that’s carried over from the Festival—you go into it with a fresh mind, thinking ‘OK, how can we do this’. You don’t look at the limitations. The first big thing we had on there show-wise was Free Your Mind, which was a seated experience that went through to a general admission standing experience in a different part of the venue. [Through] working out how we could ticket that, we went through about six or seven configurations when we were building it. We’d speak to different people, from the producers to the creative people behind it, just trying to understand [how it would work] and also how we’d communicate that to customers. That’s what’s really interesting about working for Factory International: because it’s new work, it’s trying to understand the concept of things as well as how we sell them.

For MIF21, we did an event in the build of [what’s now Aviva Studios] called Arcadia. It had to run from when it got dark, so that was quite hard to ticket because customers were allocated a time slot. You’d go in and there were about 50 tents in the site, all playing different sounds and offering a different experience, it was really cool. We had to work out what time the sun was setting each night, because we needed it to be pitch black, so it ended up running from about half 10 through til four in the morning. It was a cool experience seeing the sun rise from inside the building site.

So, because it can shapeshift according to whatever a show might require, even now the building’s open and established, is there always a lot of work that goes into a set up before you put a single ticket on sale?

There’s probably been about five or six shows where, before we’ve gone on sale, we’ve changed seating configurations five or six times. It’s fun trying to get it sorted. There has been the occasional show where we’ve had to change it after it’s gone on sale, which is obviously not ideal for customers. But that comes with being on the front end of creating something and making it the best it can possibly be, so instead of just keeping things as they were originally sold, the creative team is saying ‘Can we change it?’ and then [we work out how]. In those cases, it’s just about making sure that all the comms to customers are as clear as possible, so they realise that we do know what we were doing, it’s just that we’re changing things—tweaking things a little bit—to ensure they get the best experience.

When working on a show has been more of a ‘process’ in that way, is it more satisfying when sales go well?

When we did the Yayoi Kusama exhibition, I spoke to quite a lot of people in the industry about it—and about experiences like that—because it was a brand new concept. With a lot of the shows that we do there, because they literally start from the preview—or day one, when they open [for the public]—it’s quite hard to get visuals for them or to communicate [their concepts] in a way that people are likely to fully understand. The people that I spoke to were saying if you sell 30% of your tickets before it starts, it’s going to do amazingly well once it opens, when images are shared and word of mouth spreads and marketing have been able to do more. 

When we went on sale with Kusama, we sold 80,000 tickets in two days. That was amazing to see and amazing to be a part of. Same with Free Your Mind, it was such a huge project with so many moving parts, so to see that go on sale and to see it eventually sell out across the whole two week run was amazing.

It’s easy to imagine the parts of their role that those working in other departments might get a buzz from. Where does that come from for you in ticketing?

For me, it’s getting great feedback from customers. We do get it where people get in touch and say ‘Thanks for your help, I emailed before’ or ‘I rang for some information and the person that I spoke to was really helpful’. Like I said though, when people don’t think about ticketing, we know we’re doing our job right and we do put a lot of effort into it, making sure things go on sale properly and at the right time etc. 

Also, for me, being a manager of a team of people and seeing my team work across things and learn new skills is where I get my satisfaction really. Not from the show necessarily but more so what comes before it.

With that in mind, does it make a difference to you what event you’re dealing with the tickets for? Is it exciting when it’s a show or artist that you like?

I think what’s exciting for me is when you’re given a project to work on that’s a bit out of the norm for a venue. Certainly in ticketing that’s when you can be like ‘Well, we could sell this in three or four different ways…’.  And you do get a bit of a buzz when you put something on sale and it sells out straight away, that’s fun. With us talking about pricing earlier, in America they say that if something sells out quickly, they’ve priced it wrong—it should’ve been more expensive. Meanwhile, in the UK, we’re like ‘Yeah!’.

“You do get a bit of a buzz when you put something on sale and it sells out straight away, that’s fun.”

Maybe because it isn’t necessarily the ‘sexy’ side of the industry, ticketing rarely comes up in conversations surrounding the kind of roles available within live events, even though it’s an integral part of the ecosystem. How would you sell your role—or a role in your department—to someone?

I think it depends on the venue. But say somewhere like Factory International, there’s that sense that within ticketing you do work with practically every different department. Especially if it’s a brand new thing, you go through the tech team, the producing team, the creative team, you go through marketing to work out how you’re putting it on sale. Of course, some places just do ticketing and it’s purely based around the numbers and getting those mathematical equations right, which some people might find interesting. But there are other aspects of ticketing that people maybe don’t think of where you are involved in some of the creative decisions around shows, in terms of how to sell things. Also, customer service can come into it, because how you sell a ticket to a customer is how they’re going to start their experience.

I do get asked sometimes what I actually do, which I can understand, because there are some jobs in the events industry where you are literally legging it about and it’s very visible what you’re doing. But I do think there is that thing in ticketing where, in trying to make yourself as efficient and effective as possible, you actually go quite unnoticed, because if you do your job well, nobody questions it or asks about it.

I do think if you’re interested in getting into events, ticketing is a really good way into it. For instance, I’ve worked with a couple of people who’ve gone on to work in event management, for example, and just having had that little eye on ticketing beforehand has been really helpful. A lot of the entry level jobs [in venues] are in ticketing as well. Some venues have apprenticeships and things, but often it can be quite difficult to get your foot in the door, so I think ticketing can be a great way of doing that. [It’s an opportunity] to connect with people and ask [colleagues] how they got to where they are. I’ve always worked with great people, that’s another thing as well. Everyone I’ve met in the industry is passionate about something, whatever that might be. You don’t often have to be that creative, just interested and willing to learn. Given the opportunity to work in ticketing, just go for it.

In more senior roles such as yours, how does the job change when the capacity of the venue changes?

I think it’s just that general scaling up. Once you get a bit of knowledge about how venues work and how to sell things and communicate with promoters or internal staff, there are a lot of transferable things in ticketing, but basically every venue I’ve worked at has had a different way of putting a show on sale, either down to the way they set them up to the yields or the manifests or the settlements. Everywhere does that differently, but the main things mostly stay the same. I think that general scaling up is what’s intrigued me to move on to my new job though. Still being able to give that experience to people but just on a bigger scale.

When you’re picturing your career long-term, what factors are you guided by? Capacity, creativity, programming? 

The bigger scale stuff was always intriguing to me, working at the venues that I have so far. I’m interested to give that a go and see what it’s like. The trajectory in ticketing means that in order to keep going higher and higher in your role, you do need to move on to bigger scale venues. I think I’ll enjoy having that kind of responsibility on my hands when going on sale with 15,000 tickets or something like that.

I do think the venue and the people play a big part in everything though, and everybody I’ve met along the way has been great, including the new team at Co-op Live. The stuff that venues have on is obviously a big indicator of what the venues are like. Obviously, different venues have different remits of what they want to put on, but if you’ve got a really well-run venue, you often find that the best acts or the new things or whatever do end up going there. 

I’ve come from The Lowry, which is a lot of theatre-based stuff, through to MIF, which is all new work and found spaces across the city, to The Bridgewater Hall which leans more classical and then back to the Factory where we’ve opened a venue which has got a huge range of different things on. A big thing of moving into my new job is that Co-op Live is a big flagship thing, not just for Manchester, but for the UK and the world. It’s putting Manchester on the map internationally which is exciting. It’s showcasing Manchester in a really good way and I think that’s what I like as well. I do really like this city and I think the more the merrier for people [when it comes to venues]. There’s occasions when people throw out comments like ‘Why do you need a new venue?’ but I look at places like London or New York, where they have thousands of venues, and it works. It makes the city a more vibrant place and people have those different opportunities to come and enjoy whatever they want.