Paciolan has signed a three-year deal with Givex that puts stored-value technology in the hands of a team’s season-ticket holders to manage their accounts.
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Value on Flyers and Sixers tickets will be good at Xfinity Live! establishments like the Broad Street Bullies Pub.
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The partnership ties Paciolan, a ticketing software firm with about 500 accounts at major league and college sports facilities and other venues, to Givex, a leading maker of electronic gift cards. With those systems linked, season-ticket holders can now go online and add value to their bar-coded tickets to buy food and retail concessions on a game-by-game basis.
Paciolan clients such as the Philadelphia Flyers and 76ers, two teams using older stored-value technology the past four years, have been responsible for loading value at the request of season-ticket holders. Now, to add value to a game ticket, season-ticket holders access their accounts through the team’s website, where a list of games and stored value balances appear for each event. They can then select a ticket, enter the amount desired and type in a credit card number to complete the transaction.
As with the older system managed by the teams, the new platform gives season-ticket holders the flexibility to roll value over from game to game.
The Flyers and Sixers will be Paciolan’s first teams to activate Uptix, the brand name Givex uses for its stored-value program. Both teams use the technology as an incentive to renew season tickets. This season, 8,000 Flyers season-ticket holders and 3,500 Sixers season-ticket holders have stored-value tickets, said Mark DiMaurizio, vice president of technology solutions for Comcast-Spectacor, the company that owns the Flyers and Wells Fargo Center, the home arena for both teams. They can also use cash and credit cards to pay for concessions.
Halfway into the 2011-12 season, more than 50 percent of the teams’ season-ticket customers holding stored value tickets have used the technology, DeMaurizio said. Historically, that number has jumped to 95 percent by the end of the season, he said.
The Uptix program goes live March 16 for the Heat-Sixers game, followed by the March 18 Penguins-Flyers game.
Two weeks later, on March 31, the day of a Flyers-Sixers doubleheader, the new stored-value system will be expanded to Xfinity Live! Philadelphia, the new retail and entertainment district down the street from the arena. Season-ticket holders for both teams will be able to use their game tickets with stored value there after the NHL and NBA games.
“There is a downtown environment now [in south Philly],” said Dave Butler, Paciolan’s CEO. “When you wire all that in, as a fan, a few hours before the game you can go to the sports bar and buy a beer and a hot dog, and a hat and a jersey with your ticket,” Butler said.
The new Uptix system can also be used by single-game buyers for Flyers and Sixers games with some restrictions.
