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NHRA looks to Paciolan to tune up ticketing at seven tracks

Don Muret
The National Hot Rod Association has signed a five-year deal with Paciolan to improve ticketing operations for seven drag racing facilities.

The agreement covers four NHRA-owned tracks — Auto Club Raceway in Pomona, Calif.; Atlanta Dragway; Auto Plus Raceway in Gainesville, Fla.; and Lucas Oil Raceway in Indianapolis — plus three independently owned venues, New England Dragway in Epping, N.H.; Heartland Park in Topeka, Kan.; and Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park in Chandler, Ariz.

The relationship with Paciolan potentially could expand to all 21 venues that hold NHRA events, said Brian Thomas, the organization’s director of ticket operations and former box office manager at Staples Center.

Auto Club Raceway in Pomona, Calif., is among the drag racing facilities now using Paciolan.
Photo by: COURTESY OF NHRA
The Paciolan deal will significantly upgrade ticketing by providing a simpler, faster process for buying ticket packages for a weekend of race activities, Thomas said. Under the old ticketing setup at the four NHRA-owned tracks, fans had to complete multiple transactions on ExtremeTix to buy tickets for more than one day of racing, he said.

In addition, there was no seamless integration between the old ticketing system and a CRM platform, so the NHRA was forced to use several software firms to help build a better profile of their ticket buyers.

“We knew who the customer was but not what they bought,” Thomas said. “There was no good way to get data out of ExtremeTix. With the CRM aspects all integrated with our Paciolan system, we will know what’s going on as soon as they buy a ticket. It gives us much more flexibility.”

The comprehensive platform also covers promotions through emails and social media outlets and mobile ticketing, as well as the important data analytics piece tied to Paciolan’s technology, Paciolan CEO Dave Butler said.

For Paciolan, the goal over time is to gain the trust of the remaining 14 track owners running NHRA events and have them eventually convert to Paciolan’s system, added Steve Demots, the firm’s senior vice president of sales, who was involved in the negotiations.

The deal has already kicked in with season-ticket renewals for 2015 across most of the tracks and single-ticket sales for the Auto Club Finals in Pomona on Nov. 13-16, said Craig Ricks, Paciolan’s vice president of marketing.

> PARTY WITH SPARTY: Michigan State University recently hired Rossetti to design upgrades to Breslin Center, including a proposed club to accommodate 500 to 600 current season-ticket holders sitting in the first few rows of the seating bowl.

The club, a flagship team store, a new ticket office and the Hall of History space showcasing the legacy of MSU basketball is all part of a second phase of improvements, totaling 30,000 square feet, said Matt Taylor, a Rossetti associate working on the project.

Those upgrades are estimated at $23 million, including $16 million in hard construction costs, Taylor said.
The club would take up open space off the main concourse, and those patrons would take a new elevator down to their existing seats at event level, Taylor said. The idea is to use it for both game days and catered events by setting up banquet tables for 250 people, he said.

To date, there is no funding for those projects and no timetable for when those features could be added to the arena, said Greg Ianni, Michigan State’s deputy director of athletics in charge of facilities.

Separately, the school is moving ahead with a $28 million arena renovation covering mechanical upgrades, more restrooms, and concession stand and concourse improvements. Those projects will start sometime in 2015, Ianni said.
“The plan is to design both [phases] so we don’t duplicate construction efforts,” he said.
The retrofits are the first major renovations to the building, which opened in 1989.

Don Muret can be reached at dmuret@sportsbusinessjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @breakground.

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