July 24, 2024 • 14 mins
CoolKay and Countyfairgrounds.net interview Lauren Javors sales manager about SimpleTix what they are and what they do. Fairs and Festivals need ticket sales and that is what this company specializes in and makes it as easy as possible to help the event with the electronic printing and distribution of the tickets .. they are really easy to work with.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Cool k and county paragrams Here?Do I have Lauren Javis of Simpletics on
the line with me? Hi,Karen? Yes, this is Lauren Javras.
How are you just call me coolk the whole country? Does you
got it? Cool? Kay?Thanks for having me. Okay. Simple
Tics is a ticketing platform that makestickets for events. So let me ask
(00:28):
first who you are in relation tothat. Sure so, Lauren Jabers,
I'm the head of sales for simpleTics, has been part of the company
for about five years. Now.How old is this company and how did
it get started? So? SimpleTicks was founded in twenty eleven by Lurn
Cancel. He's our founder. Hejust kind of started this out on a
(00:53):
whim. He was working on otherprojects. He went to school for computer
science and someone came along from alocal community theater asked for him to help
build this product, and then itjust kind of took off from there.
We our platform originally started out workingprimarily with community theaters and performing arts centers.
(01:17):
So that that's basically how the companygot started. Okay, Well what
exactly do they do? Sure so? Simple Tickes is an online ticketing platform
and we help event creators and eventorganizers and venues create you know, are
running events. We help them selltheir tickets online and in person. To
(01:42):
date, the current verticals that wework with are fairs and festivals similar to
yours. We do a lot offood and wine festivals and beer festivals.
We have a big footprint in agritourism, so we work with a lot of
local farms on their full event forpumpkin picking and corn mazes, all the
(02:04):
full events that you could possibly thinkof. In addition to that, we
work with again performing arts, theatersand you know one off events that people
might have, concerts big and small. So really it just kind of runs
the cabinet. We can you know, cater to any size or style event
out there. Okay, so likefor a county fair, you actually print
(02:29):
tickets for them yet, So theway it works is we help the county
fair create an online event which wouldbe their fair or their festival. We
create a beautiful event page for themwhere they can post it on a website
or on social media Facebook or Instagram, through mailers, whatever it takes.
(02:53):
We provide QR codes that they canhang around town as they're promoting the county
fair or the festival. And thenpeople go online and they can see that
real nice event page and they justbuy their tickets prior to the events.
So that's that's basically how it works. A couple of key features that I
(03:16):
can share with you if you'd likethat our platform does is we can provide
season passes. So let's say,you know, obviously we know that these
county or state fairs have multi dayticketing. We can sell a season pass
so that the ticket buyer would onlyneed to, you know, have that
one unique QR code. They showup with it, and then the on
(03:38):
site staff would scan that ticket forentry and they can just keep reusing it.
They don't have to have a physicalticket if they choose to. When
they buy their ticket, they canprint it out and have it with them.
So again, we can provide seasonpasses, multi day passes. The
county fair or the state there canprovide promo codes if they want to do
(04:02):
early bird sales, specials or discountcodes. That's also an option totally available.
We also have the ability for thecounting fair to add a waiver or
terming terms and conditions at checkout,so when those tickets are being bought,
if they want them to agree tocertain terms, like you know, they
(04:23):
can only bring in clear bags atentry that can all be added into the
purchase of the checkout window as well. And then they they can also what
do you call it, collect datafrom the attendee that's coming to the fair,
so they can ask customized questions,which is pretty cool to check out,
and that helps them kind of developtheir marketing for the for the upcoming
(04:46):
year. They can retarget the peoplewho bought bought their tickets to the fair,
so it's kind of neat. Andthen another feature that a lot of
event creators like is the contact withscanning, so that they could just scan
them right in instead of having todeal with physical tickets or you know,
(05:09):
anything along those lines. And onelast thing to mention is our real time
reporting, so the person who's actuallycreating the event will have access to real
time data. They'll know when thosetickets sales are coming in as well.
You don't actually have a physical product, right, well, I wouldn't call
(05:31):
I wouldn't say that necessarily. Sowe sell the tickets online and then at
checkout they receive an email confirmation withtheir e tickets that they can either print
out or they can show on asmartphone device that entry. Okay, yeah,
so not like a specific you knowhard copy is necessary for for entry.
(05:54):
Okay, So what do you personallyfeel is the benefits of the working
with you to the fair is yeah, so I think it just really frees
up the fair from having to dealwith those physical tickets in person. That
would be like the biggest thing,I would say. And then having the
(06:15):
ability to note who's buying these tickets. If you don't have this data on
the back end of the system,you'll never know who's actually coming to those
to the fair. So to beable to have email addresses of people who
attended and then send them out emailsfor the following year with coupons or alerts
throughout the year, I think issuper beneficial for the fair and festival.
(06:39):
Okay, So say a fair doesthis, so you basically are going to
work with them and set up apage on their website. Correct, So
we have a team. The firstthing that they would do is book a
meeting. I would run through ademo with them, show them around the
platform, get them familiar with everything, figure out what their needs are,
what their price point is going tobe. Now, let me also just
(07:00):
back up and say that this doesnot cost the fare or festival anything.
Simple Tics only gets paid when ticketsare purchased, and that see is attached
to the ticket price. So,for instance, let's say a ticket is
ten dollars, our fee, wehave a special rate that we're going to
do for these fares and festivals.Our fee would be a flat seventy five
(07:23):
cents, so that seventy five centswould be passed on to the ticket buyer,
not the venue. Okay, okay. And then in addition to that
there's a payment process or fee.And also let me let me also tell
you that tickets that are five dollarsin under are twenty five cents Okay,
Yeah, for the simple Ticks fee. And then free events are free to
(07:45):
do simple tics too. Okay.So can you tell me some of the
fairs festivals that you've done. Yeah. So we work with a couple of
rodeos, So I know, PaulaRodeo is a really you know, big
client of ours. They've probably beenwith us or I would say, good
ten years. And then we havesome smaller festivals. Really, this is
a market that we are looking into. We're just dipping our toes into it,
(08:09):
and we want to expand in thisvertical, which is why I'm so
happy that you called and we wereable to schedule this call together, because
I think that the county fairs andthe state fares would really benefit from this
once they see the product. SoI wouldn't say we are the leader in
this vertical yet, but it's definitelysomething that we're pushing for. Okay,
(08:33):
Well, other kind of markets,like do you serve the side to work,
go ahead? Absolutely so. Agritourismhas been really huge for us.
We have probably over three hundred orfour hundred farms that are currently using us.
Like I mentioned earlier with the fullpumpkin events, we do a lot
of like Christmas light tours, Wedo a lot of food and wine festivals,
(08:58):
beer festivals, music festival concerts,we do political rallies. I mean,
we just do so many different verticals. There is no limit on the
types of events that we'll take.And I would presume that you have a
real good tech team. Oh wehave. Honestly, that is our strong
(09:20):
suit. So I always tell everyonewe have the best tech support team and
the best just the best customer serviceteam that you will find out there.
We have support seven days a week. The way that everything works is if
a fair festival is interested in usingus, they will contact me. I'll
run them through a demo, getthem really comfortable with the product, and
(09:43):
if they're interested, then I willonboard. Then we have a full onboarding
team, so we either I'll doit or I'll pass it on to someone
else on an onboarding team and they'llbe able to set the event up itself
with and all of this is completelycomplement entry. Like I said, the
fairs, the festival, they don'tpay us anything. We only get paid
when tickets are sold, and thenfrom there, if they have any other
(10:09):
sort of issues, they can contactour tech support team. Well even should
they have three options on ways tosell those tickets. They can embed the
event site that we helped create forthem on their website. They can again
take the URL that's created from theevent and share that on social media,
(10:30):
and then like I mentioned earlier,they can also we provide a QR code
they can push tickets out that wayas well, So we make sure that
you're up and running and you arecompletely selling tickets. Okay, yeah,
I'm sure you are aware of anI certainly. Am tech has gotten pretty
darn hard lately. Asked if youknow what your service is liking, if
(10:54):
you are fairly easy to reach ifthere is a problem. Oh, yes,
one hundred percent. And we workwith all people of all different technical
skills. I can attest to that. When COVID first happened, we well,
I went after all of the drivein movie theaters and that was a
cash only business. But they justcould not operate like that with COVID,
(11:16):
So I you know, I workedvery closely with about seventy different drive in
movie theater owners and got them toreally I empowered them to really learn the
platform and to understand, you know, how to create events. And we
were there to support them. Wehelped with all the creation and they they
(11:37):
got really comfortable with it. Sowe work with people of all different skill
levels. Okay, can you giveme some references some of the things you've
done. Sure, So let's see. Oh, we have a lot of
museums. We do a lot ofbig children's museums. We do some concerts.
I'm actually working on on a verybig concert right now with a very
(12:00):
well known reggae musician. Uh,let's see. Since big I mean,
I don't know if you know anyof these types of events. I'm trying
to think we're supposed to do abig political rally coming up. We've got
that going on we as I mentionedearlier, the rodeos. I'm trying to
(12:24):
think of some other really big ones. I've done big concerts with Barry Manilo
in the past, and I don'tknow if you If you know Teresa Computo
from the Long Island medium, I'vedone events for her. So yeah,
I mean it honestly, we probablyhave thousands of events going at one time,
but yeah, and a lot ofa lot of people self served,
(12:46):
so they were able to go onto the website and create their own events.
We don't always necessarily need us,which is you know, which is
a great thing too that we offerthat ability for them to just go on
and create events themselves. We haveknowledge based articles available as well, and
we have a great YouTube channel withamazing videos that our founder has created over
(13:07):
the years on how to use allthe different features. So also super super
informative, right, Well, youdo realize I am County Fairground dot net,
but I cover a lot of otherstuff too. That's why I asked
that question. Oh okay, yeah, yeah, for sure. What other
what else do you cover outside ofthe county fairs? Halloween? Okay,
(13:31):
a lot of a lot of Halloweenthings, Christmas, Christmas, rodeos,
concerts, all kinds of stuff.It's awesome. Yeah, no, it
sounds great. Absolutely, It's alot of work. But we've been up
since nineteen ninety eight, so we'rean old established venue. Wow. Okay,
(13:52):
all right, Well how do peoplereach you if they want to participate
in this? Sure? So wewould love that. The best way to
which me would be Lauren at simpleticksdot com And that's Lauren l a u
r e n at simple Tics.That's s I M P l e t
i X dot com. And thenfrom there I'll be able to send out
(14:13):
my calendar where they can book ameeting. And yeah, I mean I'm
happy to help, always available,and I would love if this partnership can
take off. I think we canwork really well together and I'm enjoying getting
to know you too. Cool Kay, Okay, Well, I've enjoyed the
interview, and we'll get this shopand get a posted posted and hopefully we'll
get some bookings. Sounds great,Thank you, so much for inviting simple
(14:35):
tics on all right, thank you, by bye, have a great day.
Bye bye.
Cool k and county paragrams Here?Do I have Lauren Javis of Simpletics on
the line with me? Hi,Karen? Yes, this is Lauren Javras.
How are you just call me coolk the whole country? Does you
got it? Cool? Kay?Thanks for having me. Okay. Simple
Tics is a ticketing platform that makestickets for events. So let me ask
(00:28):
first who you are in relation tothat. Sure so, Lauren Jabers,
I'm the head of sales for simpleTics, has been part of the company
for about five years. Now.How old is this company and how did
it get started? So? SimpleTicks was founded in twenty eleven by Lurn
Cancel. He's our founder. Hejust kind of started this out on a
(00:53):
whim. He was working on otherprojects. He went to school for computer
science and someone came along from alocal community theater asked for him to help
build this product, and then itjust kind of took off from there.
We our platform originally started out workingprimarily with community theaters and performing arts centers.
(01:17):
So that that's basically how the companygot started. Okay, Well what
exactly do they do? Sure so? Simple Tickes is an online ticketing platform
and we help event creators and eventorganizers and venues create you know, are
running events. We help them selltheir tickets online and in person. To
(01:42):
date, the current verticals that wework with are fairs and festivals similar to
yours. We do a lot offood and wine festivals and beer festivals.
We have a big footprint in agritourism, so we work with a lot of
local farms on their full event forpumpkin picking and corn mazes, all the
(02:04):
full events that you could possibly thinkof. In addition to that, we
work with again performing arts, theatersand you know one off events that people
might have, concerts big and small. So really it just kind of runs
the cabinet. We can you know, cater to any size or style event
out there. Okay, so likefor a county fair, you actually print
(02:29):
tickets for them yet, So theway it works is we help the county
fair create an online event which wouldbe their fair or their festival. We
create a beautiful event page for themwhere they can post it on a website
or on social media Facebook or Instagram, through mailers, whatever it takes.
(02:53):
We provide QR codes that they canhang around town as they're promoting the county
fair or the festival. And thenpeople go online and they can see that
real nice event page and they justbuy their tickets prior to the events.
So that's that's basically how it works. A couple of key features that I
(03:16):
can share with you if you'd likethat our platform does is we can provide
season passes. So let's say,you know, obviously we know that these
county or state fairs have multi dayticketing. We can sell a season pass
so that the ticket buyer would onlyneed to, you know, have that
one unique QR code. They showup with it, and then the on
(03:38):
site staff would scan that ticket forentry and they can just keep reusing it.
They don't have to have a physicalticket if they choose to. When
they buy their ticket, they canprint it out and have it with them.
So again, we can provide seasonpasses, multi day passes. The
county fair or the state there canprovide promo codes if they want to do
(04:02):
early bird sales, specials or discountcodes. That's also an option totally available.
We also have the ability for thecounting fair to add a waiver or
terming terms and conditions at checkout,so when those tickets are being bought,
if they want them to agree tocertain terms, like you know, they
(04:23):
can only bring in clear bags atentry that can all be added into the
purchase of the checkout window as well. And then they they can also what
do you call it, collect datafrom the attendee that's coming to the fair,
so they can ask customized questions,which is pretty cool to check out,
and that helps them kind of developtheir marketing for the for the upcoming
(04:46):
year. They can retarget the peoplewho bought bought their tickets to the fair,
so it's kind of neat. Andthen another feature that a lot of
event creators like is the contact withscanning, so that they could just scan
them right in instead of having todeal with physical tickets or you know,
(05:09):
anything along those lines. And onelast thing to mention is our real time
reporting, so the person who's actuallycreating the event will have access to real
time data. They'll know when thosetickets sales are coming in as well.
You don't actually have a physical product, right, well, I wouldn't call
(05:31):
I wouldn't say that necessarily. Sowe sell the tickets online and then at
checkout they receive an email confirmation withtheir e tickets that they can either print
out or they can show on asmartphone device that entry. Okay, yeah,
so not like a specific you knowhard copy is necessary for for entry.
(05:54):
Okay, So what do you personallyfeel is the benefits of the working
with you to the fair is yeah, so I think it just really frees
up the fair from having to dealwith those physical tickets in person. That
would be like the biggest thing,I would say. And then having the
(06:15):
ability to note who's buying these tickets. If you don't have this data on
the back end of the system,you'll never know who's actually coming to those
to the fair. So to beable to have email addresses of people who
attended and then send them out emailsfor the following year with coupons or alerts
throughout the year, I think issuper beneficial for the fair and festival.
(06:39):
Okay, So say a fair doesthis, so you basically are going to
work with them and set up apage on their website. Correct, So
we have a team. The firstthing that they would do is book a
meeting. I would run through ademo with them, show them around the
platform, get them familiar with everything, figure out what their needs are,
what their price point is going tobe. Now, let me also just
(07:00):
back up and say that this doesnot cost the fare or festival anything.
Simple Tics only gets paid when ticketsare purchased, and that see is attached
to the ticket price. So,for instance, let's say a ticket is
ten dollars, our fee, wehave a special rate that we're going to
do for these fares and festivals.Our fee would be a flat seventy five
(07:23):
cents, so that seventy five centswould be passed on to the ticket buyer,
not the venue. Okay, okay. And then in addition to that
there's a payment process or fee.And also let me let me also tell
you that tickets that are five dollarsin under are twenty five cents Okay,
Yeah, for the simple Ticks fee. And then free events are free to
(07:45):
do simple tics too. Okay.So can you tell me some of the
fairs festivals that you've done. Yeah. So we work with a couple of
rodeos, So I know, PaulaRodeo is a really you know, big
client of ours. They've probably beenwith us or I would say, good
ten years. And then we havesome smaller festivals. Really, this is
a market that we are looking into. We're just dipping our toes into it,
(08:09):
and we want to expand in thisvertical, which is why I'm so
happy that you called and we wereable to schedule this call together, because
I think that the county fairs andthe state fares would really benefit from this
once they see the product. SoI wouldn't say we are the leader in
this vertical yet, but it's definitelysomething that we're pushing for. Okay,
(08:33):
Well, other kind of markets,like do you serve the side to work,
go ahead? Absolutely so. Agritourismhas been really huge for us.
We have probably over three hundred orfour hundred farms that are currently using us.
Like I mentioned earlier with the fullpumpkin events, we do a lot
of like Christmas light tours, Wedo a lot of food and wine festivals,
(08:58):
beer festivals, music festival concerts,we do political rallies. I mean,
we just do so many different verticals. There is no limit on the
types of events that we'll take.And I would presume that you have a
real good tech team. Oh wehave. Honestly, that is our strong
(09:20):
suit. So I always tell everyonewe have the best tech support team and
the best just the best customer serviceteam that you will find out there.
We have support seven days a week. The way that everything works is if
a fair festival is interested in usingus, they will contact me. I'll
run them through a demo, getthem really comfortable with the product, and
(09:43):
if they're interested, then I willonboard. Then we have a full onboarding
team, so we either I'll doit or I'll pass it on to someone
else on an onboarding team and they'llbe able to set the event up itself
with and all of this is completelycomplement entry. Like I said, the
fairs, the festival, they don'tpay us anything. We only get paid
when tickets are sold, and thenfrom there, if they have any other
(10:09):
sort of issues, they can contactour tech support team. Well even should
they have three options on ways tosell those tickets. They can embed the
event site that we helped create forthem on their website. They can again
take the URL that's created from theevent and share that on social media,
(10:30):
and then like I mentioned earlier,they can also we provide a QR code
they can push tickets out that wayas well, So we make sure that
you're up and running and you arecompletely selling tickets. Okay, yeah,
I'm sure you are aware of anI certainly. Am tech has gotten pretty
darn hard lately. Asked if youknow what your service is liking, if
(10:54):
you are fairly easy to reach ifthere is a problem. Oh, yes,
one hundred percent. And we workwith all people of all different technical
skills. I can attest to that. When COVID first happened, we well,
I went after all of the drivein movie theaters and that was a
cash only business. But they justcould not operate like that with COVID,
(11:16):
So I you know, I workedvery closely with about seventy different drive in
movie theater owners and got them toreally I empowered them to really learn the
platform and to understand, you know, how to create events. And we
were there to support them. Wehelped with all the creation and they they
(11:37):
got really comfortable with it. Sowe work with people of all different skill
levels. Okay, can you giveme some references some of the things you've
done. Sure, So let's see. Oh, we have a lot of
museums. We do a lot ofbig children's museums. We do some concerts.
I'm actually working on on a verybig concert right now with a very
(12:00):
well known reggae musician. Uh,let's see. Since big I mean,
I don't know if you know anyof these types of events. I'm trying
to think we're supposed to do abig political rally coming up. We've got
that going on we as I mentionedearlier, the rodeos. I'm trying to
(12:24):
think of some other really big ones. I've done big concerts with Barry Manilo
in the past, and I don'tknow if you If you know Teresa Computo
from the Long Island medium, I'vedone events for her. So yeah,
I mean it honestly, we probablyhave thousands of events going at one time,
but yeah, and a lot ofa lot of people self served,
(12:46):
so they were able to go onto the website and create their own events.
We don't always necessarily need us,which is you know, which is
a great thing too that we offerthat ability for them to just go on
and create events themselves. We haveknowledge based articles available as well, and
we have a great YouTube channel withamazing videos that our founder has created over
(13:07):
the years on how to use allthe different features. So also super super
informative, right, Well, youdo realize I am County Fairground dot net,
but I cover a lot of otherstuff too. That's why I asked
that question. Oh okay, yeah, yeah, for sure. What other
what else do you cover outside ofthe county fairs? Halloween? Okay,
(13:31):
a lot of a lot of Halloweenthings, Christmas, Christmas, rodeos,
concerts, all kinds of stuff.It's awesome. Yeah, no, it
sounds great. Absolutely, It's alot of work. But we've been up
since nineteen ninety eight, so we'rean old established venue. Wow. Okay,
(13:52):
all right, Well how do peoplereach you if they want to participate
in this? Sure? So wewould love that. The best way to
which me would be Lauren at simpleticksdot com And that's Lauren l a u
r e n at simple Tics.That's s I M P l e t
i X dot com. And thenfrom there I'll be able to send out
(14:13):
my calendar where they can book ameeting. And yeah, I mean I'm
happy to help, always available,and I would love if this partnership can
take off. I think we canwork really well together and I'm enjoying getting
to know you too. Cool Kay, Okay, Well, I've enjoyed the
interview, and we'll get this shopand get a posted posted and hopefully we'll
get some bookings. Sounds great,Thank you, so much for inviting simple
(14:35):
tics on all right, thank you, by bye, have a great day.
Bye bye.
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