From July 14 to 23, 2017, the world’s top riders were in Germany for the CHIO Aachen World Equestrian Festival. SAP is a long-standing event partner.
SAP Event Ticketing makes it even easier for horse-lovers to snap up tickets for the show.
CHIO (Concours Hippique International Officiel) has been held in Aachen since 1924. Each year, it attracts over 350,000 spectators from all over the world, some 350 competitors from 30 countries, and 950 horses, plus 600 accredited journalists and over 200 TV crew members broadcasting to 140 countries. It is Germany’s national equestrian event and a true world equestrian festival.
Long-Standing SAP Partnership
The organization behind CHIO wants spectators and fans to have a unique experience of CHIO Aachen, which is why it has been working with SAP since 2012. SAP became the event’s official technology sponsor in 2013. It helped create the app that allows fans to follow the action on their mobile devices. The app enables spectators and fans to access the latest information on the event and the sport, follow the riders as they complete the cross-country and showjumping courses, test and expand their knowledge in an entertaining online competition, and even become part of the action by judging the riders themselves. SAP also sponsors an international showjumping class.
The fan experience begins when spectators go online to purchase tickets. For an event the size of CHIO Aachen, there is so much to watch that the choice is overwhelming. There are many different types of ticket to choose from. During the week of the competition, there are numerous events in different arenas covering five disciplines: showjumping, dressage, eventing, four-in-hand driving, and vaulting. Fans want ticket-buying to be as smooth as possible; the organizer wants to manage availability and sales efficiently.
One Solution for Every Event
Even today, many event organizers in the world of sport or entertainment still use an array of point solutions to cover everything they offer. Though such solutions do the job, they lead to complexity, data silos, and ultimately extra cost. To make it as easy as possible for spectators to purchase tickets and pass through the gate on arrival at the event, and to keep on top of the number of visitors and customer data, CHIO Aachen needed one ticketing solution. It wanted a platform it could rely on and that would meet its needs in the future as well. So, since July 14, 2017, the event’s organizer has been deploying SAP Event Ticketing for CHIO Aachen 2018. At first, tickets will be sold at the box offices on site and on CHIO Aachen’s online shop.
SAP Event Ticketing gives CHIO Aachen a flexible, scalable ticketing solution. It will be able to add more internal and external sales channels and social networking services such as social logins and sharing functions. The solution can be used to set up and sell all types of ticket format and event, such as one-off events and permanent events, and flexible subscriptions.
Seamless Customer Experience
Event organizers can use SAP Event Ticketing to set up their own branded online shop, which is a great way to present their event right from the start and make ticket-buying easy and intuitive on any device. CHIO Aachen’s online shop has a 3D application displaying each arena and a 360 degree panorama that shows the customer the view from every single seat. This function, too, could be fully integrated into the SAP system without needing any special enhancements.
They are also planning to use the integrated ticket reselling function in SAP Event Ticketing for the 2018 event. Allowing only tickets purchased on SAP Event Ticketing to be traded on the platform should help combat ticket fraud.
With the rise of buying online, businesses have to be able to preempt what their customers want and ideally meet their needs on the spot. The integrated analytics in SAP Event Ticketing give event organizers real-time insight into ticket sales and the interests and expectations of their customers and of potential customers. That helps them better tailor their ticket offering and campaigns.
Equestrian sports are among the hardest and most fascinating. The right technology can help bring spectators closer to the action, and make it even more rewarding to watch by giving them a better understanding of the sport. SAP Event Ticketing means that CHIO Aachen is better placed than ever before to fulfill this promise to its spectators.
