Who are ATG Entertainment?
ATG process more than 18 million tickets every year for hit musicals, acclaimed plays, concerts, comedy shows and a variety of other live events across the UK, US and Continental Europe.
They run some of the world’s most popular theatre ticketing sites, with ATGtickets.com alone attracting over 40 million unique visitors a year. The site is a pioneer in revenue management, analysis and reporting technologies.
Their complementary brands include LOVEtheatre.com and Group Line which is the UK market leader for group sales and consistently voted “Best Ticketing Agency” by industry peers.
We sat down with our main point of contact, Barry Grant to discuss our long standing relationship, overcoming challenges together and what the future of affiliates looks like for ATG Entertainment.
Please could you introduce yourself?
I am Barry Grant, and I am the partnership and Affiliate Manager at Ambassador Theatre Group.
How long has ATG Tickets been working with Silverbean?
We’ve been working with Silverbean, it’s nearly ten years now! We started working with them about 6 months after we started the affiliate programme.
What made you choose Silverbean initially, and what factors have contributed to your continued loyalty throughout these years?
We were recommended. It was word of mouth. An ex colleague of ATG recommended Silverbean, did the introduction and we’ve been friends and partners ever since.
And why we stay with you? They have been with us through thick and thin, when we closed down for three years. They were still around to help us navigate that awful time. They’re great people, really switched on. We can rely on them and I can just pick up the phone and something gets done. I love the fact that they’ve just got a broader view of the affiliate industry. That really helps when they share knowledge with ourselves.
What can you tell us about the network migration process?
Everything involved in that was managed really, really well, it didn’t cause too much disruption. And it’s taken us to a really good place that we’re in now.
Looking back on our longstanding partnership, what are some key highlights or moments that stand out for you?
Well there’s plenty of them. I think certainly the early years of licking our programme into shape and acquiring publishers through essentially an affiliate roadshow. We sort of marched around the country and used our regional theatres to help us get engaged with publishers right across the country and get them on board the programme. Those were very fun and interesting and really productive days.
The pandemic presented unique challenges for the entertainment industry. What factors motivated ATG Tickets to continue working with us during the theatre closures?
Because kind of the way that we approached Covid, is we knew that we were going to reopen and there was no point closing everything down. I think particularly affiliates was one of them, because when we got the green light to reopen, we had to turn the spotlight back on us fairly quickly and get our partners to help us sell theatre again.
It was really last minute, we were told we could open in July, in essentially May. So we had to hit the ground running. But because we kept the affiliate programme sort of dormant but still ticking along, at least because we could press the green button and get, get selling again.
How have your goals and objectives for ATG Tickets evolved over the years, and how has our partnership adapted to meet these changing needs?
The two reasons that we have the affiliate programme in the first place. The one that is really, really evolving is being competitive within the London market. That has changed a lot. There is now only 4 or 5 key players that sell London theatre tickets. But we’re always fighting for market share in our own venues.
And we see the affiliate networking has been a real key to that. Constantly keeping on top of opportunities within London. So whilst we always like our regional partners, the goal now is to make London really really work for us and utilising affiliates to help us do that.
As the industry continues to evolve, what are your current marketing priorities and challenges at ATG Tickets?
Our current challenges well, LOVEtheatre, which is our sister brand within the London market. It’s really getting that working for us over the next year and getting affiliates that use ATG Tickets to use LOVEtheatre and that sort of cross-fertilisation that will make us truly a great sort of national programme to be part of.
Can you talk about the importance of publisher growth for the ATG programme?
Yeah we’ve got some great key publishers, there’s no doubt about it. The top ten are great and you know, we’ve got great partners. But it’s about growing the 11 to 20, and that’s very much our focus for the year ahead.
Are there any particular publisher types that perform well for the programme?
We are really strong on content. It is actually, I think, market leading in terms of the number of content publishers we have on the programme which is great. We produce great content on our stages, it gives me pleasure to see we attract content publisher to help promote that. We don’t really work in a world where we do much in the way of discounts, it’s all about selling content and selling it well. So long may it continue that that is the really the dominant part of the network.
Based on your experience, what advice would you offer other companies considering partnering with an affiliate marketing agency like Silverbean?
I’m a one man band at ATG, although I do have other colleagues in e-commerce, but ultimately it’s me responsible for the programme. I think it’s invaluable having an agency that are just keeping an eye on the programme. The day to day basis. if nothing else, but also on the longer term strategy, which we very much work on together.
What are your hopes and expectations for the future of the ATG programme?
Global! We have recently acquired five more theatres on Broadway. So we now have seats right across the US and a large operation in Germany. So you put altogether we will have 64 venues around the world. So the aspiration is that we are successful across the other territories as we currently are in the UK.
