Filling the seats at Fenway

The Boston Red Sox are not taking fan loyalty for granted. The Major League Baseball team is implementing analytics software to help fill Fenway Park to capacity for home games.

The Red Sox will use StratTix software from StratBridge to extract ticket information from different sources to give sales staff a real-time view of ticket inventories and trends prior to each home game. That knowledge will help the sales team develop strategies weeks in advance or at the last minute, according to a recent press release from StratBridge.

"Every Red Sox home game is charged with energy emanating from the stands," says Sam Kennedy, Red Sox senior VP of sales and marketing. "The software will allow us to see gaps in seating we couldn't see before, and it gives us that information in real time. The information will keep the energy momentum going for every home game."

The solution provides Red Sox sales staff with a graphical representation of Fenway Park that lets them drill down to individual seat sales information, showing available and sold seats in two mouse clicks. Sales also will be able to see previously hidden ticket purchase patterns and trends within one game, a series of games or the entire season; track the impact that marketing campaigns such as advertising, promotions and direct mail have on sales; and monitor the effects of price changes on sales both visually and quantitatively, according to Stratbridge.