Request for Proposal. Cosmos Sports & Entertainment - Toronto. Ticketing System. November 28, 2017 Proposals Due: 5:00 pm (EST), December 15, 2017

Transcription

1 Request for Proposal Cosmos Sports & Entertainment - Toronto Ticketing System November 28, 2017 Proposals Due: 5:00 pm (EST), December 15, 2017 The team requests proposals from vendors interested in providing computerized ticketing solutions for Cosmos Sports & Entertainment and the Brampton Beast Hockey Club. The proposed contract with the selected vendor will commence between February 1, 2018 and May 8, Proposals shall be submitted by only, in accordance with instructions in the RFP, to: rfp@cosmossports.com Attention: Evan Colborne Director of Business Development Cosmos Sports & Entertainment 1690 Bonhill Road Mississauga, ON, L5T 1C8 Phone: ext 237 Fax: ecolborne@cosmossports.com

2 1. Introduction and Overview: Cosmos Sports & Entertainment (Cosmos) seeks proposals for a computerized ticketing solution for its ticket operations with the Brampton Beast Hockey Club, playing out of the Powerade Centre in Brampton, Ontario, Canada. Cosmos invites vendors to provide a proposal and information on their systems and products for evaluation and consideration. Evaluation will be based on the value and suitability of the vendor s products and services, and the vendor's overall business viability. The proposed timeline is as follows. Questions can be submitted by or scheduled phone call up until the proposal deadline. Proposal Due: December 15, PM (EST) Contract Start: Between February 1, 2018 and May 8, 2018 Dates are subject to change at any time and vendors will be notified as appropriate. Prior to submission of proposal, please contact Evan Colborne by or scheduled phone call with any questions. 2. Term of Agreement: TBD 3. Opportunity: Annual Brampton Beast Ticket Projections please see below: 36 Regular Season home games. Additional Games: 3 Preseason + Potential Playoff Games Projected at 3,200/Game Projected annual attendance: 115,000 In addition to providing ticket operations for the Brampton Beast, it is the intent of Cosmos to utilize the ticketing solution to provide ticket operations services for other properties and events in a Regional Ticketing model. The success of this venture would increase the number of tickets sold through the system on an annual basis and present additional revenue opportunities for the successful vendor. 4. Background: The primary use of the ticketing system will be for the Brampton Beast Hockey Club who play out of the Powerade Centre in Brampton, Ontario with a venue capacity of roughly 5000 seats. The Beast are now in their 5 th season and have seen the average attendance climb year over year. The team projects continued growth into the foreseeable future. The Team employs staff for executing sales via the box office on event days. The Team also has a separate sales office (located in the Powerade Centre) and requires information in proposals explaining and outlining how this process will continue to work. 1

3 Cosmos is a Full service marketing firm serving clients in the sports & entertainment industry. The company was founded by Cary and Amelia Kaplan in 2003 primarily as a sports marketing firm. Since then the company has grown to include broader entertainment in its area of expertise. Cosmos provides a wide variety of services to its clients including: Consulting, Training/Education, and outsourced execution. These services are provided within the areas of Ticket Sales, Sponsorship, Marketing and Digital Media. It is Cosmos hope that the ticketing solution will allow the company to provide full ticket operations services to its new and existing clients as an additional form of executing ticket sales on their behalf. Currently, Cosmos provides direct sales services through employing sales executives to sell tickets on our client s behalf. Having an in-house ticketing solution would allow Cosmos to offer a one-stop shop for ticketing needs. 5. Requirements: 5-1 Overview This RFP is intended to generate a turn-key ticketing solution that integrates all current ticketing technologies and distribution avenues and allows for growth in the future as new technologies emerge. While the Brampton Beast Hockey Club will be the initial main user of the ticketing solution, the intent is to utilize the ticketing solution to provide ticket operations services for other events as well. Therefore it is required that the system be able to seamlessly handle ticketing for multiple venues, and should be a web based application to allow for remote access. As the Brampton Beast have been operational for 5 seasons, the successful vendor will be required to migrate all historical data. Vendors are asked to describe in detail their level of confidence with data migration and a process for how you will handle this without downtime to the current system. 5-2 Ticketing A. Please describe the full capabilities of your ticketing system. Answers should include, but not be limited to, the ability to handle: Subscriptions, memberships, and/or season ticket packages Custom ticket packages including Mini Plans and Flex Packs Group Tickets Advanced individual tickets Walk up tickets Multiple on-sales Full flexibility for virtually unlimited price points in accordance with our philosophic views on pricing. The vendor should be able to demonstrate and provide examples of existing flexibility options within their system. B. Please include a complete description of your system's' reporting capabilities. This should include, but not be limited to: Standard reports 2

4 Event reporting Flexibility of reporting Ability to modify reports for specific events Ability to customize reports Ability to provide access to these reports on a privileged basis Ability to configure and automate certain reporting C. Please describe your system's capability with: Printing/reprinting/batch printing Utilizing 3rd party printers for specialty tickets Configuring ticket templates Holds/held seats, seat manifest Payments of quick sales & on accounts Methods of ticket delivery including paperless ticketing such as mobile tickets and e-tickets. Variable price options, etc. D. Please Describe, in detail, the system s security. E. Please describe the system s user management and system administration set up. In particular, the team will require the ability to create unlimited users, and control user's permissions and access to the system. F. Please describe the steps your organization has taken to make the back end of your system intuitive. The team requires that new users are able to learn the basics of the system with little training. 5-3 Hardware A. The vendor must also identify the hardware needs associated with set-up in separate sales offices including: Personal computers BOCA ticket printers Payment gateways, terminals, and Credit card readers Middleware for integration with payment systems Scanners for reading bar codes for access control Minimum internet connectivity requirements Any other equipment necessary. B. Whether the vendor directly sells the required hardware or not, it is requested that cost estimates be included in any proposal for required hardware. In the event that the vendor does not sell the required hardware directly, please describe the relationship your organization has with hardware vendors. C. Below is a list of currently owned hardware. It is requested that proposals clearly indicate whether this hardware is compatible with the ticketing software or not. Printer: Boca Lemur S Scanners: Motorola MC55A0 3

5 5-4 Technical Support Program and Training The Team will require 24/7 technical support. Please describe in detail your Technical Support Program, including on-site technical support capabilities and the associated costs. 5-5 Website Features. A. It is required that the ticketing solution come equipped with an integrated online customer facing website where users can browse, select and purchase tickets in a self serve manner. The user interface and user experience of this site must be of the highest quality, on par with the current top e-commerce experiences. The website should also: Allow users to create an account and manage their ticket orders Be a responsive design, able to offer the same level of experience regardless of the device the customer is using. Be able to sell tickets packages and assign a seat to those tickets when purchased online. Allow installation of Google Analytics. Our goal is to be able to track a user from an interaction with an online advertisement, to the point of sale. B. Please describe: Any anti-hacker technology and anti-virus programs used to protect your online system(s). The continuous measures being taken by your company to deal with computer bot programs aimed at grabbing large volumes of inventory. What measures and technologies are employed to protect the security of online ticket purchasers who may use credit or debit cards to pay for their tickets. Any measures employed to identify any fraudulent or stolen credit or debit cards that individuals may attempt to use to obtain tickets. 5-6 PCI Security Compliance A. The Contractor shall comply with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS) throughout the term of the Contract. The PCI Data Security Standards apply to all payment card network members, merchants and service providers that store, process or transmit cardholder data. The standards apply to all methods of credit card processing, the most comprehensive and demanding of which apply to e-commerce websites, and retail POS systems that process credit cards over the Internet. PCI official website at: System Redundancy A. If the Vendor is providing a solution that operates on the vendor s hardware, the solution must have 100% redundant systems, which are available to ticket sellers and online ticket purchasers, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. These systems must replicate with each other on a real-time basis so that if one system is incapacitated, for any 4

6 reason, the other system is able to assume the additional volume with no significant impact on system performance or end user response times. 5-8 Marketing A. In an effort to streamline operations, the Team would like to integrate the ticketing system with other tools in our marketing stack as seamlessly as possible. These include, but are not limited to: Customer Relationship Management. In the event that this does not come equipped with the ticketing solution, it is desired that the system easily integrate with a CRM system such as Zoho CRM or Hubspot. This CRM should include an intuitive search function, prompts for customer follow ups, as well as detailed reporting of staff activity. Marketing. In the event that this does not come equipped with the ticketing solution, it is desired that the system easily integrate with a Marketing system such as Constant Contact or MailChimp. B. Please describe your policies pertaining to the customer information that is obtained using your ticketing solution. Who owns the information and will the information be used by anyone other than the Team? Are we able to change the required and requested information to our specific needs? C. Please describe the system s ability to apply discounts (as a flat dollar amount and/or a percentage of the total shopping cart or specific items), how promo codes can be applied and when the user is prompted to apply a promo code. 5-9 Sponsorship/Merchandise A. In addition to managing tickets, it would be ideal if the system is equipped to manage other items the team sells. Please describe the system s capability for managing sponsorship inventory, merchandise, and other miscellaneous items in the same shopping cart as tickets Distribution A. The ticketing solution must provide for distribution via Internet, phone sales, the facility box office, retail locations and outlets Access Control A. Provide a description of your Access Control System, including: Methodology of how the barcodes are generated when tickets are sold (voided, reissued, transferred) System hardware architecture and database management. An explanation of how tickets are scanned and authenticated against a database and the reporting options that are available. Identify third party vendors and software providers whose solutions or hardware are integrated into your Access Control Solution. Explain who supports the Access Control 5

7 system and the recommended policies in the event the system fails during an event admission cycle. How your access control system can be used in the event that internet connectivity is lost. Hardware (access points, scanners, access control servers, etc.) that is provided to utilize your access control system and who is responsible for implementation and installation. Please include any additional hardware specs for "paperless tickets" technology with your access control hardware specifications Settlement A. Please describe in detail your policy regarding settlement. B. Please describe how your system generates invoices and receipts, and whether it is possible to have multiple customized invoice/receipt templates in the event that multiple properties are selling tickets on the platform. 6. Proposed Costs and Charges 6-1 Professional Service, Installation, and Training Costs A. Please list any charges or costs the Team will incur for implementing your ticketing solution. If there are additional charges besides the ones listed below, please indicate. Cost of professional services typically required for implementation of services including process design, product configuration and product customization. Cost associated with training end users and IT support staff as well as the cost of any product documentation and reference materials. Please estimate all support and maintenance costs associated with maintaining the solution over the term of the contract. Please include any costs associated with network connectivity, hosting, and similar types of costs. Be sure to include which services are included in the costs. Describe (data transmission capacity or bandwidth, service, etc.) all telephone, networking, and/or Internet connections which will be required to install and operate your system at the Team box offices/phone rooms and remote outlet locations. Specify any assumptions you made when estimating the cost. 6-2 Identifying Hardware Costs incurred by the Team A. Please identify initial and prospective hardware costs which will be incurred by the Team and ones provided by the vendor. 6-3 Financial Proposal A. As part of your financial proposal, please provide the following information, if applicable: Convenience/service charges All other charges/revenue sharing such as: Credit Card Fees, Handling or processing fees, Print at home fees, Mobile ticket fees, Ticket insurance, Season or subscription fees, Ticket Stock, Training, Access Control Equipment/Maintenance/Repairs, Any Marketing/Promotion financial incentives (i.e. advertising commitments, signing bonus, season ticket purchases, etc.) Any other expenses not contemplated herein. 6

8 7. Vendor Qualifications and References 7-1 Company Background A. Please provide information on your company history, organizational structure, and product strategy. During the final review process, Vendors may be requested to provide financial information supporting they have sufficient financial resources to ensure they can satisfactorily provide the services required here. 7-2 Client References A. Please provide three references from clients whose requirements are most similar to what the Team is requiring. 7