In Istres, many fans make up their minds on the night and buy their ticket at the box office. It's a charming habit, but it leaves the club in the dark right up until throw-off.

By choosing Tickie, Istres Provence Handball set out to change the game: sell more online, manage its partners better and give its fans a more complete experience. Find out how the club transformed its ticketing, and what it has planned next.

The club

• Club: Istres Provence Handball

• Sport: handball

• Location: Istres, Bouches-du-Rhône (southern France)

• Tickie solutions: online and on-site ticketing, Secret Shops, ticket transfer, CRM, Fan Experience, season tickets, online store integration

• Contact: Anthony Gravinese, ticketing manager

The results

• +30% online orders

• Sold-out matches, for the first time in three years

• Partner seats finally tracked, thanks to Secret Shops

• A built-in CRM, with no outside provider

• A switchover with no new hardware investment

The challenge: ticketing that was holding the club back

Before Tickie, the club used a standard ticketing solution with no dedicated point of contact. For Anthony Gravinese, ticketing manager, the same problems kept coming up, day to day and on match nights alike.

• Nearly half of all tickets were sold at the box office, from rolls printed in advance.

• Fans decided at the last minute, leaving no way to forecast attendance.

• Partner seats were impossible to track, with no way of knowing whether they were actually used.

• No CRM was connected to the ticketing, so the club had to rely on an outside provider to make use of its data.

Yet the club had no shortage of ideas to enrich the fan experience: a season ticket card it was attached to, more flexible packages, and a refreshment bar at the heart of the evening.

All it needed was a tool that could turn those ideas into reality. That's what led it to choose Tickie.

A switch without rebuilding everything

Changing ticketing platforms often worries clubs: new hardware to buy, staff to train, fans to reassure. For Istres, rebuilding everything in the middle of preseason preparations was out of the question.

So Tickie adapted to what was already in place.

• The club kept its existing scanners, which are compatible with the platform, so no new investment was needed.

• Thermal tickets and season ticket cards are still printed, as the club wanted, alongside the digital ticket on mobile.

• On-site sales continue, with a point-of-sale station connected to the ticketing platform, for fans who decide on match night.

To make sure everything was ready on time, the Tickie team planned every step ahead with the club. Hardware compatibility was checked upfront, and tickets were set up in the formats the club already used. Season ticket holders receive their tickets printed in advance, while same-night purchases are printed right on site.

On top of that came training and regular follow-up, so the team could quickly get up to speed with the new tool.

Staff kept their bearings, fans kept their habits, and the club was able to start its season with Tickie from the very first match.

Fans who buy earlier, and online

With nearly half of all tickets sold at the box office, the club often only found out its attendance on the night. So the first challenge was to get fans to buy online, and earlier.

Tickie pulled several levers.

• A simple, fast checkout flow, designed for mobile, so fans can book a seat in just a few clicks.

• A digital ticket available instantly, with no trip to the box office.

• Targeted communications before every match, to convince undecided fans to book ahead.

The result: online orders rose by 30%. More tickets sold in advance also means better visibility on attendance, and better-prepared match nights.

For the first time in three years, Istres played in front of packed stands.

Partner seats, finally under control

Each partner has a quota of seats for the season. Until then, the club had no way of knowing whether those tickets were actually used.

Tickie gave it two answers.

• Secret Shops, private stores dedicated to each match, where every partner claims their tickets up to their quota.

• Ticket transfer, which shows exactly who is sitting in each seat.

The club can now adjust its quotas based on real data, and get the most value out of every complimentary seat.

An experience that goes beyond the ticket

Istres wants to make every match a complete experience, from the purchase all the way to the refreshment bar. That ambition weighed in the decision to choose Tickie, as Anthony Gravinese, the club's ticketing manager, explains:

The innovations Tickie offers in gamification and in improving the buying journey convinced us to entrust it with the ticketing for our top-division professional club.

The club also offers upsells directly in the checkout flow, and connects its ticketing to its online store.

Knowing fans better

Before Tickie, the club was already emailing several thousand contacts every week, but with no link to its ticketing. With the built-in CRM, everything now lives in one place, with no outside provider.

Every purchase feeds straight into the fan database. Istres can then segment its audience and send targeted emails and text messages, for example to make an offer to season ticket holders or announce the season's big fixtures.

The database becomes a real lever for bringing fans back.

Support that stays close to the club

With its previous provider, Istres had no point of contact. At Tickie, support doesn't stop once the ticketing goes live.

Regular check-ins make it possible to review progress, fine-tune settings and prepare the next steps. Above all, the club's needs are taken into account to shape how the tool evolves.

• Sending seats directly to partners, a feature the club requested, has been passed on to the technical teams.

• Tracking sales activity, including that of work-study students, is part of the thinking on the future sales CRM.

A close relationship, built season after season, that now makes the club want to become a reference customer for Tickie.

A club with its sights set further ahead

For Istres, bringing in Tickie was only the starting point. Once its white-label ticketing was up and running, fully in the club's colors, Istres was able to look further ahead and imagine new ways to bring its matches to life, grow its revenue and build fan loyalty. Because the platform evolves with the club, every new idea can now become a concrete project, built hand in hand with the Tickie team.

Several projects are currently underway.

• Cashless payments, connected to the ticketing, to pay faster on site and make match nights run more smoothly.

• Cross-selling, to easily offer complementary products when fans buy their ticket.

• Season tickets payable in installments, to make the season accessible to more families.

• A sales CRM, to track prospects, agreements and partner contracts in a single tool.

A ticketing platform that grows with the club, and supports it well beyond selling tickets.

Fill your stands, like Istres

In a single season, Istres moved its fans from the box office to the web, took back control of its partner seats and saw sold-out matches again. All without upending its habits.

• More online sales, with a checkout flow designed for mobile.

• Partners finally tracked, with seats allocated and checked for every match.

• A smooth transition, building on what already works.

Your club can take the same path, with a Tickie contact by your side every step of the way.

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