by Pres. & CEO Nick Giammusso

VIP Seats conducts its business online all year long at VIPseats.com.  VIP Seats uses the telephone/fax, and we take advantage of the more recent technological advances such as social media, email and text messaging rapidly, effectively and efficiently to promote and sell our tickets. While technology presents a variety of ways to communicate, the results are not always positive.  As a result, I find that VIP Seats, and all companies for that matter, is losing the ability to communicate face-to-face. 

In my experiences, and especially in the ticket business, getting face-to-face with our clients builds trust, loyalty, confidence and credibility to build relationships at the grass roots level.  VIP Seats does not want to become overly dependent communicating through the use of our smart phones and computers.  Although they are great tools, they tend to focus on the object and not the person.  Before the computer age, people actually 'knew' who they were doing business with. 

The Super Bowl is by far the largest sporting event in North America.  This year I packed my bags like I've done the last eighteen years and traveled to the Super Bowl for four days.  The main reason I crawl out from behind my desk during Super Bowl week is to meet our clients face-to-face and hand deliver their Super Bowl tickets.  Now I've heard many say "Why don't you just FedEx their tickets for $20?"  My response is always, "It's just not the same!"

As a company, we try to get face-face with our clients each and every chance we get.  VIP Seats has taken steps to increase our face-to-face time by using our 'VIP Mobile Box Office' as a Will Call window on-site at sports, concert and theatre events in WNY.  We also encourage our clients to pick-up their seats in our Main Street Williamsville, NY headquarters.  We travel to most major sporting events such as the Daytona 500, Masters, Final Four, Kentucky Derby, World Series, Winter Classic and of course the grand daddy of them all the Super Bowl.

This year at Super Bowl XLVI, in the beautiful city of Indianapolis, was no different.  I strategically made my rounds from hotel to hotel doing what I love to do, delivering our clients' Super Bowl tickets mano a mano.  One by one, I sat with our clients in their Hotel Lobby or at the Bar over a beer and said hello not only as an ambassador of VIP Seats, but as a person getting to 'know' our clients.  Of all my duties, tasks and responsibilities that my position handles at our company, right at the top of the list is getting to know my clients personally.  Last week at the Super Bowl, it all started with, "Here are your Super Bowl tickets"!

Over the years VIP Seats has built a loyal client list that appreciates the extra steps we take to serve them on a personal level.  Internally, we call such customer service touches, "VIP Experiences"!  If it was at all humanly possible we would deliver all of our seats to our clients face-to face on a silver platter.  We realize that's not humanly possibly.

So we'll see you in the French Quarter for Super Bowl XLVII in 2013.  You can bet I will meet you with a big smile and your Super Bowl tickets in hand and I may just buy you a beer! :)

Is a Super Bowl in Indianapolis Sexy?

The common misconception of this year's Super Bowl is that Football Fans are not as likely to travel to Indy as opposed to a trendier and more tourist-friendly destination like Miami.  How will this affect Super Bowl Supply & Demand?

How can one predict what Super Bowl prices will do this year?

Host City Information 

There's no denying that Indianapolis as a Super Bowl host city will have its drawbacks.  First, the weather in the mid-west in February is less than an ideal destination when travelers are thinking about investing serious dollars in a mini-vacation.  Secondly, the city is not a major metropolitan area with an abundance of high-end hotel properties.  This poses a serious problem in providing adequate hotel rooms for such a huge corporate event like the Super Bowl.  "Finding four and five-star properties has been a huge headache for us this year, says VIPSuperBowlTickets.com Nick Giammusso.  It compares to the Super Bowl in Jacksonville a few years back when the NFL arranged for cruise ships to satisfy the need for rooms.  Indy does not have that luxury and hotel prices are through the roof!"  

In terms of geographical location, Indianapolis sits in the middle of the country with relatively short air travel times for football fans from both the East and West coasts.

Supply and Demand

For those fans lucky enough to win the Super Bowl Lottery they will have to fork over either $1,000 for Club Seats or $800 for any other seat location. That's the face-value price!

The secondary market for Super Bowl tickets is much like the stock market. The question is will Super Bowl prices rise or fall in the days leading up to the big game?

Ticket Brokers are offering Super Bowl tickets in the range of $2,500- $10,000 per ticket. Super Bowl ticket prices and packages are trending up approximately 20-40% in comparison to last year's game when two small market teams Pittsburgh and Green Bay played in Super Bowl XLV and Dallas offered an abundance of accommodations.

"VIPSuperbowlTickets.com has had to increase their ticket and hotel package prices by about 20 percent in comparison to last year's game, said Nick Giammusso President & CEO of VIPseats.com.

Super Bowl ticket prices and packages will be hotter than normal this year. It's Economics 101.

Let's talk demand.  The four remaining teams are from wealthier areas of the country including New York City, Boston, Baltimore/Washington DC, and San Francisco Bay areas.  The New York Giants, New England Patriots, San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Ravens represent a rich heritage of football fans in big markets with deep pockets certainly spiking demand of Super Bowl tickets and hotel rooms.

Let's talk Supply.  The Super Bowl game will be played at Lucas Oil Stadium which will have a seating capacity that will be about 70,000 for this mega event.  In comparison, last year's Super Bowl, which was held at Cowboys Stadium in Dallas, had seating for 105,000.  Using simple math, one can see that supply of Super Bowl tickets will be approximately 35,000 (or 33% percent) less than last year's availability.

Unlike the Federal Reserve, the NFL cannot keep printing Super Bowl tickets to meet demand. Unfortunately or fortunately, supply is fixed at 70,000 seats!

One such variable that cannot be ignored is the state of the US economy. As weakness in the housing market and weakness in the Dollar pushes the US economy further into recession will Super Bowl ticket buyers balk at ticket prices that are now starting at $2,500 per ticket and complete travel packages that run $3,995 per person and up?

For this answer we can look at last year's Super Bowl business... 

“Last year, there was a huge demand for Super Bowl tickets and packages,” says VIPSuperBowlTickets.com President Nick Giammusso. “Cowboys Stadium was aiming for a near-record capacity of over 105,000, but the NFL and Jerry Jones got greedy as many temporary seats were not ready in time for the big game. The league was left with a black eye as certain folks didn’t get in.” Indianapolis may be smaller than Dallas and Lucas Oil Stadium seats 33% fewer fans than Cowboys Stadium (approx. 70,000), but this year’s Super Bowl is already receiving tremendous interest."