Sears Centre ditches Ticketmaster

Sears Centre officials say that switching ticket vendors from Ticketmaster will make the arena more competitive.

The Hoffman Estates village board approved the switch to New Era Tickets at Monday's meeting. It's a three-year deal. New Era is a division of Comcast Spectacor. Global Spectrum, the arena management firm hired by Hoffman Estates officials to run the Sears Centre, is also a division of the cable television giant.

New Era isn't the only division of Comcast the village has discussed for work at the Sears Centre. There have been talks to hire Comcast's Ovations Food Services. Levy Restaurants remain at the arena.

The deal will pay New Era $20,000 in the first year, and $5,000 each in years two and three. The company will provide new ticketing equipment inside the arena.

Trustee Gary Pilafas pointed out that federal officials on Monday approved the merger between Ticketmaster and concert promoter Live Nation. Live Nation has a preferred agreement to book shows at the Sears Centre's largest rival, the Allstate Arena in Rosemont. Given the merger, officials said the switch is better for the Sears Centre.

"It makes our partnership that much stronger all the way around," said Joe Briglia, of International Facilities Group, the village's arena consultant.

Ben Gibbs, Sears Centre's new general manager, said that arena officials plan to revamp the arena's Web site and that New Era will be able to customize a ticket sales Web page for the Sears Centre and better promote the arena's events. New Era will start selling tickets in about 30 days.

If the village had stuck with Ticketmaster, the merger of it and Live Nation could have made it less likely for Sears Centre events to be featured on Ticketmaster's main Web page.

Though Ticketmaster is an established brand, Gibbs said, other arenas that have switched to New Era haven't experienced much a falloff in sales, with customers quickly figuring out where to purchase their tickets. Gibbs said New Era would also allow the arena - and thus the village - to keep a larger cut of ticket convenience charges than Ticketmaster.

When the arena first opened in 2006, MadKatStep, the division of Ryan Companies that owned the Sears Centre, used a ticket system called Paciolan. That decision was universally chided as consumers had a poor response to the system. Eventually Ticketmaster was brought in under an eight-year deal. That contract was terminated after the village took over the 11,000-seat arena off I-90 and Rt. 59 late last year.

Ticketmaster will be phased out over a period of four to five months, meaning both will sell Sears Centre tickets for a time.

Briglia, the village consultant, said he believes the village will have leverage to negotiate a better long-term deal in three years as the entertainment marketing landscape evolves under conditions imposed on the merger by antitrust regulators. Some parts of Ticketmaster are being sold off and the indication is that Ticketmaster will have to share the spotlight with up to two additional ticket vendors nationwide, he said.