Q&A: Stephen Price on Empty Seats, High Prices
interview by MICHELLE McDONALD
"How much time do you have?" I asked Stephen Price, the ICC Cricket World Cup's Commercial Director, thinking that he must be a very busy man. To my surprise he said "as long as this takes, until it's done," he replied. Good, because I had a lot of questions for him after my experience in Trelawny.
Price moved from Project Officer to Special Projects Officer, then to Commercial Manager before being named Commercial Director in January. His responsibilities include the entire Ticketing programme – public and commercial ticketing to include Tour & Travel packages as well as the Hospitality Packages, Catering & Concessions, Licensing & Merchandising, Publications as well as some elements of the Anti-Infringement Programme.
What will he be held accountable for? How does the Catering & Concession system work? Why are those prices – tickets, refreshments and internet – so high? The aptly named Price explained it all to CaribbeanCricket.com while the Pakistan team was playing their last match at Sabina Park in Kingston Jamaica.
Stephen, unfortunate turn of events with the situation surrounding Bob Woolmer's death. From a commercial perspective, what impact do you anticipate this will have on the rest of the tournament, if any?
At this point, it's a little too early to tell. Right now, the authorities are investigating everything to do with that. From CWC, our condolences go out to the family of Bob Woolmer, his wife and his kids, and we just want everybody to know that we are definitely in their corner and that we support them in everything.
Do you expect ticket sales to be affected by that, and also the fact that Pakistan is out.
It's still early to say if that will affect it. The Pakistani exit from the tournament is yet to be felt. Those couple key match ups that you would have expected, especially like the India vs Pakistan match in Barbados, that is not going to materialize again. What we do hope though is that we do fill that void with another travelling contingent, and that travelling contingent will be filled by the Irish. It is yet to be determined as to how many will come back for the rest of the tournament. We have approximately 1,000 here in Jamaica. We still have the ones based in the Caribbean and we think that a lot more will come in another drove, just to support the team in the Super Eights.
What are you going to be held accountable for?
At the end of this tournament, pretty much I would be held accountable for the results – revenues from Licensing & Merchandising, revenues from Catering, pretty much all those revenue streams. In terms of the protection of the Host Rights to the event that we do have, I will be held accountable pretty much for that. Ticketing, in terms of revenues, I am responsible for ensuring I run a very good Ticketing Programme – fair, equitable etc.
Most of those elements have been met already. Revenue targets haven't necessarily been reached as yet. We are still looking for US$42 million. We are on track based on the Group Stage which is in progress right now. We really projected that we'd sell probably about 60% of this stage; we're pretty much on track for that. Hopefully the last two games in each of the Group Stage should push us over that mark. Super Eights is where we look to next.
How satisfied are you with ticket sales thus far?
I had wanted to bank a lot more much earlier which is why we started ticketing much earlier than normal for a West Indies series. We started 10 months ago and we got a lot in the first two phases. We got more than what we anticipated in Phase 1 which was quite good. Phase 2 kind of slowed down a bit but as we imagined, Phase 3 would have been the phase which would have driven the most ticket sales. It's the phase that drives ticket sales in any event.
You had said we are 'last minute' people. Did that prediction materialize?
It held through in terms of Caribbean patrons, and the host citizens are the backbone of every event. You need them to fill the seats. You can only host so much and no more visitors because of the bed bank that we do have in the Caribbean. So it is definitely going to be incumbent on them to fill those seats in order for the tournament to make or break its revenue targets.
Which Group Stage venues have so far had the highest percentage of sales relative to their capacity?
Right now Jamaica leads the way by far. Trinidad comes in next, St Lucia then St Kitts. A couple of initiatives in St Lucia and St Kitts have enabled them to move a lot more tickets, but more attributable to the respective governments. There have been initiatives in St Kitts for the schools. Over 1,000 tickets per game were driven by that means. Cable & Wireless in their promotions banked another 2,000 per game. For St Lucia, the government itself stepped up with 3,000 tickets for schools, cricket clubs etc and they also bought another amount in order to service other needs and other constituent groups.
Here in Jamaica, apart from the West Indies matches, Sabina Park has not really been very full, so what strategies are being adopted to try and sell more tickets?
A lot has been done prior to the Group Stage having begun. The LOC worked closely with the Jamaica Cricket Association in order to move a lot of tickets and a lot were moved through that means to the small cricket clubs across the country and the cricket fraternity that they have. A lot more was done with schools as well. The LOC was solely responsible. They did a lot of roadshows to bring a lot more tickets to the rural areas. We did some cross promotional activity with some of the event's sponsors – those are the only ones we can do that with. We tried to move a lot of sales. I guess that some people decided that they won't come.
Why do you think that is?
I couldn't say it's the price.
Why you couldn't say it's the price?
Because even though we've had high prices for the event, we've also ensured that we have low entry point prices as well so it's accessible to all, and the fact that you have still lower priced tickets available, you know that tickets are still available so it's not a barrier for somebody to come to an event. There are tickets for as low as US$15 which is typically normally what somebody would spend for a second tier ticket in the West Indies. It's still available.
But explain to me if I'm a visitor year after year to the George Headley Stand, sitting close behind the bowlers' arm. I normally pay maybe J$3,500 which is about US$50, and you're now asking me to pay US$90 or US$100. Why would I come? I don't want to sit in the West Stand at US$25 because that's not where I'm accustomed to watching cricket from.
In looking at the entire ticketing strategy and looking at the pricing structure for the event, it's not something that was just thought up and we said 'fine, Cricket World Cup, it's a premium event, this is what we're going to charge.' A lot of thought went into it. This was a collaborative effort of all the LOCs. We had a whole Ticketing Strategy Sub-Committee made up of the CEOs of each of the LOCs and everybody recognized the responsibility that they had in terms of trying to set prices that fit the pockets of Caribbean people as well as International guests.
We had to take into consideration a lot of stakeholders in this mix. The broadcasters themselves, because they want full stadia. Fans want cheap tickets and they want the best seats as well. We had to take into consideration the local cricket organizations, the government...everybody played a part in these decisions.
We came to a price point which we thought was ok for across the region which took into consideration the value of the event. It's a World Cup; it's not a normal bi-lateral series, in terms of the various costs involved, in terms of putting on this event, in terms of putting the entire security and event operations infrastructure in order to run an event like this, to the standards of the ICC.
If you think back to when the Host Agreement and the Host Venue Agreements were signed, you realized that throughout the length and breadth of each of these agreements, everything was to be done to world class standards. In defining world class across every one of the venues, you had to therefore put a whole system of things in place and a lot of these things do cost money. Some of it is to try and bring back revenue into the coffers of the local cricket associations because that is where the revenue from tickets goes to. We believe that we got the right price points there and we don't think that we priced anybody out significantly.
But, the results out there in the stands show that maybe you didn't get it right.
It's speculative that we didn't get it right.
There are many empty seats out there...
I hear what you're saying, I see what you're saying but we're not necessarily a population who has ever really supported other teams who play in the region, as in other match ups. For instance if you have a normal CONCACAF qualifier tournament in the Caribbean, if it's hosted by Jamaica and Jamaica is playing another team, and another match up is playing before, persons will come to the match up with Jamaica and that's pretty much the culture. We tried to ensure that we marketed the games, tried to ensure that everybody adopted other countries. Countries like St Lucia tried this strategy as well; it hasn't worked significantly well.
I think having the West Indies here as host team, more people are going to lean towards those games than any other.
I can't remember if the price for this match was the same as West Indies vs Pakistan?
It was US$90 for Category 1, and this match it's down to US$55 because it's pretty much a tiered 2 game where you have Associates versus the other members of the other zone.
So there was some price adjustment made for the matches that people would deem lesser ones.
Three would have been at the higher tier prices and three would have been at the lower tier prices to take into account the Associates match ups.
The people who say that ticket prices were high, you would say to them?
I would say to them we don't think it's high. We tried to put a price in there for every pocket and there were low entry points as well as high tiered prices for those persons who wanted to pay for those seats.
OK. Then there is the issue of the price of refreshments once you get into the ground. In some cases, it's more than 100% increase in the price of drinks and food. How do you explain that, in light of a quote attributable to you which said "we are trying to protect the people from price gouging"?
What we are trying to do is ensure that we do get returns for our Concessionaires who have to operate under a totally different framework. If you look at any of our normal series where Catering & Concessionaires were open to come into the venue at any point in time to set up their infrastructure, they could just drive up at 12:30 pm and bring everything in.
This is a whole totally different structure where everybody has to now conform to the standards of catering on site. There are costs associated with putting up that type of catering infrastructure. There is a whole catering compound back there. As you can notice, at the venue itself, there is no cooking in and around the stands. That was normally done at previous bi-lateral series under the stands or anywhere, so that we were smoking out people.
Everybody has to abide by the same Public Health and Safety standards because we have Public Health Officers in here constantly monitoring food, food temperatures etc, that whole infrastructure. We have a whole delivery mechanism in place to support those caterers in terms of bringing their food they are cooking in the Catering Compound all the way in to their concession space so that they can move that there.
We also manage the full control of sponsor products, ensuring that they have sponsor products available for consumption within the venue and to try and protect the rights of the sponsors. So a lot of things went into developing the catering infrastructure that's there. We charged on a specific licence fee to each caterer and concessionaire. We had three tiers. We had the caterers which handled the boxes and so on, Presidents' suites which were on a different tier, then you had the regular concessionaires then you had the roaming vendors as well.
Like the peanut man who had to pay J$26,000...
Twenty six thousand Jamaican dollars for seven matches. We think it's value for money because many persons, let's say in Trelawny, which was a low attendance venue, on day one, many of our roaming vendors made back their concession fee right away off the bat, within the first couple of hours. But we didn't try to price them out of the market. We tried to ensure that we put it on par with what services they would have received in terms of protection of their stock, storage of their stocks on site.
We had to get refrigerated trucks to store their products, their supplies and ensure that it was maintained to the health and safety standards because we have public liability issues. These are the ages of world events where everybody sues for the slightest thing so that was one area we had to make sure was run to tip top conditions.
Goddard Catering Group and Positive Impact got the catering contract and they would then have contracted out the catering...
Yes, the sub-licencees. Goddards brought the catering expertise. Positive Impact is lead by Mike Rowe. He was GM and President of the Nets; he ran the Meadowlands race track, hockey etc, so he has some big event experience. He also ran Giants Stadium for the FIFA World Cup when they were there, so he has that whole concession and structured experience which we needed to imprint on our local catering and concession experience, all in an effort to ensure that we try to develop some sort of legacy moving forward, trying to put some structure to the haphazard way that we normally went about catering and concessions to persons in match.
With the entire structure and security of the event in terms of what we do allow persons to bring, it's not like in the bi-lateral series where persons were able to bring their big 'dutch' pots and big coolers to block the aisles. They can still bring that, but in small quantities and not to share for the entire stands as they would normally have done!
But that's the fun of watching cricket in the Caribbean. You've taken away the fun from them.
It's the fun of watching cricket in the Caribbean but we have to also think about public safety. We can't have persons tripping over big cooler boxes in the aisles so whatever they bring must be able to fit under their seats. It's not a matter that we're trying to stop them, but bring smaller quantities to share for yourself and just your people.
For the fees that Concessionaires have to pay, if you don't bring people into the stadium, they won't make as much money.
They won't make as much money. As I told you, the price points that we developed we hoped everyone would have come out. If you look at today's game, we probably moved about 6,000 tickets. About 1,600 of those would have been sponsor obligation tickets, where sponsors having free of cost or even options to buy that they have taken up. I am not sure the exact numbers through the turnstiles but it's evident what you see out there. Some persons have come; some persons have spent the money and for whatever reason, be it work or whatever, they just haven't shown up.
I am sure it's not too much than what is here today.
I'm telling you. The number we have as sales right now is 6,000 so we were expecting that amount of persons and that's what the concessionaires would normally cater to. We tried to make sure they come; we've driven it to make sure they made the purchase of the ticket but some just have not shown up.
I think what may add to it, some people had the foresight, they thought they'd buy Venue Combination packages and then they cherry pick and say they are going to a few and they let the other tickets go to waste. Some of the sponsors today have given away their tickets to school kids.
In conversation with some people, it's clear that they didn't understand how to determine who would more than likely be playing in the Super Eight stage. Do you think that might have affected how ticket sales have gone?
For the Super Eights?
Yes, because people don't understand that West Indies, even if they come top of the group, still would be the D2 team.
We've tried to ensure that we've explained it on a number of occasions but I guess it just hasn't gone through. At the end of today, we'll know a couple more of the match ups. There will be a strong campaign led by our local public relations as well as each of the LOCs in terms of highlighting what the match ups will be to see if we can move a lot more of those. We have two different stages of the Super Eights which can definitely provide a lot more dividends to the LOCs so there will be a strong campaign – both ad as well as public relations, press releases and so on.
What is the Caribbean Economic Enterprise Initiative? How satisfied are you with how that has gone?
The Caribbean Economic Enterprise Initiative simply put, where any contracts for this event have to go overseas, what has to happen is they have to use local expertise, local employment and local resources in order to ensure they implement that contract. Each contract of a certain billing has to provide a CEE statement in terms of employing nationals of the Caribbean, using companies within the Caribbean for implementation. I believe it has worked really well.
Some of the bigger contracts inclusive of the Rushman's Event Management contract has borne a lot of fruit in terms of skills transfers to a lot our nationals across the region, developing the LOCs to be able to handle world events of this magnitude in the future. GL Events who is an official supplier for the events, that's one of the larger contracts as well, they have local expertise, have employed a lot of local companies across the region such as suppliers of fencing, tents etc. A lot of local companies have benefited from the contracts with GL. In terms of Licensing and Merchandising, we work in partnership with a company called Velocity Brand Managements who is our advisor similar in the vein of Goddards and we have got a lot of Caribbean licencees out of that.
I believe the tail of the tape, at the end of this tournament, the amount of skills set that we will be left with in the Caribbean is going to be very strong. The Caribbean has the potential to become a significant power house in the event management business. As is traditional for events of this nature, a lot of these international companies do cherry pick and pick a lot of the resources who they have taught and trained, to go on to other events. Many people think that the event business is like a cartel. It's almost the same people that move around to these various events and they usually pick the brightest and the best out of them to advance other sports and other disciplines.
I live in Grenada most of the year and somebody said to me 'imagine, the people who get the contract to transport officials, they'll be using our local buses! So why they couldn't give the contract to Grenadians?' So the question is, could CWC have done any more to educate people who might not have had that experience as to how they could come together locally to get the contracts?
In terms of the transport contracts, you speak specifically of Grenada, a lot of things happened in Grenada with respect to transport. It was quite the talk for quite a bit. Cricket Logistics who is the Tour & Travel Operator ran a tender there for operator services for buses to transport their tours. It was probably one or two persons who came forward.
We encouraged persons to come together but not sure if it's that we are insular in nature and don't necessarily want to share or form partnerships with each other. It's been hard trying to get them to. You make the appeals. When I was in Grenada about 1 ½ years ago, when I first started the whole stint about Licensing & Merchandising and trying to bring manufacturers together to supply the demand that we knew would be there, a lot of persons who were distrusting of other partners said 'if I don't get it, I'm not partnering with anybody else to get it.' It's a lot of money to be made out there. Sun Island and Sports & Games are catching their tail right now trying to produce enough stock. It's the biggest Licensing & Merchandising programme in CWC history at this point. We are slated to make over US$2m in revenues, which will come back to the WICB eventually.
I heard a member of the Private Sector Association in Grenada say that they didn't know far ahead in advance what were some of the opportunities that there would have been for them to be involved on a business level.
I will make the bold statement to say that a lot of our business community out there, we are very lazy, wanting things to be put down on a platter for them. It saddens me a lot, and saddens a lot of the CWC fraternity to have to deal with this question 'what are the opportunities?' Where is the entrepreneurial spirit? Where is the entrepreneurial drive in the Caribbean any more? Nobody is willing to take the business risks anymore, trying to develop an idea or opportunity that they see on the horizons.
If I went out there on a limb and said the business opportunity for CWC is painting houses. You're not going to tell me that everybody is going to jump up and just paint houses and just look at that one opportunity. There have been so many novel ideas that have come through to us individually and persons have progressed those ideas and have brought them to fruition. You can't necessarily put everything on a platter. You put out the tenders and persons don't put their hands up because they're saying 'this is not for me' and that's the thing we tried to socialize differently a lot of the business community.
Let me interject here. The economies in Jamaica, Trinidad and Barbados are much much different to the economies in Grenada, St Lucia, St Kitts, so wouldn't you think that more work needed to have been done to bring the message to those islands?
There was a lot of work done.
Give me an example of what was done...
For instance, in St Lucia, we did a lot of work with BOOST (Business Opportunities Organization of Saint Lucia) , trying to get persons to partner together. It bore fruit with some Licensees coming through that, but not everybody came to the plate. Caribbean Business Club, Jamaica Business Club, we tried to see if we could partner persons together from different territories. Some persons didn't want to work with Jamaicans. It was an endless list of excuses. But we tried to ensure that persons partnered together but it's hard to get persons to say 'I am going to see if I can bring my resources with this person's to build this one thing and maximize on this opportunity.'
It's just extremely hard. I don't know how else to do it in the Caribbean. We've tried our best. You put the opportunities out there, people don't read; you put it on radio; you change the mechanism by which you try and reach them; you put it on television, they still say they don't hear. It's very hard, it's very frustrating for us as CWC but for persons who do respond, we work with them closely to try and get them over the tape.
The West Indies and other teams are being paid I think it's US$11.5 million for taking part in the tournament. Would most of this revenue come from sponsorships and the sale of broadcast rights, rather than from ticket sales?
Yes, rather than from ticket sales. This goes back to the initial agreement which was signed back in 1999 when the ICC, for their big three events, signed with the GCC, and signed away the commercial and broadcast rights for those events – about US$550m. That is basically paid over the series of events that do take place, and each of these draw downs in terms of what's due based on this minimum guarantee comes across to the ICC as well as the Host, in terms of putting on and staging the event and to withhold as revenue at the end of the tournament . So a lot of this comes from that pot itself.
So really then, in terms of ICC CWC, ticket sales don't really affect the money that the teams would get.
No, it doesn't because that's budgeted separately from a different pool.
You see, I'm just wondering if enough has been done to get bodies into the stadium, because bodies in the stadium, first of all, it looks good on television, second of all, it means that the concessionaires will get more business as well. So that would be the question that I would be asking. Do you think looking back at it now, that enough has been done to fill up these stadiums?
We have done quite a lot in terms of our ads, communication, constantly interacting with the public, with various groups, trying to publicize CWC and trying to publicize that this is your event, this is not our event alone, this is your country, you have to make us proud, come out and show your face at the stadium. A lot has been done. It's hard to get persons to support other teams than the West Indies. We tried to ensure that we meet that obligation but a lot of West Indians are just not interested in watching other teams.
So, why not just lower the prices of those tickets?
At this point, it would not look good on the event if we were to move the prices. You would also have to deal with the number of persons who bought already. It's only trying to do initiatives in terms of huge groups. What has worked very well over the past five months is group sales. A lot of work has been done with the corporate market to move tickets, to get involved in the hospitality programme and a lot has borne fruit through that. It's just for the persons to show up because I'm telling you for today, we have 6,000 sold.
You're not looking worried that the place is looking empty out there?
I'm worried because it doesn't look good on TV and it doesn't send the particular message that you want to send of the country. For Jamaica, it's been a lot better than a lot of the other territories. Trinidad has also done fairly well. For the last match ups, we expect bumper crowds across the region so it will look up definitely.
Explain what benefits would accrue to companies who have signed on as sponsors. Let's take Cable & Wireless as an example.
In terms of what benefits they do get, I wouldn't be able to speak to it because those sponsorships are sold through GCC's marketing and sponsorship services company Nimbus Sport International, and the company based out here Nimbus Sport West Indies. They designate the rights that each of these sponsors do get. They only thing that we have to input is the tickets and the rights they do get in terms of representation at venues and in boxes and match tickets. In terms of signboard, T-shirts they have to give out, all that is defined by Nimbus Sports because that's one of the GCC's rights. All the revenue from sponsorships goes to the account of the GCC and Nimbus, so none of that money directly comes to CWC. We get our revenue through IDI through their agreement with the GCC.
So this beef that journalists have had with the internet rates and the suggestion that the pricing structure was agreed with the 'organizers', the organizers would not be CWC.
The organizers would be with Nimbus. We don't have the right to set their pricing structure for Cable & Wireless across the region, even though our Corporate Communications Director Marvia Roach has had dialogue with them about it because there is a significant concern amongst the media across the region about the pricing structure.
Cable & Wireless' argument is that it's justifiable in terms of the infrastructure that they've had to put in place for the event. We can't necessarily govern their pricing structure. That's one we have to discuss with Nimbus Sports as to how best to alleviate that problem. I know it's a concern right now especially for some of the media houses who aren't cash rich. So dialogue continues with them to see if we can reach some amicable agreement on a pricing structure which is amicable to all. I know Marvia Roache is driving those discussions, and I know they've reached as high as our offices in terms of our CEO. I am not sure how far they will reach but there is a move to try and address those.
So there is a glimmer of hope. Now why did you take on the challenges of this job?
I had been in telecommunications for nine years – Cable & Wireless for five and moved on to Digicel for another four where I worked with them in Jamaica, St Lucia St Vincent and Barbados. I have always been a lover of cricket, not a player, but I travelled and watched the West Indies across the region, have always done so. I made a lot of friends through cricket and it's something I had always wanted to work with. I had even applied some time in the past to work with WICB. Fortunately I wasn't considered back then! This opportunity came up and I thought it was a once in a lifetime opportunity for me as a young professional, to add a little something to my resume, but also to play my part in the development of the Caribbean and the development of the region through CSME.
What training did you have to get as you went along?
I'm very strong at project management so it's from that perspective from which I approached the role. Everything was new to almost everyone who came into the organization. My direct report was straight into the MD and CEO [Chris Dehring]. He has been a very strong mentor for me in terms of organizing the department and structuring the entire commercial programme. I do owe a lot to him in terms of the leeway and the freedom to make my decisions and I believe that collaborating with LOCs, we've planned proper strategies in order to maximize the few host rights that we do have in order to make sure some revenue comes back to the coffers of the WICB.
For us, it's more than just the dollars and sense; it's me giving back to a game I love, a sport I want to see continue and to ensure that it goes back to the WICB for the development of cricket.
I guess your experience as a rugby player would have come in very handy in overcoming any obstacles you have faced.
Any obstacles, yes. I was captain of the Jamaica national team, played on the circuit for a while with the first West Indies team. I'm a strong fan of team sports, have always been a part of team sports. My alma mater is right next door, St George's College, dear to my heart forever, played Manning Cup football for them.
What has been the most satisfying aspect of this experience for you?
It's just doing things that I had never done before. I had never been a part of event management in totality. My department, an extremely young team, has helped me to develop this entire programme which has broken revenue records. One thing that is pleasing to me is that I have been able to work with them in the same vein as how my boss currently helps me with my department. I've helped them to structure each of their individual programmes in order to make sure that they succeed and achieve and I believe that those persons, cricket needs to hold on to them at the end of this tournament.
They are the future of the development of cricket and organizational and commercial arm of cricket and I believe they should be snapped up by the WICB if possible. I believe that they can make the WICB from a commercial perspective, turn that corner and start to be a viable organization constantly making revenue. Never before has a WICB licensing programme ever made money. Mark you, it's the CWC but the WICB property is a strong commercial property that I believe can be maximized globally.
Would you do it all over again?
Yes, I would do it all over again. There are things that inherently have to be learnt; there are things that yeah, you've done and decisions that you've made that you would do differently but with the nature of these events, you can plan and plan as much as possible but the curve balls are always out there. The contingency planning which I'm extremely proud of that we've developed alongside any plans that we've had, has worked very well.
We just hope that more persons would have shown up and that we would have been 100% sold across the entire tournament, and there's still time. We are still on track for the revenues that we expected from Ticketing. With a strong Super Eight, we will succeed. We are looking to target about 80% for the Super Eights. We are about 50% on average across each of the venues. Antigua and Guyana being the lead off venues, the first games are going well. When this campaign starts that the Corporate Communications department is handling, we expect a lot more.
We've been awarded the Champions Trophy 2010. Do you want to be a part of that?
It depends on what happens after this tournament. My contract goes on up to June 2007. I would be proud to do anything for the West Indies and the region again. I believe I've developed a lot of key relationships across the region. The cricket world in the Caribbean is like no other that I know of, the camaraderie and the spirit that everybody wants this thing to succeed.
It would be an honour to be a part of an event of this nature again.