AutoPricer User Guide v3
- Gleen Mark Laureano
User Guide V3-2022
This page is about AutoPricer's technical communication document which is intended to give assistance or guide users on how to use the system.
Basic Overview
Best Uses
Events in the mid term price range
Events that recently went on sale and we hope to move an estimated amount while market is hot
Events with the declining market we can’t keep up with.
Events we have a lot of inventory for.
Times to Avoid AutoPricer
If the event is not on Tevo, Seat Geek or EI Box Office
High risk and price volatile events that have a high demand (one off reunion show, world series, retirement games, ring ceremony games)
Premium seats for sold-out shows.
Advantages
Prices every ticket that needs adjustment at regular intervals.
Prices hundreds of tickets in seconds.
Prices directly with three different markets: Seat Geek, Tevo and EI Box Office
Better turnover rates. Easier to get out of bad markets.
Disadvantages
Can get chased down to the floor if someone recognizes we’re using AP on a market with few tickets left.
Can lead to a lack of attention if not followed up on regularly.
Lack of knowing competitors on the boards on a daily basis
Key Terms
Term | Explanation | Example |
Floor | The lowest price at which you want to price your tickets. |
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Stagger | The dollar amount or percentage you’re using to separate ticket prices by Rank List. |
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Anchor | The way in which you want the top ranked tickets priced, based on the cheapest ticket in that section taken from SH. | -1 means undercut that price by $1. 0 means match the cheapest price. +1 means the price at $1 above the cheapest ticket. |
Bounds | The criteria by which you want your tickets priced by rank list, including the floor, how you want them staggered, and the anchor. |
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Zone | The set of sections your tickets will list to. | Endzone Center Court Lower Level |
Rank List | The order in which you want your tickets to be priced. | Those at the top of your list will be affected by the anchor and its bounds Subsequent ranks are affected by the stagger and its bounds. You can rearrange the list. |
Get-Ins | A feature of AutoPricer that will price your ticket with the cheapest seat anywhere in the venue, ignoring zones and rows. |
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AutoPricer Summary | This page will be where event maintenance can be done. | View the cheapest set of tickets. Edit your bounds. Uncheck the “Auto Pricer” box to remove an event from AutoPricer. |
Browser Selection
The Auto Pricer functions best in Chrome/Insomniac
Using Auto Pricer How-To
Making Sure Events Zones Are Mapping Correctly
Click Pricing Tools.
Click Update Event Zones.
Click “Event” dropdown menu to select a specific event.
Click “Venue” dropdown menu to select a specific venue.
Click “From” date and select a starting date.
Click “To” date to and select an ending.
Click any Sections Unmapped and highlight their correct Zones in the Zone Column and Sections in the Section Column
Click Save.
Loading Events in Auto Pricer (Setup Basics)
Identify a tour or show you want to add to Auto Pricer.
In the portal, go to Auto Pricer Process > Auto Pricer
Search for your event (if over 20+ events, may want to filter search down by date to save load time)
In the top right corner, click the "Download All" button
Check the box for any events you are looking to add, then click "ok"
Even if there are already intel downloaded for this event, you will want to download fresh data so the preview screen is accurate.
Usually, all events download within 20-30 mins, but set a reminder for 30 minutes to circle back.
Re- search that same search you made in step 2.a
If the "Market Intels" column still says "0" you won't be able to add yet, circle back in another 30 mins
c. If there is a number in this column, proceed to step 6.
Click on the event you are looking to add.
d. On the right side, sections should populate into the sections box, if not, troubleshoot with Derek or attempt steps 1-5 again.
If you are wanting to set up a group by section and row – skip to step 8.
One way to set an event up is by “Get-Ins” - meaning it will price any and all of our tickets against any and all tickets on the secondary markets (good for GA events, events we only have get-in uppers for, etc). All you will need to do is click the “get-in” button – this will automatically perform steps 8,9 and 10 so you can now skip to step 11.
Select all sections that WE OWN as well as WANT TO PRICE AGAINST (by using CTRL+Click OR Shift+Click)
e. Meaning if I only have tickets in 1 of the 6 "get-in" sections, I will want to select all 6 of them.
9. Select all rows WE OWN as well as WANT TO PRICE AGAINST
f. Meaning if we own row L's, we will want to grab rows A thru L (and maybe a couple past ours if we want to broaden the tickets it prices against).
10. At this point, you want to name your group.
g. In the "group name" box, type in a descriptor for the sections / rows you selected (get-in lowers, row A uppers, baseline lowers row A-F - etc etc)
h. Click the blue "Add" button
11. Once the group has been created, all of the tickets you have shared, that fit into the criteria you selected should slide out on the right side, automatically ranked from worst row (at top of list) to best row (at bottom of list)
i. Verify the same amount of sets you expected to pull in, are all showing up in the rank list on Auto Pricer
j. Verify there are no duplicates
k. Re-Rank any sets that may need re-arranged (because of quantity, section amenities, location within zone, etc etc)
l. If there are any sets that show up in this list, that we don’t want to price with this group, simply “uncheck” that set from the rank list.
i. Example: maybe we want to price our row D-J's AGAINST row A’s but don’t want to include OUR row A’s.
m. If you made any changes to the rank list, you will need to hit "Save Ranks" button for your changes to take effect
12. At this point, we are ready to set the bounds for this group.
n. Anchor Price- What do we want to do with the cheapest priced ticket found on the marketplace within our bounds?
iii. Positive number = sit above that price by that dollar amount
iv. "0" = match that price
v. Negative number = undercut that price by that dollar amount
o. Sets At Anchor- if we want multiple sets at the bottom of our rank list (our cheapest priced tickets) - set this number to how many sets you want at the bottom.
p. Floor- What is the lowest price you are willing to sell this ticket at right NOW (number can be adjusted later on if market or strategy changes)
q. Stagger- How much room do you want between each set within the group. This can be done 3 ways:
vi. "$" - This option spaces your tickets out based on a dollar amount. If you enter "10" it will stagger all sets $10 at a time (10,20,30,40,50 etc)
vii. "%" - This option spaces your tickets out based on a percentage. If you enter "25" it will stagger all sets 25% apart from each other ($10,$12.50, ,$15.65, $19.53, etc etc)
viii. "#" - This option spaces your tickets out by number of sets between on the market. This will ignore prices all together and match each stagger with the set that matches the number you set on the marketplace. If you set that number at "3" - if the anchor set is $10, there is a set on the marketplace at $12, $13, and $19 - it would set our first two sets at $10 and $19.
r. Sets at stagger- How many sets do you want at each stagger? If we want to stack sets at each stagger point, change this number from a "1" to however many sets you want there.
ix. If you set your "sets at anchor" to '1' and your "sets at stagger" to "2" - your tickets will price 1 set at the anchor then 2 sets at each stagger ($10, $20, $20, $30, $30 etc etc)
x. If you set your "sets at anchor" to '2' and your "sets at stagger" to "2" - your tickets will price 2 sets at the anchor then 2 sets at each stagger ($10, $10, $20, $20, $30, $30 etc etc)
xi.
s. Rounding feature- We like to keep our tickets from being easily recognizable as "auto priced" tickets
xii. If you are undercutting, round DOWN
xiii. If you are riding / sitting on top, round UP
xiv. This can be used to minimize how much we are undercutting / sitting on top of the market as well.
1. We can round UP with a "0" anchor to sit just pennies above the next set
2. We can round DOWN with a "0" anchor to sit just pennies below the next set.
13. At this point, we're almost ready to hit "save group"
t. Take one last chance to double check your floor is high enough, your anchor makes sense etc etc
u. Hit "Save Group" - there should be a pop-up that displays the new prices it is expecting to use when it pushes out
v. If the preview says "no results available" - this is because the intels data you downloaded is stale, so it doesn't want to give you bad / old prices.
xv. If you would like this screen to be accurate, re-download the intels, wait for download, then re-save
xvi. If you trust your setup, you can still hit "Confirm Save" and it will push this group out to be priced once the new intels are downloaded.
POST-SETUP PROCESS FOR AUTO PRICER: Features within the summary screen
AFTER CLICKING SAVE GROUP, ALL TICKETS ADDED TO AUTO PRICER SHOULD HAVE AN “AUTO PRICED” NOTE IN THE INTERNAL NOTES OF EI
If this note does not appear right away, click save group and confirm save again.
This should push the note thru, if not holler at Derek
If the note appears, but prices don’t change immediately- DONT FRET, it’s likely that the market intels are still downloading and the tickets will re-price as soon as those are available. Set a reminder to circle back in 30 mins to an hour after Auto Pricer runs.
After you notice pricing changes, check the markets, did those price how you expected them to? If so, rest and relax and watch the sales come!
If not, was it because of setup? Feel free to talk to Derek if need be.
The next time you go to manually price this event, go to the “Auto Pricer Summary” page
Auto Pricer Process > Auto Pricer Summary
If you want to load up every event, we have on auto pricer, no filter is needed just hit “submit”
Otherwise, filter by artist name, event date, or pricer event is assigned to to get a smaller subset of the main list.
Once it loads, you will see a column for every data point you entered into the setup side
Here we are able to edit any of our bounds, check on its next run-time, the last time it was priced, the market data it’s matching it up with etc etc
How to remove an event from auto pricer
To deactivate the event, simply uncheck the box next to where it says “ranks”
If you want to completely remove the group from auto pricer, uncheck the box first, then hit the “delete” button on the far left of the screen
How to check market intels / prices we are using to price
In the “event name” column, each group has a unique link that will pull a wide range of data that pertains to that group.
Click on that link, and it will spin for 30-45 seconds while it loads that info
If the numbers within this column don’t line up with secondary market, we may need to make sure the event is linked up to the right set of data.
Variance Color
Green = not near “floor” price
Yellow = nearing floor price, will need to re-evaluate soon
Red = we are at the floor price, need to re-evaluate whether to lower floor or sit at floor price for now
Pricing Schedule
Auto: After setup, you will see this set as the schedule until Auto Pricer determines which schedule to use
Front Side: Auto pricer has identified that this event was recently added and should be priced more often than mid-range, but not as often as expiring.
Mid-Range: Our slowest pricing schedule, this will re-price your tickets at the slowest rate, which is generally ideal for our mid-range
Expiring: Event is within 2 days.
Near-Term: Event is within 3-14 days.
These schedules are able to be edited manually. IF we have an event we want priced more or less often than the schedule it auto set to- we can adjust that in the dropdown
Last Priced / Next Check
Last Priced- when did auto pricer last price this set of tickets? If this date is well outside of the schedule listed above (bullet #11) we may need to uncheck /recheck the group to reactivate
Next Check- the date & time auto pricer expects to check this group next. If this is well in the past, it’s not pricing for some reason and may need to uncheck /recheck the group to reactivate
DOWNLOAD MARKET INTEL FOR AUTO PRICING
Market intel are used to build up Sections, Rows and to find the lowest price based on selected bounds to use as the base price and applied by rules to the auto pricing groups.
Also note that market intel are updated every 30 minutes for events that has been auto priced only.
To Download Market Intels
Open Ticketboat portal and log in
Click on Auto Pricer Process → Auto Pricer.
Filter by Performer in the event dropdown and click Submit.
After events are loaded:
Click on “Download All” in the far right.
Select on the events you want to download.
You can also, check the checkbox in the header to select all events.
Click Ok.
This will also show up to notify that there are events queued for downloading intels.
This will disappear when all events are processed.
To verify, you can click on filter in the top left of the screen and click on submit again.
Once loaded you can see in the Market Intel columns that the count has been updated.
EVENT MATCHING
Make sure the value for EI (EI Box Office), Seat Geek and TV (Ticket Evolution) are green. Red indicates unmapped events.
Manual mapping of events to exchanges
This feature is used to manually map events to secondary exchanges like (SH, EI, SG and TV)
Also note, that events are automatically mapped when there are new tickets bought in the inventory for the past 7 days, and also if an event has the most inventory.
Open Ticketboat portal and log in
Click on Auto Pricer Process → Auto Pricer.
Filter by Performer in the event dropdown and click Submit.
After events are loaded.
Click on the red circle in 5/12 event and this will show up.
To get the SeatGeek URL
Search for the event name and find the date you need to map.
Click on the event when found and copy the URL.
Paste the url in the input box and click ok.
Wait until notification pops up.
To verify you will see that the selected red circle in the event, turns green and clicking takes you to the copied URL.
To edit the URL of a mapped event, use the Edit url button.
Enter the new URL in the provided field and then click OK.
AUTO PRICE UNSHARED TICKETS
To create group, follow the same procedure in user guide.
But before adding the group, select include unshared tickets in “Advance Options”.
Select the Sections and Rows to add.
Enter the group name.
Click Advance Options
Check Include unshared tickets
SETTING AUTO PRICING SEASONS/GROUPS
When To Use: Use to price similar events with similar inventory over multiple dates/start times
Open Ticketboat portal and click Auto Pricer Process → Auto Pricer
Select the performer and click submit
Select the event that has an existing group and select the group you want to copy.
Click on copy group.
Select the event you want to copy it to.
Note also, in the column RG Exists, if it says Y, it means this group has been copied to those events to.
Select Apply Pricing in the lower right.
Set the bounds, by default this shows the bounds set up from the selected group to copy.
Click Save.
This should show you that the selected group has been copied to the event.
To verify, look for the selected event and see the group added to the event.
Alternatively, to copy a group to another event
Note! this feature is intended only for copying groups that are set up in GA (General Admission)
Open Auto Pricer and Select the event with GA group set up.
Select the group and click copy
Select General Admission Only then select the event and or venue you want to copy the group to and click Search
Select the event you want to copy the group to and click Apply Pricing
Set the bounds, by default this shows the bounds set up from the selected group to copy.
Click Save.
UTILIZING PRICING AGAINST YOUR OWN INVENTORY
Use when we are only ones listing inventory in a zone or section and we just want it to keep staggers for us and not drop below a certain dollar
GO TO the Ticket Boat Portal and Login.
CLICK Auto Pricer Process.
CLICK Auto Pricer.
USE the FILTER BY section to load all or specific event. The more specific you are, the less that has to load, saving time.
CLICK Event dropdown to select a specific event
CLICK Venue dropdown to select a specific venue
CLICK Date From dropdown and select a starting date
CLICK Date To dropdown and select an ending date
CLICK Submit. If you don't set a filter, all events will be loaded which will take some time
SET Your Groups By Manual Group, Quick Zone or Get In
SET Your Bounds
CLICK “OWN INVENTORY” in bottom box (below)
CLICK Save Group
MANUALLY OVERRIDING PRICING SCHEDULE
It's also possible to manually change pricing schedule to a group. See details below on the options:
To manually set the group pricing schedule
GO TO the Ticket Boat Portal and Login.
CLICK Auto Pricer Process.
CLICK Auto Pricer.
USE the FILTER BY section to load all or specific event. The more specific you are, the less that has to load, saving time.
CLICK Event dropdown to select a specific event
CLICK Venue dropdown to select a specific venue
CLICK Date From dropdown and select a starting date
CLICK Date To dropdown and select an ending date
CLICK Submit. If you don't set a filter, all events will be loaded which will take some time.
When the list of events loads, single CLICK on the event you’re looking for.
CLICK a group name you wish to edit.
CLICK Edit.
SET Pricing Schedule can be changed based on requirement.
To check if the new price schedule is implemented
CLICK Auto Pricer Process
CLICK Auto Pricer Summary
CLICK Event dropdown
TYPE the event name
CLICK Submit