Balmoral Show

“Working with Future Ticketing has brought enormous benefits to The Balmoral Show. The Future Ticketing system ensures a smooth entry for our customers on show day, the system tackles the issues we had previously such as hosting a large volume of cash on-site, long purchase queues, access control and how best to insulate the business from the economic impact of bad weather.”

“For the Balmoral Staff, we can report each day of our event what customers have attended using daily tickets or flexible tickets. Using the Future Ticketing cash desk functionality and Clover car payment units we can cleanly record and report the income and attendee data for each day.”

Theresa Morrisey, Finance Director

The Balmoral Show is the largest outdoor show and one of the most popular events in Northern Ireland. In 2023, it celebrated its 154rd anniversary since inception. Traditionally taking place over four days in May, the show welcomes over 120,000 people annually.

Challenge

Future Ticketing has partnered with Balmoral since 2018 when it was asked to provide a modern, efficient full-ticketing solution that could resolve traditional ticketing issues at agricultural shows such as:

Hosting of large volumes of cash on-site
Long queues of customers waiting to purchase tickets and gain entry
How best to protect and insulate the show from the economic impact of bad weather on attendances.

Solution

Our team worked closely with the team at the Balmoral Show to manage its digital transformation with a clear and efficient plan including providing solutions for:

Advance online sales helping to reduce large volumes of cash on the day
Increasing sales from mobile devices and speeding up entry at the event
Managing sponsors, trade and complementary ticketing requirements
Event-day access control using scanners with real-time reporting for event organisers
Utilising Clover EPOS for on-the-day cash and contactless card sales with full sales reconciliation and reporting

Valued-added

The inherent flexibility of the Future Ticketing system has helped it resolve multiple ticketing issues for outdoor shows and consequently we have built up an expertise and critical mass in the space. Today, we are the ticketing supplier of choice to an increasing number of agricultural shows in the UK and Ireland including the Armagh Show, the Cardigan County Show, the Clogher Valley Show, the Halifax Agricultural Show, the Scottish Ploughing Championships, the Tinahely Show and the Tullamore Show.

Working with Balmoral Staff, Future Ticketing reports each day of the event on various data points including a breakdown of customers who have attended using daily tickets or flexible tickets. Using the Future Ticketing cash desk functionality and Clover car payment units, we can also cleanly record and report the income and attendee data for each day.