An internationally acclaimed symphony orchestra with over a 100-year history needed a reliable solution for estimating future ticket sales, especially subscription-based sales, to help better manage their internal budgeting process and program management.
The Challenge
The Client is an internationally acclaimed symphony orchestra with over a 100-year history. They approached Management Science Associates, Inc. (MSA) seeking a reliable solution for estimating future ticket sales, especially subscription-based sales, to help better manage their internal budgeting process and program management. They had many years’ worth of historical data of concerts performed with which they wanted to see if MSA could leverage to compute relatively accurate ticket sales forecasts.
The Solution
MSA took much of the available historical data and developed a series of custom, algorithmic and regression-based models to calculate ticket sales forecasts for each upcoming performance, both subscriber-based and single ticket sales.
We then embedded all of the models into Excel® and developed an interactive, user-friendly, scenario-building tool with which the Client was then able to input various upcoming concert details. The tool visualizes sales forecast results as table summaries as well as in interactive charts. The tool also tracks model performance over time to determine if any model adjustments are necessary.
The Result
This symphony orchestra has used MSA’s ticket sales forecasting solution successfully for over five years now. Predictions for annual sales have been within a +/- 2-4% range of historical actual sales. These scenario-based forecasts have been providing this Client with previously unseen clarity to their programming and have allowed for significant budget savings over the years.
For more information on this MSA solution, please contact Kevin Mason (kmason@msa.com), Vice President.