Savvy Cirque du Soleil social media story
This is a Christmas story about savvy social media, PR and customer service. It stars Cirque du Soleil as Santa and Ticketmaster as the Grinch who nearly stole Christmas from a six-year old.
Around 11:30 am on Dec 22, I’m browsing my son’s Facebook page to see pics of his trip to Las Vegas. He’s traveled 1,200 miles from Vancouver to see the Michael Jackson Cirque du Soleil show as a Christmas present for my grandson who adores the pop singer.
To my dismay, I learn that last night they showed up at the Mandalay Bay Events Center for the show to find it’s “canceled.” We exchange numerous Facebook messages and I learn a tale of mistakes, poor management and truculent Ticketmaster service.
Here’s what went down.
On Sept 27, at Ticketmaster in Bellingham, WA my son bought tickets for my six-year old grandson for the Michael Jackson THE IMMORTAL World Tour by Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas on Wed, Dec 21. For the next two months, excitement about their holiday and the show grew.
They arrive at the theater last night to find out there is no show. A nearby restaurant maître d’ said the show had been “dark” on Mon – Wed for weeks because of slower tourism in the other city that never sleeps.
Ticketmaster had sold tickets even though the show is “dark” and failed to inform him of the cancellation in any way.
He returns to the closed box office and finally gets the attention of an employee. He asks to exchange his tickets for tomorrow night’s show. The ticket office says the less expensive tickets like his are sold out.
They suggest contacting Ticketmaster. A Ticketmaster call center employee says they can’t do anything, contact the box office. My son asks to speak to a manager who suggests he go to their local Ticketmaster office.
He spends 45 minutes getting there, arriving at 7:30pm just as a Ticketmaster employee is closing and is unwilling to remain open to help. He calls back to the call center and is told he will have to get a refund on the way home in Bellingham where he bought the tickets. Bureaucracy, blame and a classic “not MY problem” standoff.
Frustrated, with his son in tears, they return to their hotel to plan for another show or outing the next evening, their last night in Las Vegas.
My son returns to the box office the next morning for one last try. He asks again if he can get tickets for tonight. A helpful employee spends the next 15 minutes trying to assist. She tries Ticketmaster for a refund or other resolution without success. A good effort but she too has met the impenetrable Ticketmaster wall.
No go and no help from the creators of the problem.
So there you have it. Terrible Ticketmaster service. Unwilling to resolve an issue they created when it was easy to resolve on-site at the box office. The bureaucratic runaround. A frustrated father. A six-year-old in tears over not being able to see the Michael Jackson show after two months of anticipation. So much for the special Christmas gift from a father to his son.
Unbelievable Ticketmaster. Not a Tweet. No apology. No concern. Talk about the Christmas Grinch!
Now enter the power of social media – Twitter and the Christmas spirit.
Just before 12 noon, I tweet about the situation to Cirque du Soleil (@cirque) and Ticketmaster (@Ticketmaster) asking how they can cancel without notice to the customer?
Here were my two tweets:
Just 14 minutes later I get this response from @Cirque:
I immediately DM with my son’s cell phone number as he still has one more night in Vegas. Maybe there is a Santa Claus?
I message via Facebook telling my son to leave his cell phone on, expecting at best, a call with an apology. He gets a call asking him to come to the Mandalay Bay box office. An employee called “Joanne” helps with new tickets. An hour and a half later, I get a follow-up tweet from Cirque du Soleil:
My son calls shortly after, saying that Mandalay Bay box office sold him two comparable tickets for tonight’s show.
Problem solved thanks to a PR-savvy Cirque du Soleil social media tweep.
It’s a great lesson in customer service and social media. Cirque du Soleil was listening. Their instincts were correct and they responded quickly. Even when it wasn’t “their” problem. Good PR and positive social media are all about taking responsibility and action.
The next day my son and grandson couldn’t say enough about the show. “The break dancer with one leg was the BEST,” beams my grandson. Cirque du Soleil made this a wonderful Christmas story with a happy ending and earned some well-deserved public relations.
And the Grinches over at Ticketmaster? Not so much.
With this good PR Christmas story, I wish you all a festive and happy holidays with family and friends. May your New Year be bright too!
Author: Jeff Domansky
Photo credits: Cirque du Soleil & Kevin Collins via Flickr
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{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Matt, I appreciated your background and industry point of view on Ticketmaster. They appear to have much more to learn about social media. They’ve been so dominant for so many years, I suspect they will have to be very nimble to react to new competitors. We all remember MySpace. Best of luck with your new mobile ticketing platform!
Jeff
David:
I found your website when I was doing a google search for ticketmaster news as my company’s new product is set to launch.
I’ll give you background here on why this occurred. Mandalay Bay is an AEG-run property. Ticketmaster’s contract with many if not all AEG venues are coming to a close because AEG just bought a ticketing service.
So Ticketmaster cares little about AEG-run venues it tickets that it is losing. In fact, it’s probably in their best interest to make that venue (though TM obviously took the PR hit here) look poorly run.
Anyway, just another story I’m reading as our mobile ticketing platform goes live. If you want check it out in the link above OR remove it if that constitutes spam here.
Hi David. The initial tweet was supposed to go to both Cirque and Ticketmaster. The 2nd one, to both, went immediately after I realized I hadn’t included Ticketmaster in the first one. Because Ticketmaster had been so unresponsive to my son’s efforts in person, I decided to reach out to both. I can’t explain why there was no response from Ticketmaster. They either don’t monitor carefully and missed it or don’t closely follow Twitter. There were only seven TM posts that day several of which were promotional. They may have seen Cirque’s quick response and decided not to respond – not good social media best practice. Or it was all over and resolved by the time they noticed. I can’t speak for them. Thanks for asking.
A quick question about the social media strategy: why the two tweets at Cirque, but only one at TicketMaster?
Kudos to the Fred Meyer folks for their efforts! Thanks for the update on your story Paul.
Update: I arrived at the airport in Bellingham WA, and went right over to Fred Meyer (Ticketmaster retail outlet) to get a refund on the tickets I purchased for the show that was cancelled. The employee was having trouble refunding the tickets, and after some time, they had to contact Ticketmaster directly, because the tickets could not be found in the Ticketmaster system or refunded. The Ticketmaster agent was also having troubles finding the tickets in their system. It was as though the tickets or show did not even exist in the Ticketmaster computer system. Eventually they found a problem with the computer system and I was fully refunded the cost of the cancelled show tickets.
The employee and Manager I was dealing with at Fred Meyer were extremely helpful and very accommodating given it was only 2 days until Christmas and the store was completely packed with last minute shoppers. I had a few last minute Christmas gifts to get as well, so I figured I would pick them up there.
Fred Meyer and the manager even went as far as giving me as $25.00 in-store gift card towards my Christmas presents, what was very unexpected. That was a very nice surprise considering this whole ordeal was not their fault, but solely the fault of Ticketmaster for the lack of any form of communication, e-mail, telephone, or a snail mail letter, letting me know the show had been cancelled that evening so I could have had the chance to purchase tickets for another evening.
I was not asking to be compensated in any way, I didn’t want free tickets or an upgrade, just wanted what I had spent my hard earned money on. I have not yet heard back from Ticketmaster, and a simple apology would have been more than appropriate.
Cirque really did go above and beyond to help him as I outlined. The boys were thrilled with the show Sammy. A great outcome considering it was their last night possible to get tix. And as you note, they were simply hoping to get what they paid for. Ironically, when my son tried to get his refund, there were still more Ticketmaster issues. Thanks for taking time to comment.
Not quite sure why Gayle Wilson feels that because her daughter was writing about Cirque, she deserved a free ticket. Cirque is in business just as is any other enterprise, and if they gave out free tickets to everyone who wrote a paper about them, the auditorium would be full of “freeloaders” who had written something just to get a free ticket. For the most part, journalists are forbidden from accepting free tickets to the performances about which they write and I certainly would not expect a free ticket, nor would I complain in public that I didn’t get one. Wow!
Cirque did show some real class and PR savvy when it helped Jeff Domansky’s grandson get a ticket, but notice please that they did not upgrade him. He got what he paid for thanks to Cirque’s classy response and despite Ticketmaster’s stubborn stupidity. Last time I’ll do business with Ticketmaster.
Our experience with Cirque was very positive. He wasn’t looking for anything other than what was paid for which really was Ticketmaster’s problem to resolve. It was a good lesson in how smart businesses use social media and how others don’t. A happy outcome and best of all the show was fabulous. Thanks for commenting Gayle.
Our experience with Cirque du Soleil was this: Our 12-year-old daughter chose to do her school heritage project of this Canadian success story. Based in Nova Scotia, it involved a few long-distance phone calls and emails to get info from the Cirque du Soleil people. (The local library didn’t yield much and students are discouraged from weighing their research too heavily on info gleaned from the internet.) Cirque’s marketing contact person with whom she dealt was indeed very helpful with material, photos, etc. However, when we inquired about the possibility of some complimentary tickets, or a ticket, so our daughter could see the show when it was due to come to Halifax that spring, we were told she and the family would have to pay for a ticket like everyone else. Considering the huge earnings of the production company, I thought that was “poor show” on Cirque’s part. Our daughter got an “A” on her assignment, but she has yet to see a Cirque du Soleil production live. I’m not sure if/when she will…
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