Connacht Rugby

Founded in 1885, Connacht Rugby is one of the four professional provincial rugby teams on the island of Ireland. Connacht competes in the United Rugby Championship (teams from Ireland, Italy, Scotland, South Africa and Wales) and the European Rugby Champions Cup (teams from the URC list of countries plus England and France). It plays its home games at the Galway Sportsgrounds, a stadium with capacity for 8,100 spectators.

Challenge

In 2018, Connacht Rugby announced plans to redevelop the Galway Sportsgrounds to a 12,000 capacity to enable it accommodate its growing fan base since the club won the Pro 12 tournament in 2016. As part of its modernisation and expansion plans, it sought a ticketing partner who could bring them to the next level providing not just efficient access control, but also an ability for Connacht to develop a closer relationship with its fans and improve customer experience.

Solution

Connacht Rugby has utilised Future Ticketing’s high-performance ticketing software to deliver a digital transformation of its ticketing including tickets sales, ancillary sales, CRM, reporting and analysis. The partnership has deepened fan engagement and increased ticket sales and overall revenue, including achieving the highest grossing game record on three separate occasions in its first year.

Value-added

In 2021, Connacht Rugby renewed its contract until 2026 as Future Ticketing continued to deliver value-added over and above the initial requirements of the club. These value-added included boosting sales efficiency, including a record attendance for the club’s match against Leinster Rugby in April 2022 with 95% of tickets sold online. 

“We are delighted to have partnered with Future Ticketing, who brings a new standard of service within its cutting-edge software. It’s ticketing platform has seamlessly integrated with our existing technology stack and has improved our efficiency and our ability to understand and connect with our supporters. We are very pleased with the level of customer service provided. Future Ticketing’s innovative features and services have also enhanced customer experience.

Connacht Rugby continues to engage and grow its customer case, helped by being our first client to use the Digital Ticketing App and to benefit also from deeping its digital footprint, which has enabled the club to form a clearer picture from data of its fan base. In addition, moving to digital and away from plastics helped the club on its sustainability journey. 

The club has been at the forefront of delivering innovation to its customers and was also our first client to use the Future Ticketing API to create a customer portal where fans could log-in and access content and tickets based on their membership type. 

Connacht Rugby partners with TwoCircles, an API integration that enables the club to analyse data to help it maximise commercial and ticketing revenues.