Your guests are not only comparing to your direct competitors...

...they’re comparing you to the smoothest digital experience they’ve had that day.

A ticket buyer today doesn’t just compare your ticketing experience to other ticketing experiences but they are comparing it to best-in-class experiences out there. Checkout speed and payment flows to Apple Pay, the cleanliness of your App to Uber and the digital personalization to Netflix.

And that’s not a stretch. It’s the mental baseline they already have. The reality is, the experience bar for live events isn’t set within our industry. It is set by the most seamless digital interactions people have anywhere.

Why this matters now

Consumer expectations have been climbing in step with their entertainment spending. And the scale is staggering.

Over the past decade, global spending on entertainment and media has grown from 1.83 trillion USD in 2015 to almost 3 trillion USD in 2025. That is a 64% increase in just ten years. And the pace has been picking up.

Here is the importance behind it: Every part of that spend — streaming, gaming, live music — is redefining what “good” feels like. Customers do not think in categories anymore. They expect the same digital ease everywhere, regardless of the product or service.

The consequence of this shift

1 - You are competing in the experience business.The smoothest interaction a customer has, sets the standard for all others.

• When they use Apple Pay, checkout takes less than 10 seconds on average. Payment feels instant, invisible and safe. That makes a clunky ticket checkout feel outdated the second it loads.
• When they open Uber, the app processes over 20 million rides per day while automatically suggesting routes and destinations. That level of speed and predictive design makes any slow or confusing interface feel broken by comparison.
• When they log into Netflix, more than 80% of all viewing comes from algorithmic recommendations. The platform feels personal and relevant, which makes any generic message in their inbox feel irrelevant and forgettable.

These tools are not perfect by accident. They are fast, they are visually polished, and they are deeply customized to the individual. That combination is now the baseline across digital life.

2 - Experience gaps are amplified.A slow checkout is no longer just an inconvenience. It becomes a reason to abandon the purchase, to choose a different channel, or to delay the decision. Once a customer experiences a smoother alternative elsewhere, that becomes their new default expectation.

So what does this mean for you / for us?

It means that delivering on the core transaction is only half the job. The other half is matching the feel of the best-in-class digital experiences of speed, design and personal relevance your audience has outside your vertical. That is where the real competitive pressure comes from.

• Streamline every step. Remove unnecessary clicks, shorten forms, and cut load times. Treat your flow with the same precision Apple Pay applies to payments.
• Anticipate needs. Like Uber predicting your pickup, use data to surface the most relevant event, seat, or offer before the customer has to search.
• Make communication personal. Go beyond generic updates. Use behaviour, timing and signals to deliver messages that feel directly relevant to each customer.

When you zoom out, the 3 trillion USD milestone in global entertainment spending is proof of a market where customers are engaging with more experiences, more often, and in more formats than ever before. Every one of those experiences is raising the bar for what they consider normal.

If your checkout, app, or communication feels even slightly harder, slower, or less intuitive than the rest of their day, you are not just falling short. You are creating a visible gap that your competitors, or entirely different industries, can step into.

The question has shifted. It is no longer “Who is the best in my category?”. It is “How do we deliver an interaction so smooth that it sets the tone for the rest of the customer’s day?”.

Because when customers compare everything they use,everything you deliveris part of that scorecard. And in a market where experience is currency, every moment of friction is an opportunity for someone else to win.

In the next edition, we will stay with the same question from a different angle. If today’s standard is speed, beauty and personalization, how do you actually get there? The answer lies in how you use your audience data. Not as static profiles, but as living signals that reveal what people expect, what keeps them loyal, and what makes them return. That shift — from transactions to real understanding — is where the next level of experience begins.