by Nick Giammusso

Masters Golf Tournament

The Masters Golf Tournament is one of the four major championships in professional golf. Scheduled for the first full week of April, it is the first of the majors to be played each year. Unlike the other major championships, the Masters is held each year at the same location, Augusta National Golf Club, a private golf club in the city of Augusta, Georgia.

Masters Golf Tickets

Although tickets for the Masters are not expensive, they are very difficult to come by.  Even the Masters Golf practice rounds can be difficult to get into.  Applications for Masters practice round tickets have to be made nearly a year in advance and the successful applicants are chosen by random ballot.  Tickets to the actual Masters tournament are sold only to members of a patrons list, which is closed.  The Masters also began allowing children (between the ages of 8 and 16) to enter on tournament days free if they are accompanied by the patron who is the owner of his or her badge.

The Masters Golf Practice Rounds are the first three days of the Tournament, Monday-Wednesday.  Masters Practice Round tickets are sold as Daily Grounds Passes (or Badges).  Although sold-out from Augusta National, these daily Masters Grounds Passes are readily sold in the secondary market or on sites such as VIPTIX.com starting at around $300 per ticket.  The Masters Tournament play gets underway on Thursday and culminates with the awarding of the traditional green jacket on Sunday evening.  The Masters Grounds Badges, whether for practice rounds or tournament play are sold (or rented) to attendees and need to be returned to their owner immediately upon leaving Augusta National.  Masters Golf tickets are only distributed just 30-60 days prior to the tournament.

Masters Golf Hotels

There are not very many Masters Golf Hotel properties located in and around the Augusta, Georgia area.  For such a major corporate sporting event, there are no 4 or 5-star high end luxury hotel properties available in the area.  Many of the tournament attendees are forced to stay in nearby Aiken, Georgia or as far away as Columbia or Greenville, South Carolina.  Although you will surely encounter ‘No Vacancy’ signs at almost all hotels during Masters week, a good idea would be to check with a hotel broker or a sports travel company such as VIPTIX.com for Masters Golf Hotel rooms.

Masters Golf Hospitality

The Masters Golf Tournament is played outdoors often in the hot sun.  There is Masters Hospitality conveniently available just steps from the main gate that will allow you to catch a break from the heat.  Entrepreneurs have purchased depressed housing on Magnolia Drive just outside the main gates and remodeled them to use as a hospitality venue just for the Masters Golf Tournament.  The Masters Golf Hospitality houses are callled The Lodge of Augusta, The Executive Club, Club Magnolia, 1018 Club and The Lodge on Magnolia.  The Masters Hospitality includes high-end food and drinks as well as offering a great place to meet with friends, employees and clients in a classy atmosphere with golf decor. 

by Pres. & CEO Nick Giammusso

VIPTIX conducts its business online all year long at VIPTIX.com.  VIPTIX uses the telephone/fax, and we take advantage of the more recent technological advances such as social media, email and text messaging rapidly, effectively and efficiently to promote and sell our tickets. While technology presents a variety of ways to communicate, the results are not always positive.  As a result, I find that VIPTIX, and all companies for that matter, is losing the ability to communicate face-to-face.

In my experiences, and especially in the ticket business, getting face-to-face with our clients builds trust, loyalty, confidence and credibility to build relationships at the grass roots level.  VIPTIX does not want to become overly dependent communicating through the use of our smart phones and computers.  Although they are great tools, they tend to focus on the object and not the person.  Before the computer age, people actually ‘knew’ who they were doing business with.

The Super Bowl is by far the largest sporting event in North America.  This year I packed my bags like I’ve done the last eighteen years and traveled to the Super Bowl for four days.  The main reason I crawl out from behind my desk during Super Bowl week is to meet our clients face-to-face and hand deliver their Super Bowl tickets.  Now I’ve heard many say “Why don’t you just FedEx their tickets for $20?”  My response is always, “It’s just not the same!”

As a company, we try to get face-face with our clients each and every chance we get.  VIPTIX has taken steps to increase our face-to-face time by using our ‘VIP Mobile Box Office’ as a Will Call window on-site at sports, concert and theatre events in WNY.  We also encourage our clients to pick-up their seats in our Main Street Buffalo, NY headquarters.  We travel to most major sporting events such as the Daytona 500, Masters, Final Four, Kentucky Derby, World Series, Winter Classic and of course the grand daddy of them all the Super Bowl.

This year at Super Bowl XLVI, in the beautiful city of Indianapolis, was no different.  I strategically made my rounds from hotel to hotel doing what I love to do, delivering our clients’ Super Bowl tickets mano a mano.  One by one, I sat with our clients in their Hotel Lobby or at the Bar over a beer and said hello not only as an ambassador of VIPTIX, but as a person getting to ‘know’ our clients.  Of all my duties, tasks and responsibilities that my position handles at our company, right at the top of the list is getting to know my clients personally.  Last week at the Super Bowl, it all started with, “Here are your Super Bowl tickets”!

Over the years VIPTIX has built a loyal client list that appreciates the extra steps we take to serve them on a personal level.  Internally, we call such customer service touches, “VIP Experiences”!  If it was at all humanly possible we would deliver all of our seats to our clients face-to face on a silver platter.  We realize that’s not humanly possibly.

So we’ll see you in the French Quarter for Super Bowl XLVII in 2013.  You can bet I will meet you with a big smile and your Super Bowl tickets in hand and I may just buy you a beer!