PENNY, CTS EVENTIM, and epay are now bringing event tickets to the supermarket checkout!

The new collaboration between the event, retail, and financial services industry is networking important business sectors and providing new impetus for growth following the coronavirus crisis with an innovative and scalable ticket solution for music, sport, and cultural events.

Cologne, Munich (Martinsried), August 4, 2022:

The well-known discount supermarket chain, PENNY—part of the REWE Group, Europe’s largest ticketing company CTS EVENTIM, and Europe’s leading prepaid and payment provider epay are announcing their collaboration for a new ticket solution at the point of sale. This collaboration is the first time that representatives from three important, trendsetting German industries—the event industry, retail, and the financial services sector—have come together. Their joint aim is to provide long-term impetus for growth following the coronavirus crisis with an innovative and scalable added-value solution for event tickets.

PENNY, whose customer potential amounts to approximately 6 million customers [1] per month in a total of 2,150 German stores, [2] will be the first German discount supermarket chain to offer the ticket solution. Customers can now take advantage of the first offering from the new collaboration and get exclusive, discounted family tickets for the upcoming HOLIDAY ON ICE in their local PENNY store. The discount supermarket is expanding its range with a new, attractive service that allows it to target new customer groups. CTS EVENTIM as the event partner provides access to numerous popular cultural, music, and sport events. Thanks to this collaboration, the service company is able to expand its ticket sales network with highly frequented sales locations. Full-service payment provider epay is the technical partner and payment service provider within the collaboration. The BaFin-licensed payment institute is providing the digital solution as well as its payment infrastructure, which will handle the technical side of things.

The plan is to expand the offerings of PENNY with more tickets for events, as well as to involve other retailers and event organizers. The innovative networking with the retail industry should reinvigorate the events industry, which was so hard hit by the pandemic and was faced with a 76.6-percent revenue decline in 2020 [3].

In-store and online: Buy event tickets at PENNY

Consumers can look for their event directly at service point machines in the PENNY store, reserve a seat, and print their coupon. Using this coupon, they can pay for the ticket together with the rest of their groceries at the checkout using their preferred payment method.

The checkout is directly connected to epay’s technical infrastructure via a checkout interface. The payment service provider has been using this interface to activate its prepaid and gift card products at PENNY for many years. Precisely this infrastructure will now be used for processing the ticket solution.

There is also an online version. Customers can reserve and pay for a ticket via the PENNY Web Shop, PENNY Card Store, and now the PENNY Ticket Shop.

Families get a minimum 20-percent discount on entry to the new HOLIDAY ON ICE Show A NEW DAY with the exclusive family ticket, which is available at PENNY during the promotion period from August 8 to 31, 2022, to celebrate the start of the collaboration.

„We believe in the potential of the new ticket solution. It is a very attractive expansion of what we can offer our customers, with diverse event tickets. What’s more, we can trust the existing, reliable payment infrastructure in our markets and our web shop from our established partner, epay. We are pleased to be able to offer our customers a unique ticket proposal for HOLIDAY ON ICE and look forward to offering even more exciting event tickets from the regular CTS EVENTIM range.“

– Vincenzo Castaldo,
Senior Category Buyer, REWE Group Buying GmbH

„For years, we have been making a name for ourselves among our customers with additional services that make everyday life easier and shopping more attractive. These range from temporary offers such as organ donation cards or vaccination campaigns to permanent offers such as the wide range of value-added cards or the possibility of withdrawing cash at the checkout. Now our customers can also conveniently buy their next concert ticket from us. Especially with regard to renowned festivals like Parookaville, we as PENNY have proven to be a reliable and strong partner over the years. In this respect, this commitment now fits perfectly and is logical. Among our customers, we have many festival fans who are also PENNY festival fans. In other words – first to PENNY.“

– Marcus Haus,
Head of Marketing at PENNY

„We are very pleased to have gained further opportunities to reach our customers with our new partner PENNY. With this cooperation, we will be able to tap into new target groups for a selected range of products. At the same time, the cooperation with PENNY will now make it even easier for fans to access unforgettable live experiences.“

– Karsten Elbrecht,
Vice President Sales at CTS EVENTIM

„Buying HOLIDAY ON ICE tickets conveniently in the supermarket – this is an exciting, future-oriented idea for us. Above all, it is a new way to offer our customers a real alternative to traditional sales channels in addition to online purchases.“

– Hendrik Siebel,
Head of Sales at HOLIDAY ON ICE

„Networking is in our DNA. Our existing, secure payment infrastructure already comprises many payment points in brick-and-mortar and online retail. We have always connected digital added-value services on the basis of this infrastructure, such as prepaid and gift card products, consumers with their favorite brands, stores, and preferred leisure activities, as well as private and public transport use. With the new partnership, we are networking the events industry with retail and are thereby connecting consumers to their favorite artists, sports, or preferred cultural events.“

– Maik Süssemilch,
Director Branded & Mobile Payments, Store Services DACH at epay

You can find details about the new ticketing solution here: https://epay.de/en/ticketing/

About PENNY

PENNY achieved a turnover of more than 8 million euros in 2021 in Germany alone with around 2,150 stores and 29,000 employees.

About Holiday on Ice

HOLIDAY ON ICE – that is world-class live entertainment and figure skating at the highest level with elements of acrobatics, dance, theater, pop and musical. With spectacular state-of-the-art technology and unique stagecraft, professionally trained figure skaters and artists are perfectly staged. The result is a superlative event that tours every year with a unique new program. Since the first performance in December 1943, the crowd puller has developed from a small hotel production in the USA to a globally operating ice entertainment producer. Today, HOLIDAY ON ICE is the world’s most-visited ice show, with 330 million visitors:in attendance. In the 2022/2023 season, HOLIDAY ON ICE will go on tour with the new production A NEW DAY with over 180 shows in 22 cities in Germany.

About CTS EVENTIM

CTS EVENTIM is one of the leading international ticketing and live entertainment providers. Before the outbreak of the Corona pandemic, around 250 million tickets per year were marketed via the company’s systems – stationary, online and mobile. The online portals include brands such as eventim.de, oeticket.com, ticketcorner.ch, ticketone.it and entradas.com. The EVENTIM Group also includes numerous organizers of concerts, tours and festivals such as “Rock am Ring”, “Rock im Park”, “Hurricane”, “Southside” or “Lucca Summer“. In addition, CTS EVENTIM operates some of Europe’s most renowned event venues, such as the LANXESS arena in Cologne, the K.B. Hallen in Copenhagen, the Waldbühne in Berlin and the EVENTIM Apollo in London. CTS Eventim AG & Co. KGaA (ISIN DE 0005470306) has been listed on the stock exchange since 2000 and is currently a member of the MDAX. Against a backdrop of bans and restrictions on events due to the Corona pandemic, the group generated sales of 407.8 million euros in more than 20 countries in 2021. In 2019, the year before the pandemic broke out, sales amounted to more than 1.4 billion euros.

About epay

epay, a segment of Euronet Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:EEFT), is a leading global provider of payment processing and prepaid solutions that processed 3.12 billion transactions in 2021. The company has built an extensive network of retailer touchpoints with 762,000 point-of-sale terminals in 63 countries that connects brands with consumers all over the world. The company offers a diverse ecosystem of services, products and solutions supporting the distribution of Payment and Branded Payments for more than 1,000 brand partners via Commerce, eCommerce and mCommerce solutions. For more information visit www.epayworldwide.com.

[1] Source: Consumption and media analysis – VuMA 2022. By IFAK; GfK Media and Communication Research; forsa marplan; 2018 to 2021; aged 14 and over; German-speaking population; computer-assisted personal interviews (CAPI): 17.79 million customers said that they had shopped at PENNY in the last three months. https://www.vuma.de/ https://www.vuma.de/

[2] Source: Company data https://www.rewe-group.com/de/unternehmen/struktur-und-vertriebslinien/

[3] Source: „Include study“ (Zähl dazu Studie), IGVW (Community of interest event industry) Interessengemeinschaft Veranstaltungswirtschaft e. V. in cooperation with R.I.F.E.L, https://www.zaehl-dazu.de/

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