Integrated ticketing as the engine behind VIERNULVIER’s multifaceted operations

Where heritage meets a forward thinking digital approach

VIERNULVIER, the arts center based in the historic De Vooruit building in Ghent, has been a cornerstone of the cultural landscape for decades. Since the venue reopened in the 1980s, it has grown into a dynamic space where artistic disciplines and collaborations intersect. Today, the site spans more than twenty thousand square meters, with a team of 92 people supporting an organization where artistic creation, production, hospitality, and audience engagement reinforce one another.

As VIERNULVIER completes major renovations that restore the building’s historic character while improving visitor comfort, the organization is also strengthening its digital foundations. At this scale, digital tools are not an extra layer but a central backbone that streamlines processes and supports everyday work.

Digital strategist Karel Lievens works closely with marketing, production, hospitality, and IT to continuously shape a digital ecosystem that supports and simplifies VIERNULVIER’s operations. In this article, he explains how ticketing has evolved into a key component of that ecosystem.

The five pillars of ticketing at VIERNULVIER

Over the years, a clear vision around ticketing has taken shape at VIERNULVIER, built on five core principles:

1. Make room for custom formats
   Ticketing needs to stay flexible enough to support pricing models that reflect the organization’s reality, such as Pay What You Can or phased ticket sales within the club scene.
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2. ‍Let systems work together
   Ticketing doesn’t exist in isolation. It’s part of a broader ecosystem where planning, communication, and internal tools need to exchange data seamlessly.
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3. Stay stable when demand spikes
   Major on sale moments require a platform that remains reliable even when thousands of visitors are trying to buy tickets at once.
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4. Keep it simple for teams and audiences
   Ticketing should support staff in their daily work while offering visitors a smooth purchasing experience.
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5. Work with a partner who stays close and involved
   A ticketing partner needs to be accessible and able to think alongside the realities of a cultural venue.

These principles have shaped their long standing collaboration with ticketmatic, which began in 2011.

Ticketing within a multifaceted program

With such a wide ranging program, VIERNULVIER connects with diverse audiences. Their audience strategy and sales approach constantly adapt to different needs and buying behaviors, resulting in custom sales formats and pricing models.

For example, the organization uses Pay What You Can, allowing visitors to choose their own price level. Together with partner Democrazy, certain club events also use wave based ticket sales, where early buyers benefit from more favorable pricing than later visitors. This waves functionality was developed through ticketmatic Studio, the team focused on tailored developments within the ticketmatic ecosystem.

“The cultural sector is almost impossible when it comes to ticketing,” Karel says with a smile. “Everyone has very specific needs. You think it’s simple, but in practice it quickly becomes complex.”

For VIERNULVIER, the goal is to structure sales flows and add ons flexibly without making day to day management more complicated.

Integrations that support daily operations

At VIERNULVIER, ticketing is embedded within a broader digital environment. An internal platform developed by Karel brings together information from multiple systems, giving teams faster insight into planning, sales, and audience flows. Ticketing data plays a central role by showing how events evolve over time.

Through ticketmatic Studio, several targeted integrations have been developed to simplify workflows. One example is the automatic synchronization of newsletter sign ups with partner organization Democrazy. What used to involve manually requesting, sending, and importing lists now happens automatically.

“It’s incredibly practical,” Karel explains. “Before, someone had to constantly request lists, email them around, and import them. Now it’s all automated.”

The integration around the UiTPAS social rate also delivers a significant efficiency gain. “That easily saves around one hundred hours a year,” Karel adds.

When demand peaks

Sales moments at VIERNULVIER can be intense. A try out show by Pommelien Thijs in the De Vooruit concert hall made that clear: the event sold out within ten minutes while twelve thousand visitors were waiting in the online queue at the same time.

And ticketmatic didn’t flinch. Even with twelve thousand people, everything kept running smoothly. It just worked.
-- Karel Lievens
--- Digital strategist, VIERNULVIER

For VIERNULVIER, that reliability is essential. Teams need a system they can trust when pressure rises, while staff also need tools that remain easy to use.

“People who work with ticketmatic are always happy with it,” Karel says. “Colleagues complaining about their software, that’s the last thing you want.”

Proximity and trust as the foundation of collaboration

For VIERNULVIER, a strong partnership goes beyond technology. Proximity and trust play a major role in how they approach collaboration. “It’s important that you can pick up the phone and call someone,” Karel explains. “That you can have someone drop by and have a real conversation.” That way of working allows solutions to grow organically from the reality of the venue and gives new ideas room to develop.

A collaboration that keeps evolving

Custom formats, integrated workflows, stability during peak demand, ease of use for teams, and a partnership built on proximity and trust together shape how VIERNULVIER uses ticketing today. With ticketmatic Studio, that approach gains an additional layer, enabling targeted developments tailored to specific needs without compromising the stability of the SaaS environment.

As Karel puts it:

If you can maintain consistency and usability while staying innovative enough to meet the specific needs of venues, you know you’re on the right track.
-- Karel Lievens
--- Digital strategist, VIERNULVIER

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