Case Study:
Ticket to Triumph: Achieving Success Against All Odds
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Ticket to Triumph: Achieving Success Against All Odds
Clear strategic plan helps navigate uncertainty and envision a brighter future
Transparent non-financial Moonshot goal keeps everyone in rhythm
Moonshot goal raises the horizon and enables confident choices
“With COVID, we didn’t think we were going to be able to get out. We thought the business was going under and we were going to lose everything,” Stuart recalls. “Within 24 hours, we had over 5,000 customer emails about tickets and refunds. We had no revenue but peak workload.”
“The story of the original Moonshot, with JFK and putting the man on the moon within a decade, was a great reference point to highlight that what we think might be impossible, is possible. For us, it signified the existence of a pathway beyond the COVID challenges we were facing.”
Rather than retreat, Oztix used this moment to think bigger. “That was a big part of the motivation and the timing – knowing that there is a way through, and to come out the other side.”
The team set an ambitious goal: Enable 30 Million Experiences by 2026. “Having a non-financial metric that can engage the whole team and show progress and success is really powerful,” Stuart explains. “It provides moments to celebrate when we smash our targets.”
Starting from just 94,787 experiences per month in July 2021, they’ve achieved remarkable progress, including a record-breaking month of over 768,000 experiences – more than eight times their starting point.
Their Purpose statement, Because we love it too, resonates throughout the organization. “I use it in my Directors introduction speech with new staff,” Stuart shares. “I say, ‘Why am I still doing this after 20-years, and having the stress of running the business? Because I love it. I love live music and experiences. And so does everyone in the Oztix team. So many people don’t enjoy their work and that’s not the type of business that I want to run, I want my staff to enjoy coming to work, life is to short to be doing something every day you don’t want to be doing.'”
The Where and The Why fundamentally changed how Oztix operated. “Before, we were a reactive business that would chase whatever opportunities came to us,” Stuart explains. “The process enabled us to define where we wanted to play, and where we didn’t want to play. Rather than just year-on-year, a Moonshot lifts the horizon for the business.” This new clarity led to bold moves. “We had to think creatively about how we would get there. Acquiring a competitor, LocalTix, was a big strategic step we might not have considered before we had that bold 30-Million Experiences by 2026 Moonshot goal.”
The full Oztix team were inducted into The Where and The Why. Posters of “Our Where and Our Why” were developed in the workshop, and these were printed, framed and displayed around Oztix HQ.
“It’s easy to come up with information and plans and circulate them to the team, but this can be detailed or overwhelming,” says Stuart. “The simplicity of The Where and The Why makes it easy to remember for the everyone.”
“We include The Where and The Why in our daily staff updates and other comms, so our Moonshot and Purpose are constantly at the front of team members’ minds so they can clearly see the journey we are on.”
“We came up with a measurement of how many experiences we would need to achieve each month to get to our goal of 30 million,” says Stuart. “Then each month we track the actual v target and report on that to the team. Now they are constantly thinking about what they are doing, projects or development initiatives and “Will this help us achieve our Moonshot?”
The team embedded their Where and Why through:
With two years still remaining to reach their 2026 target, they’ve already delivered over 12.4 million experiences, more than doubling what was initially considered “possible.” Their success demonstrates how a clear Moonshot combined with authentic Purpose can align and motivate teams, even during the most challenging circumstances.
“The old saying about spending time working on the business and not in the business was not only true for the process we went through,” Stuart reflects, “but it has helped us maintain this as a longer-term focus. Rock on!”
