In Focus: Future Ticketing: The Connected Derby
How Dundee’s unique rivalry is reshaping football ticketing Future Ticketing, Dundee United and Dundee FC explain how the derby played across one street has become a proving ground for collaborative, data-led ticketing and hospitality.
With Tannadice and Dens Park separated by only a short walk, the Dundee Derby presents one of British football’s most distinctive operational challenges. For Future Ticketing, Dundee United and Dundee FC, it has also become a live example of how digital ticketing, shared visibility and data-led decision-making can transform matchday management while keeping each club in control of its own operation.
The Dundee Derby has always been one of Scottish football’s most evocative fixtures, but its geography makes communications all have to be managed within a concentrated area of the city. For both clubs, the task is to preserve the intensity of the derby while giving supporters a simple, secure and familiar way to buy, receive and use their tickets.
That balance has been at the heart of Future Ticketing’s work with the two clubs. Its Dashboard Connect technology was developed around a practical derby-day question: how can two clubs collaborate on the same fixture while each retains control of its own data, supporters, sales rules and matchday operation?
A derby unlike any other
For Joe Rice, Chief Operating Officer at Dundee it especially unusual. Dundee United’s Tannadice Park and Dundee FC’s Dens Park sit almost side by side, creating a high demand derby in which the operational challenge extends well beyond the 90 minutes on the pitch. Supporter movement, stewarding, ticket allocation, stadium access, hospitality and United, the derby’s appeal is inseparable from its complexity.
“The derby obviously brings more demand, more attention and more emotion, so operationally there is just more to manage,” he says. “The basic principles, however, do not really change, but the margin for error is smaller.”
Adam Legzdins, Operations and Facilities Director at Dundee FC, takes a similar view from across the road. “The Dundee Derby is different because it is much more than simply another fixture in our season,” he says.
“There is a huge amount of history and emotion attached to the game, and because the two stadiums are so close together, the presence of the opposing supporters is very much part of the matchday environment.”
Collaboration without compromise
Ann Marie Guinan. Chief Marketing Officer at Future Ticketing describes the derby challenge as “not simply about moving tickets online”, but about enabling two clubs to work together on the same fixture while maintaining “complete independence over their own supporter data, ticketing rules and sales operations”.
In practice, Dundee United can define the fixture, allocation, blocks and capacities, while Dundee FC manages its own supporters, sales windows and eligibility criteria through its own dashboard. That principle matters because supporter data remains central to each club’s relationship with its own fanbase.
Legzdins says Dashboard Connect has made the process “much more collaborative without taking control away from either club”, giving both sides the information required to manage a joint event while allowing each to retain ownership of its own operation. For supporters, the complexity is largely invisible.
“The supporter journey needs to be as simple as possible, but behind that we still need strong controls,” Rice says. “Supporters should know when they can buy, whether they are eligible, what is available and how they get into the stadium. They should not have to understand all the complexity sitting behind that.”
For Dundee FC, the same balance applies. Legzdins describes the challenge as “balancing the demand, fairness and security” while making access as straightforward as possible. From the club’s perspective, a derby allocation requires transparency, accuracy and control; from the supporter’s perspective, it should feel like a simple purchasing journey.
Live data as an operational tool
One of the biggest gains has been live information. Guinan says the benefits have centred on “security, access to data, control and the reduction in administration for both clubs”.
What was once a labour-intensive allocation process can now support decision-making across ticketing, operations and the wider matchday team. Rice sees the effect in earlier and more informed decision-making.
“The main difference is visibility,” he says. “You are no longer waiting for somebody to pull together a report or manually reconcile figures before you know where you stand.” That visibility extends beyond ticketing. Hospitality, operations and communications can work from a more accurate picture of demand.
Legzdins says live information means clubs are “making decisions based on what is actually happening rather than what you think is happening”, informing access, stewarding, hospitality and wider stadium planning.
The partnership has also moved beyond general admission ticketing. Guinan says “the modern customer increasingly wants to make decisions when it suits them”, and online hospitality sales allow clubs to capture interest at the moment of intent while collecting useful information before the event.
For Rice, online hospitality sales sit within a bigger commercial and supporter-experience strategy. He says the club has worked hard to make hospitality easier to access without losing the personal service that some customers still value.
“There will always be customers who want that personal service, and we absolutely want to retain that,” he says, “but there is also a group of supporters and businesses who simply want to see what is available and buy it.”
For Dundee United, that has opened hospitality to a broader audience while reducing administration for the commercial team. It also creates an opportunity that is almost impossible to replicate elsewhere: when United are away at Dens, supporters can still begin derby day at Tannadice before making the short walk across the road.
“It is one of those things that only really works because of the close proximity of the stadiums,” Rice says. “Even when we are technically the away team at Dens, our supporters still want to make a full day of the derby. So being able to come to Tannadice first, have hospitality here and then make the short walk to Dens is a really natural fit.”
Technology as partnership
Rice says understanding the football operation matters as much as the technology itself. “Football clubs are unusual businesses,” he says. “Demand can change very quickly, fixtures move, supporter expectations are high and there are times when decisions need to be made at very short notice.”
Rice says Future Ticketing has become “part of those conversations rather than simply being the company that provides the ticketing platform”. Legzdins echoes that view, describing the relationship as “very much about creating a partnership rather than simply supplying ticketing software”.
He says the club values Future Ticketing’s willingness to listen, adapt and support the practical realities of running a football club.
For Future Ticketing, the Dundee Derby shows where football ticketing is heading. Ticketing is no longer just a transaction or an access-control mechanism, it is becoming a connected operational layer that supports commercial teams, safety officers, hospitality staff, communications teams and supporters.
In Dundee, that future is being tested in one of the game’s most distinctive settings: two clubs, two stadiums, one city street and a derby where the smallest operational detail can shape the entire matchday experience.
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