Meet Anjum Malone of NowSeating in Mesa

Today we’d like to introduce you to Anjum Malone.

Anjum, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
In 1992, my then husband and I heard the Phantom of the Opera was coming to ASU Gammage Center for the Arts and he wanted tickets. When mentioning that to our neighbor she said: “Oh if you’re not a season ticket holder, you’ll never get a seat!” Well, she said that to the wrong person. The show was going to be here for six weeks and I found it hard to believe I wouldn’t be able to get one. So I called Gammage and was told the best way was to get a group of 25 people together and I would get priority seating over John Q Public. My husband had 8 siblings so that was a no brainer! 35 people later, we got great seats and loved the performance. I thought I would try it again for another show, which was Joseph and the Technicolor Dream coat. I wound up with over 75 people and it catapulted from there. Gammage was THRILLED with my increasingly large numbers. Beauty and the Beast came and I had over 500 tickets. We were getting Row 4 and back, dead center seating for every show. Word spread and people were signing up to be on my list like crazy. For each show, I would call the entire 100+ people list and see who wanted tickets. I would manually create a seating chart and assign seats to everyone myself. Then email was invented and I could send out emails instead which made my life so convenient.

At first, I charged nothing but when I had so much work to do for Beauty and the Beast, I started adding .50 to each ticket. Then $1.00. I wanted to make enough money to be able to afford to take my family. That is still the driving force 27 years later.

In 2005, Wicked came and I had over 700 tickets and decided it was time to design a website and get a business name and start making some money. I came up with NowSeating and had a friend design a logo header. I researched ticketing software and website hosting and created www.nowseating.net. Our slogan is “great seats at great prices” People can get seats from me cheaper than TicketMaster or even Gammage themselves.

Clients can now pick their seats and pay by credit card. Technology is wonderful! As the years have gone by, Gammage has tripled their season subscriber sales, so group seats have been pushed back and off to the side, except for when the special shows come. Those are shows that aren’t part of the regular season. While that has been discouraging, I’m still special enough to them to be one of the handfuls of groups that were given Hamilton tickets in 2018 and will again in 2020. They take care of their groups as best as they can! I now have over 400 clients and enjoy the relationships I’ve cultivated over the years. Some of the originals are still with me! I love the shows, the clients and helping people save money and the extra paycheck comes in handy as well!

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
No. Technology hasn’t always been my friend. My Cox email blacklisted me as spam because I sent too many emails at once, so after 2 years of struggling through that, I was forced to use Constant Contact.

Please tell us about your business.
I’m most proud of the fact that people know I’m VERY honest and fair. I offer two services no one else does… You can make payments for your ticket order for six months. The season goes on sale in April and you can make payments on all the shows you choose until Dec. People love that! The other service is that I help people sell their tickets when conflicts arise. I put it out to my email list and every time…. They sell. I’ve also only had two bounced checks in 27 years and they were immediately made good. I’ve been blessed!

So, what’s next? Any big plans?
I am currently redesigning my website and my ticketing software is also getting a makeover. I want things to be ever easier for the client to use as well as myself. I don’t have any huge plans to change my business model but I am looking  into adding texting as another form of communication plans. I don’t have any plans to include other local venues.  I had branched out to other venues in the Phoenix area but their policies weren’t as convenient as Gammage and caused me a lot of stress. So I stick to just promoting Gammage now. Down the road, I hope my youngest daughter, who is a musical aficionado, will take over for me one day and continue providing this fabulous service!.

Contact Info:

• Address: 2743 E Concho Ave
  Mesa, AZ 85204
• Website: www.nowseating.net
• Phone: 602-330-3350
• Email: starjaz@cox.net

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