A Day in the Life Of a Ticketing Manager: Pierre Gueny, Nanterre 92

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That's how Pierre Gueny, Ticketing Manager at Nanterre 92, described the stakes shortly before the game began. He's been with the club since August 2020. This is his sixth season at the club.

We spent game day with Pierre on February 15, 2026, when Nanterre 92 faced AS Monaco at Paris La Défense Arena. In this episode of "A Day in the Life Of...", we followed him from the first checks of the day to the final scan at the gates, to see what it takes to pull off a night like this behind the scene.

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Over 17,000 People, A Venue Six Times Bigger Than Home

Nanterre's usual home, the Palais des Sports, holds 3,000 seats. For this match, the club moved to Paris La Défense Arena, Europe's largest arena.

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That jump changes everything about how a ticketing manager works. More seats. More price points. More staff and access points to coordinate. Pierre's job is to keep it all running smoothly, whether it's a regular home game at Maurice Thorez or a sold-out night at La Défense.

Pricing, Community, Partners: The Strategies Behind a Sold-Out Arena

Two goals sit at the center of Pierre's role: fill the arena for every home game, and get the best possible ticketing revenue, match by match and across the season. To do that, he plays with pricing and audience:

• Multiple pricing tiers, adjusted by opponent, match importance, and expected demand
• Community offers for members, staff, and volunteers
• Marketing offers to reach new audiences
• Partner offers, where corporate partners sell tickets directly to their employees, across every tier

For a game this size, that last lever plays a particularly big role. Reaching 18,000 fans means bringing in a much wider crowd than at a typical home game.

Pre-Match Briefing, Doors Opening: The Two Key Moments of the Night

Selling the seats is one thing. Getting people through the gates is another. Thibault, in charge of staffing, recruited 170 people for the night, from scanning teams to guest services. Their handheld ticket scanners (PDAs) flag issues in real time: a ticket that's already been scanned, or a fan at the wrong gate, so staff can quickly point them in the right direction.

For Pierre, two moments stand out from the rest. The pressure starts building during the pre-match briefing:

"That's really when it starts to feel real. Like, 'okay, here is everything we've prepared, and this is how it comes together.’ ”

The second key moment of the night is doors opening:

"That's when you see whether everything you prepared actually works, whether everything put in place beforehand holds up."

Watching the Arena Fill Up, Block by Block with EVENTORI

Throughout the day, Pierre keeps an eye on one thing: how full each section is, and how many seats are left to sell.

"Being able to look at the seating blocks like this, through EVENTORI's seatmap, lets us see how full each block is, and how much availability we still have.".

This is EVENTORI's ticketing platform in action: a live view of the arena, block by block, so Pierre can steer offers toward the blocks that still need to sell. The platform also tracks sales and attendance data as the night unfolds:

"EVENTORI gives me a lot of options when it comes to reports and tracking. We also get pretty precise and detailed data on all the different metrics we need."

By the end of the night, the arena had welcomed 17,487 fans, a new attendance record for a French basketball league match in Paris, ahead of the previous mark of 16,319 set at the same venue in 2023.

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For Nanterre 92, that kind of night is part of a bigger trend: the club has seen ticketing revenue grow between 30% and 35% for the 2025-2026 season.

Stay tuned for more episodes of "A Day in the Life Of..." Missed our previous episodes with Clara Noiran (Rodez AF) and Alexandre Duyck (Grenoble Brûleurs de Loups)? Check them out on our blog.

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