Case study

Dec 8, 2025

The Book of Kells Experience: Enhancing Engagement Through Smarter Ticketing

The Book of Kells, located in Trinity College Dublin, is one of the world’s most treasured cultural artefacts, welcoming over a million visitors a year. But delivering a meaningful, memorable experience at this scale is no small task. To protect the integrity of the site, improve visitor satisfaction, and manage growing demand, the team turned to Ticketsolve. This partnership allowed the Book of Kells team to rethink how they engage with visitors, introducing a ticketing and visitor journey designed not just for efficiency, but for depth, immersion, and sustainability.

The Challenge

As visitor numbers surged in 2019, and operational pressures grew, the team faced a critical challenge: how to balance high-demand tourism with the preservation of a working university campus and a national treasure.

The pandemic added a new layer of complexity, demanding:

Safer, contactless experiences
Predictable visitor flows
Online-first service design

The solution had to support operational control while preserving the emotional impact of a visit to the Book of Kells.

Timed Ticketing as a Foundation

By adopting Ticketsolve’s timed entry feature, the team could precisely manage capacity and create a calmer, more respectful environment, especially important in a heritage setting.

This approach reduced overcrowding, improved staff workflows, and gave each visitor the time and space to fully engage with the exhibition.

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Removing Friction, Enhancing Flow

Faster Access, Smoother Entry

To further enhance the experience, the team implemented Ticketsolve’s scanning app, allowing fast, mobile-enabled ticket checks that significantly reduced queue times.

Visitors entered with minimal delay
Staff could focus on welcome and interpretation
The tone of the visit shifted from transactional to intentional

A Seamless Shift to Online

The system also made online booking more accessible, growing from 30% in 2019 to over 83% in 2024.

This shift has streamlined operations, minimised queues, and empowered visitors to plan their visit with confidence.

Extending the Experience with Trinity Trails & Bundling

Add-ons That Enrich, Not Upsell

In 2022, Trinity College launched Trinity Trails, a 45-minute guided campus tour that offers historical and architectural insights.

Through Ticketsolve’s bundling tools, the Book of Kells team could offer this as a natural extension of the visit, not just an upsell, but a way to deepen cultural understanding.

22% of Book of Kells tickets are now sold with Trinity Trails
Bundled sales offer more value to visitors: and increase average transaction value
Satisfaction scores improved with the added context and storytelling

The New Book of Kells Experience

In 2024, a multi-sensory, 90-minute exhibition launched in New Square as part of the Old Library redevelopment.

Visitors now explore the manuscript’s origin and meaning in a digital, 360-degree immersive space, while still viewing its original pages in the Long Room.

The result? A more interactive, engaging, and educational journey, delivered through a smooth, connected booking and entry process.

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Insights That Drive Experience Design

With Ticketsolve’s analytics tools, the Book of Kells team moved beyond operational data and into experience design.

They now track:

Customer satisfaction scores
Booking ease and abandonment trends
Uptake of add-ons and bundles
Demographic insights

This allows the team to tailor improvements based on real feedback, continuously refining how they welcome and engage visitors.

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Outcomes: More Than a Booking System

With Ticketsolve, the Book of Kells Experience has:

Increased online bookings to over 83%
Dramatically reduced wait times
Grown bundled ticket sales to 22%
Improved visitor satisfaction scores
Created space for more personalised, relaxed cultural engagement

But perhaps most importantly, they’ve built a platform that allows the experience to grow, with new exhibits, new audiences, and new expectations.

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The Book of Kells is not just an artefact: it’s a story that continues to be told.

Through a combination of technology, insight, and strategy, the team at Trinity College Dublin has created an experience that honours the past while embracing the future.

And with Ticketsolve as a partner, they’ve ensured that every visitor, whether local or global, gets to be part of that story.

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Drew Duggan

Head of Tourism

"Ticketsolve has helped us to progress and grow as an organisation. The support we get from the team is unrivalled: they’re great fun and make everything so easy! Our attraction welcomes over a million visitors each year, that’s a lot of customer data. With Ticketsolve we can organise the most important information and translate them into powerful audience insights to inform our strategies nationally and internationally."

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