Operational efficiency and seamless integration are critical success factors for visitor attractions worldwide. Enter Anchor, a cloud-based control panel that has transformed how operators manage their businesses. With an ethos rooted in the mantra ‘By operators, for operators,’ Anchor has redefined the possibilities of centralised management. It allows attractions to effortlessly oversee third-party integrations, streamline data workflows, and craft bespoke solutions tailored to their needs.
Since its founding in 2018, Anchor has grown into a trusted partner for operators worldwide, facilitating the sale of over 70 million tickets across various venues. At its core, Anchor’s strength lies in its operator-first philosophy, built by industry insiders who intimately understand the challenges of running attractions and the necessity of innovation to stay ahead.
Anchor powers some of the largest attractions in the US and Canada including the Statue of Liberty, Alcatraz Island, Niagara Falls, and Chicago’s Navy Pier.
We speak to Nasi Peretz, president and CTO, about how the company combined industry expertise with cutting-edge technology to build a platform that resonates with operators of all sizes. From its humble beginnings to becoming a leader in operational tech, Anchor’s journey is one of innovation. It focuses on making life easier for the people who keep the attractions industry running.
Seeing a problem and creating a solution
Outlining the company’s beginnings, Peretz says:
“Anchor Operating System’s journey began within Hornblower Group, where we saw firsthand the challenges venues, event organisers, and transportation operators faced in managing their operations. Five clever engineers (including myself as one of those nerds) left Ticketmaster after 3 years to create a new ticketing platform.”
Peretz was the VP of engineering for Ticketmaster, with over 600 engineers and the same core group of five people who had worked together for more than 15 years through two successful past startup exits. “We decided that the corporate job is not as fun as building yet another amazing startup from the ground up,” he adds.
In 2018, Hornblower operated 12 different reservation systems and over 30 point-of-sale systems to support various businesses—from ferry services and attractions to hospitality. It was clear that using so many different platforms was not only inefficient but also impacted the overall guest experience.
“That realisation inspired us to create Anchor: a unified system powerful enough to support our organisation’s scale and adaptable enough to meet each operation’s unique needs.”
Unlike the fragmented solutions on the market, Anchor was designed to streamline every aspect of the guest journey, from booking to departure. Peretz and his fellow co-founders wanted to address operators’ core pain points, eliminating the need for multiple systems and improving operational efficiency.
Backed by Hornblower’s extensive industry expertise, Anchor Operating System was developed to be more than just software; it’s a turnkey solution to solve a fragmented industry.
Inside Anchor’s rapid growth
Today, the Anchor platform powers organisations such as the Statue of Liberty, Alcatraz Island, Niagara Falls, the Toronto Zoo, the NYC Ferry, the Navy Pier, and Bacardi Brand Homes worldwide. This solution gives them the tools they need to drive exceptional guest experiences and operational excellence.
Since its founding, Anchor has supported the sale of over 70 million tickets. Discussing the key drivers behind this impressive growth, Peretz says:
“Close partnerships with industry leaders across diverse verticals have fuelled our growth. Working with these respected organisations has given us a deep understanding of the operational efficiencies and guest experience standards they require. This insight has been instrumental in shaping a platform that truly meets the needs of high-demand venues, transportation operators, and event organisers.”
Anchor’s adaptability is a significant driver of this growth. The team designed the platform to adjust to each client’s unique needs while maintaining a core of reliable, scalable features—tailoring the approach to fit them, not the other way around. With a unified, cloud-based solution, Anchor streamlines operations, automates ticketing and enhances customer engagement. It reduces the need for multiple disconnected systems and delivers a seamless experience from start to finish.
“Our focus on innovation and continuous improvement has kept us ahead of industry trends, whether through implementing contactless technology, enhancing CRM capabilities, or optimising workflows,” says Peretz. “We have a commitment to driving value and supporting our clients’ goals, a dedication reflected in the significant volume of tickets processed on our platform.”
A unique solution
So, how does Anchor stand out from other cloud-based control platforms in the ticketing and operations space?
“Anchor Operating System is a feature-rich platform that takes pride in pushing the boundaries of innovation within the res-tech space,” says Peretz.
Unlike traditional systems, Anchor goes beyond basic ticketing functions to deliver a comprehensive, all-in-one solution that integrates seamlessly across admissions, point of sale (food & beverage & merchandise), and membership management. Designed with adaptability in mind, Anchor empowers venues to customise workflows, reports, and user views.
“Our personalised approach includes on-site visits during the launch phase. We offer hands-on support and training during this phase to ensure a smooth transition.”
Integration and centralisation
Data integration and centralisation are critical elements of the Anchor platform, enabling it to deliver a powerful and seamless customer experience.
“We are purely and entirely serverless using Lambdas,” says Peretz. “The technology stack supporting Anchor is built on AWS, leveraging Fastly, AWS Lambda, DynamoDB, Amazon SQS, and SNS to ensure reliable, scalable, and efficient data processing. Our system starts with Fastly at its outermost layer, which intelligently routes incoming requests to the optimal AWS region based on the user’s location.”
This enhances performance by minimising latency and ensuring users connect to the fastest, most responsive service point. Once requests are routed, they go through our AWS API Gateway, which coordinates with a set of Lambda functions on the backend. These functions, dynamically scaled and memory optimised by AWS, handle each specific request in real-time.
“As they process these requests, the Lambdas connect to DynamoDB to access and store data efficiently. To ensure no missed transactions, we use Amazon SQS and SNS queues. These queues hold each transaction briefly (for sub-millisecond intervals) until it is marked as ‘processed’. This setup guarantees accuracy and reliability, so every task is handled without delay or errors, even as the platform scales.”
AWS’s load balancing capabilities distribute requests across Lambda functions, maintaining system efficiency and responsiveness. The Amazon API Gateway and AWS AppSync services manage user session states, providing each user with a consistent, real-time experience.
“This robust architecture offers significant benefits for our customers. By centralising data across a scalable (serverless) cloud infrastructure, Anchor provides a unified view of operations, making it easier for venues to manage ticketing, reporting, and customer engagement seamlessly.”
Third-party partnerships
When it comes to the challenge of working with third-party partners and internalising data across different platforms, Peretz says:
“Integrating with third-party partners has become second nature to us. We understand that successful partnerships go beyond just the technical aspects—they require nurturing strong relationships to ensure seamless integration, quicker response times, and consistent, reliable connections.”
This collaborative approach has enabled Anchor to form strategic partnerships with major travel industry players such as GetYourGuide, Viator, Expedia, Go City, CityPass, and many others.
“Among these prestigious partners, we are proud to be a preferred partner for both GetYourGuide and Go City. This distinction highlights the strength of our connections and our commitment to delivering excellence. We don’t just adapt to new features as they arise; we prioritise their immediate implementation, ensuring that our partners benefit from the latest updates and innovations as soon as they are released.
“Our proactive, agile approach sets us apart, allowing us to maintain a competitive edge and deliver exceptional value to our partners.”
Long-term relationships with Anchor
Anchor also works to foster long-term relationships with its clients. For example, the team recently renewed its contract with the Statue of Liberty for ten more years after serving them for five years and also renewed the contract with the New York City Ferry for five more years after super-serving them for four years. Elsewhere, it has over 22 years remaining on the contract for Niagara Falls and more than 28 years left with Puerto Rico Ferry.
“We live and breathe long-term relationships; it’s the only thing we know,” says Peretz. “We aim to satisfy every custom request our clients make without being petty about charging a fee. In fact, we have the conversation about pricing only once at the beginning of the contract, and any time after that, we absorb the cost for that minor functionality tweak or that custom integration that might take us a week but shaves hours of human work.
“We foster long-term relationships by being true partners instead of vendors.”
A great example of this is Anchor’s relationship with Bacardi. This relationship began with a simple implementation of ticketing. Then it expanded to include Anchor handling point-of-sale for Bacardi’s 5,000-square-foot stores, followed by its larger 10,000-square-foot stores, such as Angel’s Envy in Louisville.
“This then expanded to tracking their inventory management of bottles and merchandise, which subsequently expanded to managing their bars and restaurants at their distilleries. From there, it has recently grown to include handling self-serve kiosks, all over the course of three years. We are proud of this growing relationship and approach it with a thirst to solve engineering issues, which in turn fosters the long-term relationship.”
Trends in ticketing
One major trend in the ticketing and venue management industry is integrations – meaning no one sees a ticketing platform as a silo anymore.
“The industry has recognised that isolation and a closed network are flaws, to the point that they run for the hills when they realise that the incumbent or existing platform does not support bi-directional data exchange.”
“The Open API world is embraced and welcomed by all growing providers. Whether that be in the distribution of tickets, such as Viator, GetYourGuide, Virgin Experiences, or Civitatis; or in the world of point-of-sale solutions, such as Toast, Square, or Clover; or the world of hotel management systems (PMS), such as Opera.
“No one is victorious working alone and pretending that an operator doesn’t have to talk to multiple platforms. The simple recognition that a guest exists in numerous data repositories allows for a seamless bidirectional conversation amongst these platforms.”
The future of Anchor
Looking to the future, Peretz says Anchor is excited to share some new features and enhancements. One significant update includes direct Uber integration designed to simplify the last mile of a customer’s journey. This integration will allow guests to plan their travel to and from the venue seamlessly, creating a more connected and convenient experience from booking to arrival.
“Recently, we’ve introduced “Ask Anchor AI”, an advanced tool that brings powerful data insights to our clients’ fingertips,” he adds. Ask Anchor AI ingests all reporting data across the platform and allows users to interact with this data through natural language prompts. By integrating the OpenAI API, Ask Anchor AI enables clients to ask specific questions about their data.
“We’ve launched an AI-powered chatbot that enhances customer service by responding immediately to guest inquiries. This chatbot will help answer questions about events, tickets, directions, and more, providing timely support and reducing the need for extensive customer service resources.”
Finally, reflecting on Anchor’s journey so far and his own experience, Peretz says:
“The most exciting part of the day is solving engineering problems for our clients. I’m not referring to trivial issues such as selling a ticket, but more complex items such as an integration with a PMS, how to embed the tracking of a vessel into a mobile app developed by someone else, how to handle real-time syncing with a BI platform used by the client, how to get the team from EDC that runs Insomniac to sell inventory without a querying mechanism, or even as small as how to launch a client with no downtime.
“There is no greater feeling than having the client complement Anchor for their technical chops and recognise that without the cleverness of the group, they would have to deal with manual workarounds. It’s incredibly satisfying.”
