Ticketmaster pushes sharing through Facebook
August 26, 2011 by Beth Krietsch
LOS ANGELES: Ticketmaster has linked up with Facebook for a "See who's sitting where" feature that enables customers to tell friends what they are attending and where they are sitting.
The integration with the company's interactive seating maps came out of Ticketmaster's two-fold focus on making ticket buying a more social experience and innovating around the experience of attending an event.
Consumers can share their seat location or the fact that they are attending the event with the entire Facebook community, just their friends, or they can keep the information to themselves.
"Part of it is about sharing awareness, either before the sale or, if they're buying tickets, sharing the fact that they've bought," said Kip Levin, EVP of e-commerce at Ticketmaster.
The process takes place at the point of purchase on ticketmaster.com and livenation.com, but consumers can also use the Ticketmaster website to tag seats at a later date. The company is promoting the Facebook integration on its homepage, but hopes awareness of the service grows organically over time.
Levin said the company's web stats show nearly three out of four visitors to ticketmaster.com are Facebook users, so the integration will appeal to a broad base of the company's customers, rather than a niche demographic.
"Primarily, interactive seat maps are just about making the fan experience better," Levin added.
The integration is designed to improve the fan experience, but also to drive sales. Levin noted that the company hopes the seat map upgrade and social media sharing it encourages will help eliminate the frustration consumers often feel upon hearing about an event after it takes place.
"Everyone can relate to the experience of finding out about an event that happens in their city the day after it happens," Levin said.
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