We started with sports because the event information is less prone to fluctuation, but currently I consider TS as more of a proof of concept than anything; this technique can be applied to all sorts of categories and we plan to branch out into concerts and theatre as soon as we've worked out the current bugs in the system.
As Dan has said, look for concerts and theatre within a month or two!
Sorry about that truebosko. We're working on extending our coverage to Canada & Australia over the next months. We focused initially on getting as comprehensive as possible in the UK and US (focusing on doing a good job in a specific niche) before adding other countries. Live music has a really long tail and we want to build a product that really hard core live music fans like ourselves will trust. Canada is coming soon though. We've got a big integration with Songbird launching next week and their community is asking for that pretty loudly as well!
Great site. I'm sold once you get going down here (Australia). Signed up with Edinburgh to practice ;) Now I wish I lived there.
BTW, I'd love to see the long tail get taken care of properly. That's what I'm really interested in. I'd probably use a 'what's on tomorrow' page for small shows 100X more then a 'what's on this month' page for $100 + shows.
Love the interface, but just sports? Concerts and other events would be spectacular (though I'm assuming those are already in the plans for he future).
Also, what about allowing users to sell their own tickets? I have a PAX badge that I wont be using and would like to give to someone so it doesn't go to waste.
I agree - we're working very hard to get concerts and theater events added asap. Regarding selling tickets, then we have to add our own massive customer service department and handle outgoing payments, both of which I have no idea how to do and have no interest in doing.
You are going to run out of space real soon as you add new categories, if you keep your current layout. Maybe change it to "Sports" | "Concerts" | "Theater" . And then on mouse over display the actual sub categories(NBA/NFL/NCAA etc)
Look at Ticketmaster.com. That's what we're going to mirror in many respects with more customization, more accurate geo tracking capabilities, better search (which we already have) and happy customers (instead of TM's angry/disgruntled customers).
Once this happens (hopefully in 1-2 months) please email me and let me know what you think: dan@ticketstumbler.com
haha sort of. Ignoring the TicketsNow conspiracies, which I'll elaborate on at another time, Ticketmaster doesn't do secondary tickets directly from their main site until an event is sold out.
They can't list specific tickets (sections, row, seats) for purchase - they assign it all to you after you pick a price level or section and enter the Captcha crapshoot. But I have to hand it to them, they did a really really good job on their new design.
The main problems with the secondary ticket market are fees, stigma and safety, which are our three main priorities. And SEO of course: http://is.gd/1pQx
Exactly - even if our commissions are slashed 75% we'd make it up in volume (famous last words right?) because there's very little to no incremental cost.
But it doesn't really matter since we're not doing it for the $$.
Liked the site a lot when I checked it out. My only complaint was that I want to see stadium seating charts before I pass to partner sites. Hated having to go back and forth. Did I miss the chart links?
Not only do their users tend to visit 3-4 more pages than the average user, we've received a consistent flow of delicious traffic ever since appearing on their front page.
http://i37.tinypic.com/20ghaom.png
We have more delicious "adds" than Stubhub. Thanks guys.
Yep and seats.com, seatservant.com, seatquest.com, ticketshock.com, ticketwood.com, and tickex.com and some other ones that I'm not supposed to know about who are in stealth.
Well, we’ve been launched about a week and we’re already profitable. Also, we receive more traffic than about half of them and definitely have one of the better user interfaces.
Luckily this market is so massive that there’s room for many players (e.g. think of all the travel sites out there).
Although we like to think we can be the best one. :)
we (Songkick) have already built an aggregator for concert tickets - covering 17 ticket vendors in the UK and US. If you're looking for gig tickets I'd love your feedback. Thanks
Yes - definitely check Songkick.com out. TS is never going to be a music recommendation site or community. And Songkick's database of information and uncanny accuracy of its Itunes plugin download are unsurpassed. We have no interest in being everything to everyone (it's why Oyaka.com and fatlens.com failed) and Songkick does a lot of stuff we'll never try to do.
Originally, the plan was to stick to Sports tickets for at least a year and then maybe add concerts (if at all). However, right after we launched, despite having "sports" and sports leagues plastered all over our site, more than half our search logs were concert related. Additionally, numerous publications said they would cover us if we had concerts and we received email after email demanding concert and theater listings from our users.
great, thanks, you have the most thorough gig listing for Pittsburgh shows I've seen in one place.
I was actually price hunting for Radiohead tickets for tomorrow in Toronto. ;) I think they are a bit out of my pricerange everywhere, the worst tickets are selling for twice as much as I scalped my extra, amazing tickets for Philly.
