Online Ticket Sale Crashes – Inevitable? You Decide…

Posted on November 15, 2010 by Namuli Katumba

‘I can’t even get on’

‘Everything has crashed again’

‘Well that was an entire day wasted…’

Is it just me or has this year been the year of the ‘Great Ticketing Debacle’ with multiple ticketing sales causing ample amounts of grief to the loyal fans trying to see their favourite artists or bands – if you take a look at any form of media: Newspapers, Twitter, Facebook, BBC News, or simply via ‘gossip’, you will see or hear sob stories of hours spent trying to get on to the ticketing home page or that mythical story of the person that managed to get 26 tickets all in one go (this is true actually and how I got my ticket for a festival next year).

It gets everyone talking and the debate rages on as to how it’s the same thing every year, how there has to be a better way to do this, how no one will even try to buy tickets the next time…. But it does, and apparently there isn’t and we do.

The ‘Great Ticketing Debacle’, as I will now dub it, does beggar the question of how this situation can be suffered to continue? Is it indifference by the providers to offer their users an experience that will engender loyalty to return to their site for their next ticket purchases? Are they of the superior and ‘smug’ opinion that they know with the small number of online ticketing agents at the top of the market, they will eventually retrieve their lost custom? Are they using the oft used (and sometimes misused) methodology that ‘any press is good press’?

I don’t believe this is the case , I feel it is simply that no parties have taken particular time and attention to research and develop a platform that can cope with multiple excited click-happy users trying to access the same high content pages and input their sensitive bank card details all at the same time. Not forgetting, the platform should also offer the users almost instant results as they pass from area to area, section to section and finally a successful, ticket-booked, confirmation page. In other words, there is a need for a redundant, scalable, secure platform with high availability and high responsiveness to boot in the online ticketing industry.
Thus, the next question should be, is this a near impossible task?

Especially with the technology and knowledge available today, there are now, in my humble opinion, numerous ways in which the online ticketing experience can be improved. Look at the loading size of the home page – need it be so graphic and content heavy? Look at the ticket queuing mechanism – can tickets be sold in tranches or be opened up to users one period at a time? Look at the hosting provider – are they equipped to deal with the levels of expected traffic and simultaneous connections?

I’m no expert, (I just work with them) but based on what I have learned, I would expect more from ticketing agents as should the events, festivals and artists that use them. However, without any much current competitor or customer incentive, do you think they will change?

About Namuli Katumba

Namuli is Head of Account Management and Service at Ultraspeed. You can find her on Twitter at @namkat.