SeatGeek Open Launches In The UK

Expanding its international presence, SeatGeek announced this week the launching of SeatGeek Open in the U.K., giving it the ability to integrate tickets into other sites and interfaces. 

“We’re so excited to bring our SeatGeek Open technology to Europe, as we continue to focuson growing our footprint in the continent,” Danielle du Toit, president of SeatGeek Enterprise said in a statement. “We’ve seen some of our clients in the U.S. sell more than 30 percent of their box office inventory off platform for an event, and we are excited to bring that opportunity to our UK partners.”

SeatGeek Open launched in the U.S. in 2016 and the company boasts of integrations with Facebook, Snapchat and Airbnb to move inventory off the main SeatGeek site. 

“At SeatGeek we believe that as the ticketing platform we should be doing everything in our power to help our clients sell more tickets,” James McClure, SeatGeek’s International GM said in a statement. “By giving our partners direct access to incremental sales channels they will now reach new audiences and be able to sell more inventory.” 

SeatGeek opened an office in Italy in December and unveiled an integration with Snapchat last year. 

The company’s co-founder Russ D’Souza spoke with Pollstar after his participation in a June 12 FTC workshop on ticketing, and said that a vast majority of online ticketing commerce is conducted in major marketplaces and it is very possible to ensure fans only see valid tickets, rather than fraudulent or speculative ones, through better cooperation. 

That coordination was not on display at a recent The Black Keys show in Los Angeles however, where hundreds of fans were told the tickets they purchased on secondary sites were invalid and they were (initially) denied entry.