Ticket brokers who attend the panel “Buy and Sell Strategically” at this week’s Ticket Summit will learn how to choose the best times to buy and sell their inventory in order to boost their profits. Ticket Summit takes place from January 13-15 at the Waldorf=Astoria in New York City.
The panel’s discussion will focus on how sellers can uncover and analyze trends in the market and then use this information to guide their daily business decisions. Leading the panel discussion will be Jack Groetzinger, co-founder of SeatGeek.
SeatGeek, a relative newcomer to the ticketing arena, offers consumers well-researched ticket price predictions in order to allow them to get the best price at the best time. The company aggregates data from major secondary sellers like StubHub and eBay and combines this information in an algorithm with other contingency data, resulting in a forecast of where prices might be heading for a particular event. When prices are moving down, fans can receive email alerts which will suggest the best time to buy. The company Web site claims about 83 percent accuracy on its pricing predictions.
“We gather a bunch of external data that drives ticket prices that we use in the algorithm, like weather, team match ups and venue info,” Groetzinger said, “and we built a model to accurately predict ticket prices. Our goal is basically to provide analytics and price forecasts for everyone.”
On the horizon for Seat Geek is a new, broker-focused platform which Groetzinger calls SeatGeek Pro. The goal for this site is to provide even more sophisticated ticket data to brokers to assist them in maximizing their profits.
Groetzinger’s expertise lies in management consulting and entrepreneurship, having launched a number of start-ups in recent years, including Scribnia.com.
This is his fledgling company’s first appearance at Ticket Summit, and Groetzinger is looking forward to the experience. “We are excited to check it out. My company was founded nine months, ago, so we haven’t been around for [many other Ticket Summits].
“Over the last year we’ve been gathering a ton of data and analyzing it, trying to find trends and other interesting things we see so we can forecast how ticket prices move on the secondary market. At the panel I am hoping to share some of the more interesting things we found. I guess my main objectives are a) to help people understand a little more about what we do and b) to help brokers make more money,” he said.
“Buy and Sell Strategically” will be held on Friday, January 15, from 11 AM to Noon in the Waldorf=Astoria’s Palm Room South.
