While much of the ticketing stories surrounding the 2012 London Olympics have focused on the Games’ ticketing troubles, the latest story from London offers a more positive ticketing tale.
Ticket Collective, a new Facebook app, aims to create a hassle-free means by which individuals can find and exchange extra tickets for the 2012 Olympics, as well as allow friends to keep track of who is attending what events to make it easier to meet-up.
The app works by allowing an individual to list the events they are attending, any spare tickets they may have, and list what events they would like to receive tickets to. The app then allows the individual’s Facebook network to see the information they have entered, hopefully leading to ticket exchanges and the ability to coordinate meet-ups between friends attending the Games.
The 2012 Olympics have had extremely high demand, with Chairman Lord Sebastian Coe announcing last week that the Games have sold out of tickets to 23 out of the 26 events.
Ticket Collective’s managing director Andrew Mobbs sees the site as a free and simple way for tickets to exchange hands — without having to deal with the Games’ strict rules on ticket resale, or having to deal with brokers who may be offering fraudulent goods.
A growing number of ticketing companies are creating Facebook apps to help promote events and boost sales, such as FanSnap and EventPay, all under the popular guise of Facebook commerce.
“TicketCollective uses your Facebook network to quickly help people find friends to go with or tickets to use. No fraud, no rip-off and no unused tickets,” Mobbs told London’s Mirror newspaper.
Under the current ticket resale rules for the Games, no ticket is allowed to be re-sold at a price higher than face value. While the app will certainly help those with a wide array of Facebook friends, those who are not on Facebook will have to turn to the announced London Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games’ official ticket resale site, which should be running in the near future.
