Buying tickets can now be as easy as talking. Last week, Ticketmaster announced the development of Alexa skill, which allows users to buy tickets with voice commands.
With Alexa skill, prospective eventgoers can search for nearby concerts, theatre shows, and sporting events by simply saying, “Alexa, ask Ticketmaster to find events this weekend” on an Alexa-enabled device like Amazon Echo and Echo Dot. Users can search for specific events by asking questions by the event name, city, date range, artist, or team name, like “What concerts are happening near Boston?” or “What time is Wicked in New York City?” Then, the fan can finalize their order details and purchase tickets by linking their Ticketmaster account to Alexa.
Ticketmaster SVP and GM of Distributed Commerce, Dan Armstrong, said that Ticketmaster has the largest ticket inventory in the world and their team is “always looking to leverage it along with our open platform to reach new fans.”
“This new integration with Alexa will offer yet another avenue for fans to access the best live events, allowing them to discover and buy tickets using only their voice,” he said in a press release. “We’re excited to be working with Amazon Alexa and look forward to seeing fans utilizing it to see the artists, teams and events they love the most.”
Currently, the ability to buy tickets with Alexa via Ticketmaster is only available in the U.S., however the company hopes to expand to other countries in the near future.
This is just another integration from Ticketmaster in hopes to expand their ticket reach. In recent years, the ticketing giant has integrated with various streaming services like Spotify and YouTube to sell tickets, along with social media platforms like Facebook.
Voice assistants are becoming more and more popular; VoiceBot reports that Google Assistant allows its users to buy movie tickets, check in for flights, and book hotel rooms, and is working with companies like Priceline, Choice Hotels, and Travelclick. While Microsoft Cortana has also delved into the ticketing world via voice commands with secondary ticketing site StubHub, a Smart Speaker Consumer Adpotion Report shows that implementing ticket selling voice applications is not very popular yet. Nonetheless, the Ticketmaster voice command ability could cause a change in the way consumers buy tickets in the future.
