An omnichannel event ticketing solution via real-time shared seat inventory

July 20, 2021

Montreal cityscape at night

Outbox's technology enables its clients to offer their inventory via multiple sales channels in real time.

With Cirque du Soleil reopening around the world, we describe below how our API technology seamlessly links the inventory to a sales agent (Vegas.com). As always, venues can sell their tickets via multiple channels by allocating specific seats to each vendor. However, this method has proven itself to be inefficient and difficult to manage As the allocations on some channels may sell out quickly, allocations on other channels may not do as well. The SOLD OUT message displayed on popular channels is hence not entirely true and sales are being missed.

Today, using Outbox’s real-time omnichannel API, this challenge is resolved. Cirque du Soleil (CDS), which has been with Outbox for close to two decades now, uses our omnichannel, real-time, shared inventory solution. As of June 2021,the CDS shows have started to reopen on the Las Vegas strip. The CDS Mystère show at the Treasure Island Hotel & Casino, the first to reopen, is a great example of our real-time shared inventory with Vegas.com

Outbox shared inventory with Vegas.com: Outbox maybe the exclusive ticketing service provider for Mystère at Treasure Island but that doesn’t mean it is the sole end-provider for patrons. Buyers who chose to purchase their tickets via Vegas.com can navigate through the various show dates & times and all the available seats for Mystère, just as if they were at the Mystère box office or on cirquedusoleil.com. In real-time, all available seats on the Outbox platform are accessible by any and all sales channels that support the Outbox API; from Vegas.com, to various hotel concierges on the Vegas strip, to wholesellers.Once tickets are reserved or purchased through one of these sales channels, they are instantaneously made unavailable to the other channels, thanks to Outbox’s high performance API. Likewise, cancelled tickets or released seats are immediately made available to all sales channels. When compared with selling tickets via specific seating allocations to each of these channels, the difference in conversion rate, sell out rate, ease of use, and customer experience is clearly superior for everyone.

Worldwide use: As venues in various cities throughout the world are reopening, Cirque du Soleil and other Outbox clients are opening ticket sales once again. With the explosive demand for events, and the growing number of sales channels, it’s become imperative for event organizers to have an omnichannel approach to ticket sales. Over 20 ticketing sales agencies around the world now use the Outbox API for real-time shared inventory, in multiple currencies, through various payment methods.

Additional Functionalities and data capture: In addition to controlling the seating inventory made available to a 3rd party, the API can also restrict it to only certain seats as well as offer different price types being offered exclusively to a 3rd party. One of the main advantages is also the ability to capture transactional and customer data from these channels and aggregating it on the Outbox platform and CRM. The system can then issue electronic tickets directly from the Outboxplatform. Similarly, the API goes both ways; it is able to provide ticket details to 3rd party ticketing system for onsite printing, scanning, and everything else ticketing related.

If you aren’t selling on multiple channels in real-time, let us help you. Send us an email via contact@outbox.com