Sports and concert event ticket pricing and visualization system

Abstract

A system and method for displaying seat inventory at a venue and facilitating planning of ticket prices for events at the venue is presented. Methods to predict total revenue for an event are described. Also presented are systems and methods for determining at what price and when to release so-called ‘flex’ price tickets during an on-sale using the sales velocity and sales/inquiry ratios. Determining demand of seats from secondary markets is also described with methods to use the demand for either repricing the seats in the primary market or presenting ‘best value’ seats to a prospective purchaser.

1 - 15 . (canceled) 
     
     
         16 . A method for changing ticket prices for seats that have not yet been sold to an event that is already on sale to improve ticket sales revenue from a first level to a second level for the event, the method comprising:
 aggregating a plurality of listings of tickets that are being re-sold in a secondary market for the same event from one or more databases, the one or more databases being the source of the plurality of listings of the tickets, each listing including a number of tickets available, a price information per ticket, and a location information of the seat or seats within the venue;   filtering, under control by a processor, the plurality of listings to remove tickets with an anomalous listing price and outputting a plurality of remaining listings of tickets;   grouping, under control by a processor, the plurality of remaining listings of tickets into one or more equivalent sections;   forming a distribution of listing prices for the remaining listings of tickets for each one or more equivalent section grouping, the distribution of listing prices being a distribution of secondary market prices;   identifying at least one ticket that has not been sold from the initial seller for the event, the one ticket being an unsold ticket, the unsold ticket having an initial price and the location of the seat or seats; and   setting a revised price from the initial price for the unsold ticket by associating the location of the seat or seats to an equivalent section and determining the revised price based on the distribution of listing prices for the remaining listings of tickets in the associated equivalent section.   
     
     
         17 . The method of  claim 16  wherein the secondary market is selected from at least one of StubHub, RazorGator, Ticket Master, or Ticket Exchange. 
     
     
         18 . The method of  claim 16  wherein the revised price is higher than the initial price. 
     
     
         19 . The method of  claim 16  wherein the aggregating comprises identifying a ticket listing from a website, converting, under control of a microprocessor, the location information into a common description, and adjusting the price information per ticket to add or subtract an additional fee so that the ticket listing uses a common price frame consistent with each of the other ticket listings. 
     
     
         20 . The method of  claim 16  wherein the filtering comprise removing all tickets with the anomalous listing price where the listing price is less than 1.5 times interquartile range of the lower quartile or the listing price is greater than 1.5 times the interquartile range of the upper quartile. 
     
     
         21 . The method of  claim 16  wherein the forming of a distribution comprises calculating a frequency that each listing price occurs in the filtered list of ticket listings. 
     
     
         22 . The method of  claim 16  wherein the setting comprises changing the price of the selected ticket to a price at a place on the distribution of all listings associated with the location of the selected ticket. 
     
     
         23 . The method of  claim 22  wherein the price of the selected ticket is chosen to be between the 0% and 50% point of all listing prices in the distribution where the 0% represents a lowest listing price in the distribution and the 50% represents a median of all listing prices in the distribution. 
     
     
         24 . The method of  claim 23  wherein the price of the selected ticket is chosen to be between the 2.5% and 25% point of all listings in the distribution. 
     
     
         25 . The method of  claim 16  further comprising:
 initializing a sale of a plurality of tickets from an initial seller for a venue for the event and offering a plurality of tickets for sale using a computer aided device; and 
 receiving information for purchasing an initial set of tickets being offered for sale through an interface coupled to the computer aided device, the initial set of tickets being fewer than the plurality of tickets being offered for sale. 
 
     
     
         26 . A method for changing ticket prices for seats that have not yet been sold to an event that is already on sale so as to maximize ticket sales revenue for the event, the method comprising:
 aggregating listings of tickets that are being re-sold for the same event from one or more databases wherein each listing includes a number of tickets available, a price per ticket, and a location of the seat or seats within the venue;   filtering the plurality of listings to remove tickets with an anomalous listing price and outputting a plurality of first remaining listings of tickets;   grouping the first remaining listings into equivalent sections;   plotting the listing price versus row for all listings in one or more equivalent sections;   fitting the listing price versus row to a first function;   removing all listings for which the listing price is greater than that provided by the first function to provide a plurality of second remaining listings of tickets;   refitting the second remaining listing to a second function;   calculating a plurality of revised prices for each row based on the second function; and   setting the revised prices for the previously unsold tickets based on the calculated price.   
     
     
         27 . The method of  claim 26  wherein the aggregating comprises identifying a ticket listing from a website, converting, under control of a microprocessor, the location information into a common description, and adjusting the price information per ticket to add or subtract an additional fee so that the ticket listing uses a common price frame consistent with each of the other ticket listings. 
     
     
         28 . The method of  claim 26  wherein the filtering comprises removing all tickets with the anomalous listing price where the listing price is less than 1.5 times interquartile range of the lower quartile or the listing price is greater than 1.5 times the interquartile range of the upper quartile. 
     
     
         29 . The method of  claim 26  wherein the grouping comprises defining one or more equivalent sections of the venue that have a similar location with respect to a point of interest in the venue and creating one or more subsets of listings where each subset contains listings in the one or more equivalent sections. 
     
     
         30 . The method of  claim 26  wherein the plotting comprises defining each listing based on the price of the listing and the row in which the tickets in the listing are located. 
     
     
         31 . The method of  claim 26  wherein the fitting comprise minimize the orthogonal distance of each point to a curve where the curve is represented by a function. 
     
     
         32 . The method of  claim 26  wherein the removing comprises for each point, calculating a listing price based on the row using the function and removing the listing for each listing where the calculated listing price is higher than the actual listing price. 
     
     
         33 . The method of  claim 26  wherein the refitting comprises minimizing the orthogonal distance of each remaining point to a curve where the curve is represented by a function. 
     
     
         34 . The method of  claim 26  wherein the calculating comprises evaluating the function that results from the refitting for the row value for each equivalent section.