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 re-pricing the seats in the primary market or presenting ‘best value’ seats to a prospective purchaser. Outputted tickets can be used to initiate entry processes to a gate structure of a venue by unlocking the gate structure or denying access through the gate structure of an invalid outputted ticket.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method to purchase tickets on a mobile device, the mobile device being coupled to a cellular network, the cellular network being coupled to a world-wide network of computers, the method comprising:
 initializing a social networking application provided on a display of the mobile device, the social networking application;   receiving login information from a user at a ticketing application from the social networking application;   retrieving a list of interests at the ticketing application from the social networking application;   retrieving a list of events at the ticketing application;   processing the list of events to filter the list of events to select a filtered listing of the events to be outputted to the user of the mobile device;   outputting the filtered listing of events on the display of the mobile device;   selecting an event from the list of events;   retrieving a plurality of tickets for the selected event;   processing, under control of a processor, the plurality of tickets for the selected events to select a listing of tickets;   presenting on the display the listing of tickets to the user on a venue image associated with the event;   allowing the user to select at least one of the tickets in the listing;   directing the user to a process for purchasing the selected tickets;   outputting at least one of the selected tickets as an outputted ticket following the purchasing the selected tickets;   initiating one or more entry processes to a gate structure at an event venue associated with the selected ticket to allow entry through the gate structure or deny access beyond the gate structure, the one or more entry process using the outputted ticket to access the gate structure for the selected ticket.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising identifying a second user having a second list of interests; and processing the list of interests of the user with the second list of interests of the second user; and determining whether the second list of interests and the list of interests are within a predetermined criteria; and inviting the second user by transferring invitation information initiated from the ticketing application to a mobile device of the second user;
 whereupon the second user and the user are associated as friends in the social networking application. 
 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 2  further comprising transferring invitation information by the first user to one or more users defined as friends in the social networking application. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the gate structure comprises an access control gate, a turnstile, a vending machine interface, a gaming machine interface, a room door, a merchandise distribution interface, a parking gate, a locker, or a personal storage unit. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the one or more entry processes uses the outputted tickets to unlock or lock the gate structure to deny access or allow entry through the gate structure;
 wherein unlocking the gate structure provides access to contents within or beyond the gate structure.