Sports teams and musicians can now sell tickets directly to fans through their Snapchat Stories thanks to an integration with SeatGeek.
The New York-based ticket-search engine is working with Snap Inc. to enable ticket buying through the Venice, California, company's signature app. The integration is the first ticket-buying experience in Snapchat and one of the first e-commerce offerings within the social media platform.
Here's how it works: Organizations and artists with events at venues ticketed by SeatGeek can add ticketing capability to their Snapchat Stories. Snapchatters just swipe up, select their seats and check out, all within the app.
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Snapchat started testing e-commerce capabilities earlier this year. The Los Angeles Football Club was the first team in the world to sell tickets through the app's partnership with SeatGeek. The expansion Major League Soccer team posted a number of tickets for a May 26 match against D.C. United on its Snapchat Story and posted a Snapcode on its website.
"We're always looking to reach our fans in innovative ways, and selling tickets directly to our followers on Snapchat gives us an incredible opportunity to connect with our most dedicated supporters," said LAFC President and co-owner Tom Penn in a statement. "We may be a new club, but we want to keep pushing forward in interacting with our fans and supporters."
Moreover, the integration allows individual athletes and performers to sell tickets directly to their fans as well. Champion boxer Errol Spence Jr. is scheduled to post tickets to his Snapchat Story for an upcoming bout at Ford Centre at The Star in Frisco, Texas, outside of Dallas.
"Selling tickets through Snapchat is a massive opportunity to reach fans in a new way," added Doug Dawson, vice president of ticket sales for the Dallas Cowboys, which owns the venue. "This is a really exciting example of SeatGeek's open distribution approach to ticketing, and we're looking forward to working with performers that come through our venues to put tickets in front of their Snapchat followers."
In the coming months, SeatGeek and Snapchat are expected to work together to add more events to the integration. SeatGeek provides ticketing for AT&T Stadium (home of the Cowboys) and Banc of California Stadium (home of LAFC).
"SeatGeek's mission is to get fans to more live events," said SeatGeek co-founder Russ D'Souza. "We see Snapchat as an incredible opportunity for teams and artists to increase discovery of their events while also potentially rewarding their most dedicated fans with exclusive offers."