WASHINGTON — Ticketmaster is giving iPhone users a chance to jump to the front of the line when buying concert tickets.
The new Ticketmaster app could help concert goers get better seats by letting users skip a time-consuming security measure.
With push notifications turned on, the app bypasses CAPTCHA, the security measure that requires users to enter a series of letters and numbers to make sure the device making the purchase is not a bot, Mashable reports.
Using push notifications, Mike Lane, Ticketmaster’s vice president of mobile products, says the company can know the seats are being purchased by a person rather than automated software.
Ticketmaster’s Lane says about 16 percent of tickets sold so far this year were purchased on mobile devices, and he predicts removing the CAPTCHA procedure could increase sales by 10 percent.
“Each step we can eliminate historically leads to 10 percent more transactions,” Lane tells Mashable.
This update is Ticketmaster’s first major redesign in 18 months.
Hard copy tickets disappearing steadily
Ticketmaster reports that about 60 percent of venues allow people to scan their iPhones instead of providing physical tickets. Ticketmaster includes a watermark on each ticket to prevent scalpers from selling screenshots of a single ticket to multiple customers.
A user also can sell a Ticketmaster ticket using the app, which is a competitor to StubHub.
Once the seller enters a price for a ticket he wants to sell, a potential buyer can enter credit card information and the ticket is digitally transferred to the new owner.
Users of the mobile and desktop apps are able to see what tickets are still available for purchase.
Other features on the app include calendar alerts and event information, including parking and transportation details, and set lists from previous shows.
The app is only available on iOS now, but Ticketmaster expects to release an app for Android by fall.
See some of the new features of the Tickemaster iOS app:
