With the help of a recent feature on Facebook, an online social network, students can now purchase tickets to events online.
The program allows organizers to add the application on Facebook and invite people to buy tickets to their event.
Tickets are purchased through Ticketleap, a company that sells tickets to events for vendors online.
Tyler Cheatham, a marketing representative for Frontline Promotions, and CEO of Drops Magazine, said he was definitely interested in utilizing the new feature.
“I think it will help out marketing for different events and make it a whole lot more convenient,” Cheatham said. “Most college students use debit cards anyway, which will help increase sales.”
Carolyn Daniel, corporate manager for Ticketleap, said in June of this year, Mark Zuckerberg [the creator of Facebook] opened Facebook to external developers.
Daniel said Ticketleap thought joining would be a good way for the company to reach new customers.
She also said there has been a great response from users, colleges, universities and conference organizers.
“It’s exciting because we have users selling tickets in New Zealand and Zimbabwe,” Daniel said. “We handle the credit card processing in a very secure way [because] we’re certified HackerSafe by ScanAlert and that’s
really important because credit card safety is really crucial.”
Daniel said only the event organizer, not students or customers, have to add the application to purchase tickets. Purchasers can print their tickets out, and after tickets are sold the organizer receives a list of all the customers attending their event.
“The application is free to add but we just add a $1 convenience fee to each ticket if the ticket price is less than $30 and a 10 percent convenience fee if the ticket price is over $30,” Daniel said. “Other competitors charge as much as 40 percent for a convenience fee, so we’re doing everything we can to just keep it at a flat rate of a dollar.”
Saundra Inge, associate director of Florida A&M University’s Office of Student Activities, said she thinks the new Facebook feature is definitely something worth considering and exploring for campus events.
“I wouldn’t mind if they [students] could get their free tickets for campus events that same way, where they would have to have their valid [FAMU] email address or student identification numbers, so if they are not a valid student it wouldn’t give them a confirmation,” Inge said.
One of Inge’s concerns about the feature is students who are not registered or those without the appropriate number of credit hours acquiring tickets for campus events.
An additional concern she has is making sure valid students don’t buy more than one ticket to events with limited seating.
But Daniel said stipulations on ticket purchasing can be controlled.
“Organizers can also limit the amount of people invited to purchase tickets and request a student identification number during the credit card process [to check for valid students].”
Ashley Johnson, 21, a fourth-year pharmacy candidate from Miami, and FAMU’s campus activities board chairwoman, said she thinks the new Facebook feature is convenient and would use it for future FAMU events.
Although the program is not able to disperse tickets to free events yet, Daniel said this is something Ticketleap’s engineers are working on getting in the near future.
Also with refunds, Daniel said if an event organizer has to cancel an event, they can send out messages to purchasers on Facebook and distribute refunds in an easy way.