How SeatGeek can manage socially distanced ticketing

Liam Watson

SeatGeek offers a platform that can help with ticket allocations, where socially distanced seating would be the first step towards welcoming fans back – for competitions such as the A-League.

Founded in 2009, SeatGeek is a mobile-focused ticket platform based in New York and provides assess to tickets for live events, whether it be buying or selling.

With a wide range of sports covered, SeatGeek is trusted by clients around the world and has already been working with UK-based Premier League and EFL Championship clubs about how to navigate through this tricky time.

SeatGeek engaged with their UK clients and created a series of tools that enable football clubs to reintroduce fans to stadiums safely and effectively – social distancing seating plans, demand-based algorithms and online sales tools just some of the products and services.

“There were two key areas to our response to dealing with our clients’ needs across such an uncertain landscape,” Peter Joyce, Managing Director for SeatGeek Sport (EMEA), said.

“First of all we needed to engage in high levels of communication across our client group to enable all of us to stay well informed and share ideas. 

“Secondly we needed to quickly investigate how we could build enhancements to our software functionality that would assist a new way of staging football matches and sports events with more restrictions required around the sale and distribution of tickets, as well as the methods of entering stadiums on match-day.”

Clubs who are looking to drive their sales activity online have been benefited by the introduction of Pod sales functionality. Underpinned by SeatGeek’s rules-based enterprise software platform, SeatGeek clients have maximised their seat inventory by allowing fans to purchase in their approved social bubbles, with parameters included to allocation definitions, meaning that contiguous seats are sold together. 3D Digital Venue is a SeatGeek partner who have engaged with a range of clients to offer their visual seat mapping tool to further add to its functionality on offer.

In the summer pre-season leading up to UK football seasons getting underway, several SeatGeek clients were chosen to host events that would test the new features that are being planned to roll out.

Brighton & Hove Albion FC welcomed Chelsea in a pre-season friendly in front of 2,500 supporters at the Amex Stadium in August, while Middlesbrough FC were one of the first 9 EFL clubs to host a league fixture with fans during September. 1,000 supporters were allowed to be in attendance at The Riverside Stadium for their home game v AFC Bournemouth.

“The football community as a whole has been dealing with such an uncertain landscape when it comes to planning our matches leading into this season, but we were delighted to be selected by the EFL to stage one of the first round of games with fans coming back to stadiums in September and we were pleased with the handling of the game,” Lee Fryett, Head of Commercial & Ticketing at Middlesbrough FC, said.

“We were able to work closely with the team at SeatGeek who have provided excellent support as have other partners involved in helping us stage the game.”

In Australia, the A-League and W-League seasons have been confirmed to start on the same date of Sunday 27th December 2020.

In the two months leading up to the season start, there is the potential for more trials of socially distant seating measures that can be implemented, where restrictions are slowly being eased across the country.

“There has been a huge amount of work and planning covered in a short space of time to react to the challenges that have been presented and it has been encouraging to see a whole range of partners and clients come together to find solutions,” SeatGeek’s MD, Peter Joyce said.

“With the sharing of best practice and the launch of the Adapt tool kit, we’ve produced a range of functions and services that will provide real value to our partners as they look to leverage technology, with mobile ticket entry becoming a key component of the recently successful test events conducted at many of our SeatGeek supported venues.” 

Previous ArticleNext Article

WA Government and Virgin Australia Partner to Bring Discounted Flights for Italian Football Series in Perth

Avatar
Image Credit: Shutterstock

The Western Australian Government has partnered with Virgin Australia to offer discounted airfares to Perth ahead of a three-match series featuring AC Milan, Inter Milan, Juventus and Palermo, in a move that reflects how state governments are increasingly using major sporting fixtures as tools of tourism and economic strategy.

Subsidising travel costs rather than simply promoting the matches signals a shift in how state governments are approaching major sporting events. WA Tourism Minister Reece Whitby positioned the series within the state’s broader Winter of Unmissable Sport strategy, framing the partnership as a way to fill hotels, support local businesses and generate visible economic activity across a single week of programming. That logic places football alongside other major events states have used to justify public investment in visitor attraction, where the return is measured in tourism spend rather than ticket revenue alone.

A bet on Australia’s appetite for European football

Touring Italian clubs is not a routine occurrence in Australia, and Sport and Recreation Minister Rita Saffioti’s comments point to an underlying assumption behind the investment: that the existing fan base for European football in Australia is substantial enough to justify a state government underwriting travel costs to fill a stadium on the other side of the country.

Australian audiences for international football have grown considerably over the past decade, driven by streaming access, diaspora communities and the rising visibility of leagues once difficult to follow locally. State governments positioning themselves to capture economic value from that growth, rather than leaving it to broadcasters and travel operators, marks a change in how football’s commercial footprint in Australia is being treated by policymakers.

It also raises a question likely to recur as more international club fixtures are scheduled in Australian cities: whether public subsidy for travel around marquee football events delivers economic value beyond the host city, or whether the benefit is concentrated narrowly within the host state’s tourism and hospitality sectors. Virgin Australia’s involvement reflects the commercial logic on the airline side, with the partnership forming part of a broader push to connect Australians with major domestic and international destinations.

For the domestic football industry, the series is a reminder that international club football is competing for the same audience attention as the A-Leagues and grassroots competitions. Whether that competition proves complementary or extractive, in terms of where football-related spending in Australia ultimately lands, is a question state and national football bodies are likely to watch closely as similar fixtures become more frequent.

Referee Omar Artan appointed to UEFA Super Cup Final

Avatar
Image credit: BBC

The Somali referee will officiate the 2026 UEFA Super Cup in August between Paris Saint-Germain and Aston Villa.

 

World Cup controversy to Super Cup support

As 2025’s CAF Men’s Referee of the Year, Artan stands as one of the world’s leading match officials.

His expertise and skill allowed him to enter FIFA’s international list in 2018, and has since proved an outstanding ability as a referee, culminating in the CAF Men’s Referee of the Year award last year.

Despite Artan’s capabilities and reputation, his dream of officiating this summer’s World Cup tournament met a premature ending. The referee couldn’t enter into the US after arriving on a diplomatic passport and single entry visa, and was subsequently forced to return home to Somalia.

But Artan’s journey as a referee on the global stage is far from over, as UEFA and CAF confirmed that Artan will officiate the UEFA Super Cup clash between Champions League winners, PSG, and Europa League winners, Aston Villa, in Salzburg this August.

 

Upholding the partnership

In April of this year, UEFA and CAF signed a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which promised to utilise mutual support to encourage development, inclusion and wellbeing in football.

The MoU aligns unity, cohesion and partnership between two powerhouse continents of world football.

And now, the alignment is stronger and clearer than ever. In the midst of a major blow to Artan’s personal and professional dreams, UEFA and CAF’s partnership provided an opportunity.

“Omar is an excellent young but already experienced referee, who has proven himself at the highest competition level of the Confederation of African Football,” said UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin via media release.

“Football is made to connect people, and UEFA wants to show its respect to Omar and his outstanding officiating skills, which had earned him such a prestigious nomination.”

Furthermore, CAF President, Dr Patrice Motsepe, outlined why the initiative perfectly embodies the nature of a partnership between UEFA and CAF.

“This is a great honour for Omar Artan and for African referees and is also an excellent example of football bringing together and uniting people from Africa and Europe and worldwide.”

 

Final thoughts

Out of bitter disappointment and controversy comes a far more positive reflection of football’s influence and impact. It also proves that an MoU is more than just signatures, but a genuine promise to support the game and all within it.

A partnership like this has the power to help millions at once.

But sometimes, helping just one person is all it takes to prove its worth.

Most Popular Topics

Editor Picks

Send this to a friend