Glen Chancy is the publisher of Orthodox Biz, a software designer, and a serial Web entreprenuer. In this interview with Orthodox Biz contributing writer Sarah Long, Glen talks about his company's latest project called SeeMySeat.com. SeeMySeat.com is an online aggregator for tickets offered for sale by all the major online ticket brokers. In this interview, Glen offers advice on getting good deals on all kinds of events, as well as taking you behind-the-scenes as to how tickets get sold.

OB: Getting interviewed seems to be a trend for you.

Glen: It is! Normally, I get to ask the questions. Lately, I’ve been on the receiving end of interviews like on the Illumined Heart and Journeys to Orthodoxy. Now this. It is more fun (for me anyway) to ask the questions than to answer them.

OB: You have a new project that you’ve recently launched called SeeMySeat.com. Tell us about that.

Glen: Sure. Let’s just talk for a minute about how tickets to events get sold. Ticketmaster is a virtual monopoly for first-run ticket sales. As many people know, getting a ticket for a concert, a sporting event, or a theater show can be tough from the box office. Most events sell out. This is partly because fans pile-on to get tickets, but also because brokers buy up a lot of tickets from Ticketmaster, specifically to resell them. If you are looking at sporting events like Major League Baseball, the NFL, or the NBA, then the situation gets even more complicated with season tickets. Those seats are pre-sold, so the number of tickets available at any game can be limited.

That is where the reseller market comes in. Sites like Stubhub, Ticketsnow, and TicketNetwork allow people to buy tickets for events from other fans, season ticketholders, or from brokers who have an inventory in tickets. These are great systems with all kinds of buyer protection. But we spotted a couple of shortcomings in the way these work that we thought could be improved.

OB: And what were those?

Glen: Well, the ticket prices on the major resellers can vary widely. To give an example, I was just looking at baseball tickets for a Rays-Marlins match up in Miami. The tickets ranged from $35.00 for the seats I was interested in (on Stubhub) to $175.00 (on Ticketsnow). And this isn’t consistent. Which service has the best price on a given ticket varies from event to event, sometimes even hour-to-hour for the same event. Sometimes the best tickets are on one site, sometimes on another. So to comparison shop takes a lot of time and effort. People have to navigate multiple sites, take notes, and pray that their tickets haven’t gotten snapped up while they are searching.

We wanted to give people all their options in one spot. In fancy words, we wanted to be a ticket aggregator which offers tickets to the public from all the major ticket sources. In plain talk we are a ticket mall. You come to SeeMySeat.com and you can see all your options in one place. When you are ready to buy, you just click a link and go to StubHub or whichever seller has those tickets. You get the best deals, the best pricing, and best of all, the service is free. We get paid as a referral by the ticket brokers themselves.

OB: So SeeMySeat.com puts all the ticket options in one spot for convenience. That’s great, but does it do anything else?

Glen: Actually, it does something very important. Most ticket sellers give you a list of tickets that are available. Many also offer a map of the venue, often as a pop-up window. Then you sit there trying to find section 102, Row G on this little map, hoping that you are getting it right and aren’t making a huge mistake.

But SeeMySeat.com goes a step further than the other sites and offers an interactive seating map! You mouse over the ticket in the list, and the seats highlight on the map – letting you know exactly where your seats will be. That is our motto on SeeMySeat.com – See Where You’ll Sit! These days, people just can’t afford to spend good money on bad seats. With our technology, that will never happen. Most people have a cost-benefit calculation in their heads. It goes something like, “Sure, I’ll pay extra to sit next to the action, but I won’t pay that kind of price for second tier seats!” Having the interactive map helps people make informed decisions, especially depending on how they view the event.

OB: What do you mean by that phrase, “How they view the event?”

Glen: Let me give you an example. I recently took my son to a Spring Training game for my baseball team – the Atlanta Braves. I do that every year, so I was looking for good seats, but I was not willing to pay for great seats. I got lucky and scored two tickets for $8.00 right behind homeplate. I was watching the ticket deals, and grabbed some good ones. But if I hadn’t gotten a steal on those tickets, my budget was actually no more than $15.00 at the most. That’s because Spring Training is something we do every year, usually for a couple of games. But, a reunion tour of my favorite band, my college team in a championship game, my team in the Super Bowl – those are things that just don’t happen often. Just being in the stadium is great, but if you can find better tickets for a few dollars more for an event like that – then why not? I’m willing to pay up to get better seats if it will be a night-to-remember.

OB: What are some suggestions for getting great deals?

Glen: The best deals are on sports games, especially MLB and NBA games. That’s because there are a lot of games, and season ticket holders can’t make all of them. For those tickets, pick some dates you are interested and start watching the deals on SeeMySeat.com on a regular basis. You can even bookmark the page with the search results and pull it up whenever you want to check the action. For all events, the closer you get to the event, the greater the pressure on the sellers. A week out from the event or less, you will often start to see prices drop, sometimes rapidly. That’s when it is critical to watch the market on an aggregator like SeeMySeat.com and be ready to grab a deal when you see it.

You can also look at some of the up-and-coming sports. For fans of beach volleyball or other newly popular sports, there are almost always good deals.

OB: You mentioned sports, but are there a lot of good deals right now on concerts?

Glen: There are, because there are so many concerts. Falling sales, rampant piracy, and digital distribution have pushed recording revenues in the tank. The dollar price of an album has remained roughly level in the 20 years that CDs have been the main format. Given the work of inflation in those two decades, that means real earnings for recording sales have plummeted. But ticket prices have soared. The big money is in live music, and the records now help sell the tour, not the other way around. The declining economy has accelerated this trend. Now the only real money to be made is to go on tour. People in this economy are even less likely to fork out money for a CD, but if fans can score a reasonably priced ticket to see Cold Play live – then they are likely to stretch a little to make that happen.

OB: Do you think it is important to get people out more?

Glen: Absolutely. If you are watching a concert or a game on TV, then it is no different than if you are watching any other TV show. If you get out of the house and to the event, then you are actually participating. You are meeting other people, seeing new things, experiencing new things. It’s an adventure, and you never know what can happen. When I went to an NBA game recently, I parked at a little church that sold parking spaces for the games to make money. When I was leaving, the pastor’s son saw a bumper sticker on my truck that was touting Orthodoxy. He asked me about it, and that prompted a nice conversation about the historic church. Who knows where that conversation will take him? Americans stay too shut in. We go to work, we come home, we veg out in front of the TV. SeeMySeat.com is one way that we can help make getting out affordable and enjoyable. With tough times ahead, a system that helps people get good deals on events is a great thing to help build.

Plus, for me, it’s just fun. Some of my favorite memories are going to college and pro games. (Gators, Braves, Bucs, Jags) My wife and I went to see Aerosmith on one of our first dates. We then checked out Rage Against the Machine and did a couple of festivals. In our first few months as a couple, we saw more bands in concert than we did movies – and we loved every minute of it. We even went to the philharmonic, especially since my wife actually is a classical guitarist. Going to see live music was something we did together as a couple, and something our kids enjoy now. This project gives me an opportunity to help people and promote getting out and having fun. The is nothing better than that!

To check out deals on tickets for concerts, sports, or theater - visit http://www.seemyseat.com today! Special bonus - register at SeeMySeat.com today for a $50.00 drawing. One winner per month for the next three months!

Sarah Long is the assistant Webmaster for the Orthodox Christian Network and a branding and marketing manager for CorFun.com - an eServices Company. She contributes to Orthodox Biz as a writer from time-to-time.

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 [Getting Out of the House - Interview with Web Entrepreneur Glen Chancy]

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