Make It Social Partners With Ticketmaster

31 May 2016 | tshego

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Make it Social has partnered with Ticketmaster Sport to offer UK sports fans a new way to securely book group tickets, starting with a number of cricket matches at The Kia Oval.

Surrey County Cricket Club fans can search for and book NatWest T20 Blast championship games together as a group of any size, ensuring that everyone sits together and everyone pays for their own seat.

Individual attendees can also invite others to join them and can place a hold on blocks of seats without being responsible for the entire group’s payment.

Ticketmaster Sport joins a roster of partners offering Make it Social’s proprietary group-booking tool, including some of Europe’s largest dance-music festivals (via a partnership with Paylogic) and several partners throughout the travel industry.

The Edinburgh-based startup continues to grow, recently raising another round of funding from angel investors.

“We’re delighted to be working with Make It Social during this summer’s NatWest T20 Blast–their functionality is exactly what we’ve been looking for,” said Steve Kitcher, head of public sales at Surrey County Cricket Club.

“We’ve managed to develop a thriving group-booking market around this event; we think giving the lead client the ability to invite friends and colleagues will make this process even easier and help grow the number of people within specific groups.”

The partnership follows Make it Social’s publication, earlier this year, of a study examining the social group bookings market – defined as informal groups of two or more people.

The study found that 25% of social group bookings are abandoned sometime during the planning process, due to hassles including group members’ preferences and payments.

An “Invite Friends” button triggers a group creation pop-up, allowing users to invite friends via email or SMS. Other singular features include real-time updates allowing participants to see when invitees have viewed, joined or left the group, or purchased add-ons or made payments.