Canadian ticket firm AudienceView has inked an agreement with a firm from the Dominican Republic, expanding AudienceView’s reach into the Caribbean.
The agreement with Uepatickets has AudienceView powering digital and retail platforms for a host of Dominican clients including eight professional basketball teams and the six-team Dominican Professional Baseball League, or LIDOM as its Spanish acronym spells. Uepatickets also handles ticketing for a number of venues including Galeria 360 and several government-owned venues including Teatro Nacional and Palacio Bellas Artes.
“The biggest thing about AudienceView coming into the Dominican Republic will be a transition of sales to the internet,” said Fernando Queipo, president of Multipagos Expresos SRL, which owns Uepatickets. Currently about 90 percent of ticket transactions take place at retail outlets. Queipo said the trend was part cultural, part infrastructure. Until recently, the country’s credit card processing companies were not equipped to handle online ticket sales, but recent changes in the market now make that possible.
Besides online tickets, the deal with AudienceView gives Uepatickets the ability to sell tickets via Facebook through the AVTiki app, where friends can purchase seats and reserve others beside them.
“We believe this partnership will help us sell more tickets and help more fans find out what seats are available and get more information about upcoming shows,” Queipo said.
Queipo first met the AudienceView team three years ago at an International Ticketing Association Conference (INTIX). AudienceView CEO Mark Fowlie said his firm specializes in international ticketing projects with operations in 16 different countries.
“The platform is really robust and designed to work with any local geography,” he said. “We’ve invested heavily in configurability and localization features and we can work with various currencies, time formats and date stamps.”
Fowlie added that his group is continuing to see an uptick in Facebook ticket sales, although the technology is still growing.
“I think we’re still in the early days for Facebook commerce in general. We are confident that we’ll see a progression in this area; afterall, social activity is very aligned to the live entertainment and sports experience,” he said. “It comes down to people being comfortable transacting in Facebook. Once they start to feel comfortable with the security and level of protection, I think we’ll see continued growth.”
Contact: Fernando Queipo, (809) 620-8372; Mark Fowlie, (416) 356-4121