Why A Couple of Event Nerds Decided to Revolutionize the Way You Buy Super Bowl Tickets
By Garrett Reeb, Senior Product Manager & Jon Fulton, Product Design Manager
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They call us event people. But, let’s be honest, we’re really event nerds, and we wear that badge with pride. Between us we’ve experienced hundreds, maybe even thousands, of concerts, festivals, and shows of all kinds. What we really love, though, are what people in the business refer to as “head” events. These are the really, really big ones.
And each year, no event is bigger than the Super Bowl.
The media hype, the legendary pregame parties, and the star-studded halftime show all make it more than just a game. And because we’re event nerds ourselves, we know that for many of our customers, it’s also a once-in-a-lifetime luxury experience.
We also know that most fans purchase their Super Bowl tickets after the playoffs have whittled the field down to the final two teams. Additionally, more than 40% of sales move to mobile in the final days before the event. Armed with that data, we saw a major opportunity for us to make the 2019 Super Bowl experience even better for the many fans who purchase their tickets at StubHub.
We chose to meet this opportunity head on, and we think the result makes buying a game ticket with StubHub the most unique and usable way to explore the 2019 Super Bowl experience.
The Opportunity to Be First
We developed a first-in-industry feature that shows our ticket inventory in a 3D model of the stadium. Prospective buyers not only have access to a realistic 3D look at the venue, but StubHub is displaying its ticket inventory inside of that view.
The result: Fans on our iOS app get a realistic view from any available seat in the stadium before they choose to purchase their ticket, allowing them to find their perfect ticket. Intuitive, seamless transitions allow users to move from a drone’s-eye 3D view of the venue, to a view of a specific section of the stadium, and finally to a 360-degree view from a particular seat where users can choose to buy their ticket while looking at the seat view.
There are 3D models of different venues other places online, but our UX research showed us that users were frustrated with these models because they couldn’t buy tickets directly from the 3D view. We decided we would apply our talents to solving that problem, while simultaneously building a superior immersive experience.
How We Did It
When we began the process, we knew this was something nobody else had done before. The steepest mountains usually remain unclimbed for a reason; they are full of problems that can be difficult to surmount.
For example, we had to build our 3D model without blueprints of the stadium. We did it by employing a scrappy attitude and marshalling other available resources. We combed through images of the venue, accessed public documents, and calculated measurements between individual seats and the field based on scale. Our estimates turned out to be incredibly accurate, even down to the width of a seat row.
But the work didn’t end there. To make sure we didn’t drop any inventory in our transition from 2D to 3D, we went through the process of manually comparing where our ticket inventory is mapped on the 3D model versus where it shows on our 2D model.
All of this added to the amount of time we dedicated to the process, but it was worth it in the end. We’re the world’s largest ticket marketplace and we believe deeply in our responsibilities to the fans. Our technical and domain expertise put us in a unique position to create an experience that is genuinely better for fans buying tickets — so we did it.
User Research Helped Us Focus
Saying you’re “fan-first” is easy, but living a fan-first philosophy takes more than just talk. Bringing user research into the process early helped us stay focused on the right experience for our customers. Many product teams lose track of users’ needs during the build process, but having clear user results on hand allowed us to focus and eliminate layers that unnecessarily complicated the buying experience.
By most measures, what we did isn’t simple. It’s textured, it’s immersive, and it’s different. But even when doing something cutting edge, we know there has to be a level of simplicity for the customer.
That’s why we built something with a clean interface that people will want to play with and teach themselves how to use. We wanted the user to experience the tool and wonder, “This is so simple to use, why hasn’t anyone done this before?” All of our hard work behind the scenes was designed to allow our customers to navigate the entire experience with ease.
Our focus on the customer even influenced our choice of technologies. We began the build process with the idea that we would employ augmented reality (AR) rather than 3D. AR is undeniably cool. It’s new and has a lot of inherent promise. But, although we did an initial build with AR, we discovered that the AR tool just wasn’t as much fun for our customers to use compared with the 3D version.
As a team, we still believe AR can be an amazing technology to use for a similar process in the future, but we also listened to our users and recognized that it didn’t satisfy what they wanted right now.
Why We’ll Never Stop Thinking About the User
By remaining focused on building a clear, easy to use product, we ended up with a tool that has a rock-solid foundation. We’ve made something that is game-changing, but also something we can build upon as a team.
In fact, we’re already thinking about all the things we can add to the tool, like merchandise elements and personalized recommendations based on previous customer purchases. And because we’ve made something people are eager to use, we’re also in a position to learn much more about how customers find the seat that’s right for them.
With all the new data, we can find out how to further accentuate the customer experience and better pave a path to the seat they want.
Ultimately, this product serves as a good example of how we strive to make the experience better by combining technology with solutions that address real-world problems. And our love for live events is a big part of the reason we chose to undertake this project in the first place.
We’re fans too. That’s why taking on the challenge was worth it for us, and we’re excited to see what our customers think of it.
Learn more about the authors of this post, Garrett Reeb and Jon Fulton. Passionate about building inspiring product experiences for fans around the world? Join us.
