Our friends at
FlynnTix and
FlynnCenter have been great clients for many years. From designing and developing both of their websites to creating their
Flynn Series early purchase site every year, Vermont Design Works is always standing by as a partner for all ongoing website maintenance needs.
Earlier this year we were really excited when FlynnTix approached us to develop new functionality that many of their customers on the FlynnTix site had been requesting for years - the option to select their own seats when purchasing tickets to
Flynn Mainstage shows. Users have come to expect this experience on a ticketing website as it has become commonplace when buying airline tickets or tickets to sporting events and concerts at larger venues in major cities.
Our
web application development team was tasked with creating an intuitive and interactive tool that would make it easy for users of all technological comfort levels to choose their own theater seats during the ticket purchasing process. And of course this new functionality had to integrate into their existing ticketing software.
Obviously picking a row and seat number doesn't tell the customer much, so the "Select Your Own Seat" tool had to be very visual. We chose to first break the theater into 15 "sections", as you can see in the screenshot above. When a user hovers their mouse pointer over a section, they're shown a photo of what the stage looks like from that section.
After a section is selected, users can see all of the individual seats available along with wheelchair access information. This is where the customer actually chooses the seats they would like before checking out. They can of course always return to the "section" view if they aren't satisfied with their options in a given section - not enough available seats grouped together for their party, etc.
We hope the new Select Your Own Seat option helps take regional box office to the next level by putting their checkout process more on par with some of the larger ticketing operations.
Let us know what you think about the new
FlynnTix feature in the comments below and be sure to check out our
web apps portfolio to review some of the other advanced functionality websites we've recently developed and learn how we might be able to help you with your project.
