Tickets.com clients can now interact with fans at games, concerts, events and broadcasts in real-time via SMS. Txtstation will help the company’s clients build brand identity via interactive promotions and mobile marketing.

“Our alliance strategy is to partner with best-in-class companies in order to make industry-leading technologies available to our clients,” said Sheri Fink, director of ecommerce and strategic alliances at Tickets.com, Orange County, CA.

“Txtstation is a leader in the mobile marketing industry and is the ideal partner for Tickets.com so we can provide our clients with cost-effective mobile marketing tools in order to support their business needs,” she said.

“Tickets.com already offers clients mobile ticket purchase and mobile bar code delivery services and partnering with Txtstation is the natural next step by allowing us to add mobile marketing to our mobile offerings.”

Tickets.com, a subsidiary of Major League Baseball Advanced Media, provides event ticketing technologies and services for arts, entertainment and sports organizations worldwide.

Txtstation is a mobile marketing company specializing in sports and entertainment that lets broadcasters, event owners, sponsors and general media communicate with viewers or fans directly via mobile devices.

Paperless tickets
Txtstation will provide custom programs and graphics that will differentiate campaigns for each individual brand and client’s needs.

The real-time one-to-one dialogue with event attendees will let Tickets.com clients identify and capture data on all audience members who respond to a mobile call-to-action.

The information can be used for opt-in, ongoing mobile marketing, cross-promotions and other revenue-building initiatives.

Additionally, Txtstation’s service will deliver revenues from SMS, MMS and content downloads.

Fans want convenience when they’re purchasing tickets and arriving at events,” Ms. Fink said. “Mobile ticketing provides the ultimate convenience – the ability to purchase tickets anytime, anywhere and have them delivered directly to a mobile device.

“It enables venues/teams to sell tickets up to the last minute and enables the fan to enter the venue without having to wait in a Will Call line to get their tickets.

“With more and more airlines adding mobile boarding pass technologies to their offerings, we expect mobile ticketing to continue to dramatically grow in popularity over the next few years as fans become accustomed to the convenience that mobile offers.”

Other ventures
In August, Tickets.com launched a mobile version of its consumer ticketing Web site called ProVenueMobile.

Users who visit the mobile site at http://mobile.tickets.com can complete a ticket transaction from their handset (see story).

“Using mobile for interactive promotions and marketing during live events engages fans and helps clients strategically build their mobile fan base,” Ms. Fink said. “Venues/teams can identify and capture data on audience members that can be used for sending relevant mobile offers.

“For clients who have ProVenueMobile, fans can click through the mobile offer and purchase their tickets on their mobile phones,” she said. “This enables fans to choose to have the ticket delivered to their mobile phone – the ultimate in convenience.”