Industry News

Irish music fans can now buy tickets direct through Facebook

Facebook users in Ireland can now buy tickets without having to leave the platform after the social media giant linked up with Eventbrite.

Eventbrite said earlier this year that its ground-breaking partnership with Facebook, which is already available in Australia, the UK and US, has helped event organisers to double ticket sales.

Several nightclubs in Dublin, including District 8 on Francis Street and The Wright Venue in Swords, are the first to partake in the service that allows users to purchase tickets from within the Facebook site or mobile app.

Facebook and Eventbrite believe that with fewer hoops for consumers to jump through when buying a ticket – multiple pages, new windows and forms – people are far less likely to abandon their order. They said that “a seamless checkout” reduces this drop-off, meaning more tickets sold and event organisers’ revenues increase.

“Integration has been incredibly successful so far and I think that is because we are going where the customers are. Typically. in the markets in which we’ve launched the service, Facebook users are twice as likely to buy tickets where they can do it directly compared to being dragged away from the platform,” said EventBrite’s head of marketing for Ireland and the UK, Marino Fresch, according to the Irish Times.

Event organisers will be able to sell tickets or set up free registration directly on Facebook, at no extra cost. They can track their ticket sales on both the Eventbrite and Facebook reporting dashboards.

Event organisers can also tap into the power of social media, as when ticket buyers complete an order on Facebook they can easily mark themselves as “going” to the Facebook event.

Eventbrite, which employs 20 people in Ireland, plans to launch the Facebook option into the Netherlands and Spain in the coming weeks.

“Ireland is one of our most important markets in terms of growth globally and I think that speaks to the fact that Irish people are inherently social and events are an important part of the culture,” said Fresch.

“More than 100,000 event organisers have used EventBrite in Ireland since it launched here in 2014 generating tens of millions of euros in sale. That is a phenomenal figure given the size of the country,” he added.