The difficulty of deciding on a seat when booking tickets for a major event is about to get easier as Ticketmaster has introduced a “virtual view” feature to its website.
The online ticket merchant has worked with IOMedia to create its 3D Virtual Venue technology, which works in a similar way to Facebook’s 360 photos, offering customers a preview of the view from their prospective seat.
The feature is currently being deployed for selected venues on Ticketmaster’s website in North America and Australia, but given the abundance of 360-degree camera technology available today, a wider roll out seems probable in the future.
It would also provide a much-need updated to the old-fashioned system in place across many similar sites – the top-down floor plan view.
Ticketmaster has already confirmed it has plans to extend the feature to its mobile apps soon.
It doesn’t work for every event at a certain venue however – for example at New York’s Madison Square Garden it’s possible to use Virtual Venue to see the view at a Knicks basketball game, but not for a Billy Joel concert.
