Seatwave picks Harvest Digital for online push

Online ticket marketplace Seatwave has appointed Harvest Digital to plan and execute a digital strategy to cement its position as the leading provider in the secondary ticketing market.

Since launching in February, Seatwave has managed the majority of its digital marketing in-house.

After a ten-way pitch the account was awarded to Harvest Digital on an exclusive basis.

Seatwave offers a marketplace for fans to buy and sell second-hand tickets and was named as one of the top five ticket sites by Hitwise.

The site currently offers over 500,000 tickets for sale for live performances across 38 countries.

Harvest Digital will take on the management of Seatwave's existing strategic partnerships in the UK, and integrate them with other digital activity the agency is planning including display media, search engine marketing and affiliate marketing.

Key partners include MSN which has integrated Seatwave's 'Ticket Finder' to enable music fans to search for tickets within the portal.

Joe Cohen, CEO of Seatwave explained: "We wanted to hire an independent agency and selected Harvest because they demonstrated a lot of experience in managing and growing a partnership strategy, and have a good understanding of the best way to integrate different online media channels".

The agency will plan a range of online activity to increase sales of tickets on Seatwave and encourage more people to sell tickets through the site.

Initial activity will focus on tickets for music, sports events and theatre.

Emma Wilson, Director at Harvest Digital, added: "We are currently in discussions with a number of major portals about Seatwave's partnership proposition in order to dominate the secondary ticket market and maximise the opportunity for people who want to buy or sell tickets online.

"This will be used as a platform for growing other media channels including search and display in order to make Seatwave's name synonymous with ticketing".

The online activity is supported by a broadcast advertising campaign.

Seatwave was founded by Joe Cohen, who has previously held executive roles at Match.com and Ticketmaster.

The marketplace offers a secure opportunity for buying and selling tickets with Seatwave's Ticket Cover providing a full refund if an event is cancelled and TicketIntegrity to ensure people selling tickets receive prompt payment for all orders that are confirmed and fulfilled.

Seatwave is Europe's largest fan-to-fan ticket exchange, an online marketplace for buying and selling tickets for theatre, sports, music and other live events.

The company was launched in February 2007 by Joe Cohen, ex Ticketmaster and ex match.com and early stage Venture Capital firm, Atlas Venture.

Seatwave has more than 500,000 tickets on sale, which is almost 10 times as many as eBay across Europe and 25 times as many as eBay UK.

Seatwave guarantees that tickets come only from legitimate sources and will represent them accurately and honestly.

Seatwave operates two types of customer protection.

Ticketintegrity guarantees that buyers will receive the tickets they ordered and in good time for the event.

If not Seatwave refunds 150 per cent of what was paid.

All tickets bought on Seatwave are also covered by Ticketcover.

This provides for a full refund if an event is cancelled and even covers buyers for a range of circumstances that may prevent them from attending their performance.

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