TickBid: A Web Application to Sell, Buy or Bid on Event Tickets

Abstract

Online event ticketing systems have become an essential tool for event organizers to sell tickets online, as they allow a wider audience to access their events, streamline the registration and payment process, and ultimately increase ticket sales. These web-based applications are user-friendly, making them accessible to people without technical expertise, and typically offer features such as event creation, ticket generation, customer and event management, payment integration, and reporting. However, the innovative Tickbid platform elevates the ticket purchasing experience by integrating a ticket bidding system, where buyers can bid on tickets even at the last minute. The bidding mechanism works by recording bids as part of the ticket dataset in the platform's database, and a cron job runs on the server side to manage the bidding process. The bid monitor selects the winning bids using a merge sort algorithm and creates a pending payment order for the winning bidders, who can then purchase the ticket through the regular buying process and receive a QR code for validation. The bidding amount is checked against an abstract class, with the option to override it for different prices. While several event ticketing systems have been developed to streamline the buying and selling process, most of them only allow for the direct purchasing of tickets at a fixed price. Tickbid, on the other hand, offers buyers a more dynamic and flexible ticket-purchasing experience by allowing them to bid on tickets they are interested in. As a pioneer in this area, Tickbid has been influenced by existing bidding systems such as eBay and those used in the airline industry. Overall, online event ticketing systems have become an indispensable tool for event organizers to sell tickets, and Tickbid's innovative bidding system provides a new level of flexibility and dynamic purchasing options for buyers, setting it apart from other ticketing platforms.