The ticketing industry has made waves in recent years, plagued by reports of fan frustrations and poor consumer protections. Now, one of the industry's biggest playersthat lawmakers across the U.S. were joining forces against a problem so acute that the government felt it was necessary to step in and use regulation to force its resolution. That problem is bots.
For businesses, the repercussions are even more severe. Bots can distort sales data, making it difficult to gauge genuine demand and manage inventory effectively. Additionally, high volumes of bot traffic can overwhelm ticketing websites, leading to slower response times and even crashes during peak sale periods. This not only results in lost sales but also tarnishes the brand's reputation.
Bots harvest data from ticketing websites, including prices and availability, which can be used for unfair competitive advantage or to resell tickets on secondary markets.Bots place tickets in shopping carts without completing the purchase, effectively removing them from the inventory available to legitimate buyers.Many ticketing platforms employ traditional defenses such as CAPTCHAs, rate limiting and basic IP blocking to combat bots.
Internal steps and collaborative efforts are paramount to successfully adopting these strategies. Implementing a multilayered security approach involves integrating advanced bot detection and mitigation technologies that can identify and neutralize threats in real time. This includes deploying machine learning models that analyze user behavior, detect anomalies and distinguish between legitimate users and malicious bots.