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SeatGeek Runs .NET-Based Business-Critical Ticketing Platform on AWS

Overview

When mobile-focused ticket marketplace SeatGeek acquired enterprise ticketing platform TopTix to create SeatGeek Enterprise, SeatGeek’s software developers immediately faced a challenge: they had to quickly build SeatGeek Open, an integration platform between a major U.S. sports team and the world-class experience on SeatGeek. “We traditionally ran our applications on Linux machines, but TopTix primarily used Windows-based applications,” says Jon Coe, a senior software engineer for SeatGeek. SeatGeek formed a new team around this integration that uses Amazon Web Services (AWS) Linux-based applications. The team needed to develop SeatGeek Open, the new integration layer, in just a few months. “In addition to that challenge, we had a short development timeline, and the service had to be reliable and scalable to support major ticket sales and live events,” Coe says.

The new service, available at open.seatgeek.com, had even higher performance and scalability requirements than SeatGeek had before. To meet these requirements, the team knew it had to find a new development approach. “Since the acquisition, we are supporting everything from buying tickets to scanning tickets inside event venues,” says Coe. “As a result, we had to ensure performance and scalability, as well as high availability for our applications. Our application needs to run reliably, so people can get their tickets scanned and get into the stadium without problems.”

About SeatGeek

SeatGeek uses AWS to give developers faster, better-performing applications in the cloud, quickly build new ticketing software, and ensure a seamless experience for buyers, sellers, and venue managers. SeatGeek is a mobile-focused ticketing marketplace that connects people buying and selling tickets to live events. The company runs its Microsoft .NET–based applications on AWS.

Using Microsoft .NET Core on AWS

SeatGeek chose to use Microsoft .NET Core and C#, in addition to Linux and Postgres, to create an industry-shifting integration platform that connects suppliers and sellers. “.NET Core suited our needs in terms of a fast integration and strong performance, but we still needed the scalability and reliability piece,” Coe says. “We knew running .NET Core on AWS would give us exactly what we needed as far as scalability and high availability.”

SeatGeek Enterprise’s back-office technology runs all its .NET-based applications on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), Amazon EC2 for Windows Server, and Microsoft SQL Server on Amazon EC2. Taking advantage of Microsoft .NET on AWS, SeatGeek Open developers were able to create the complex new SeatGeek Open integration layer that connects sellers and buyers. The service plugs seatgeek.com and other distribution partners into each box office. .NET Core allowed SeatGeek to deploy a C# application on Linux, with all the language's strength and its advantages of communicating with a .NET Framework Windows application, while still running in Linux Docker containers like all its other services.

A Seamless Experience on AWS

SeatGeek took advantage of best practices for deploying and running .NET applications on AWS. As a result, the company’s Python and Linux engineers had the same seamless experience using .NET on Amazon EC2. “We were very impressed with how smooth the move to .NET on AWS was,” says Coe. “The overall experience was seamless for our Python engineers and the .NET developers that came to us in the acquisition. It also helps that we were very familiar with AWS services, and we were confident this move would work.”

Taking Advantage of a Global, Reliable, and High-Performance Platform

Running .NET on AWS gives SeatGeek faster and stronger performance than running in an on-premises environment. “AWS provided a high-performance platform for running our .NET Core and Windows-based applications,” says Coe.

.NET on AWS is deeply integrated with Microsoft Visual Studio and.NET Core to help accelerate development cycles. In addition, AWS provides familiar tools such as the .NET SDK to help developers quickly deploy and build .NET applications.

Improving Customer Experience for Ticket Sellers, Buyers, and Venues

SeatGeek is seeing higher reliability and high availability for its .NET-based ticketing platform. “By running our .NET application on AWS, we get high availability, which is critical to ensure a seamless experience for ticket sellers, buyers, and sports and concert venue managers,” says Coe. SeatGeek also has the scalability it needs to support its mobile ticket-scanning application, which needs to scale at specific times during events and new ticket sale times. “Using AWS, we have the ability to scale our application servers on demand with minimal maintenance,” says Coe. “We can build great experiences selling and delivering primary box-office tickets to fans, in addition to the inventory on our longstanding resale platform.”

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SeatGeek logo featuring blue text and a stylized blue chair icon on a white background.
By running our .NET application on AWS, we get high availability, which is critical to ensure a seamless experience for ticket sellers, buyers, and sports and concert venue managers.

Jon Coe

Senior Software Engineer, SeatGeek