SeatQuest lets you search for event tickets online
SeatQuest lets you zoom in on available seats in your price range.
(Credit: SeatQuest)Chicago-based start-up SeatQuest is offering a way to search online for seats for games, concerts, plays, and other performances.
The site offers up a search box for venue, event or ZIP code. The full public launch is set for November 27, which might explain why not all of the venues offered for San Francisco had tickets listed for sale and some venues were missing for the Bay Area. For instance, searching for musical group "Iron and Wine" shows venues in San Diego, Portland, and Dallas, but not Oakland, Calif., where they are playing at the Paramount later this month.
The interface is pretty straightforward. After you type in a request and select an option, it loads a map of the available seats for that venue. You can input the number of seats you want, and offer a maximum price you want to pay and it will mark the seats on the venue map that fit your criteria. Clicking on a seat displays information about the exact location and price in a pop-up window. It's fairly easy to navigate a magnifying glass over the seats and rows to see more specifically the location and arrangement of the seats.
You can click on a button to buy tickets from various ticket selling agencies.
The application also will be available in Facebook, where people can use it to see where friends are seated at shows.
Elinor Mills covers Internet security and privacy. She joined CNET News in 2005 after working as a foreign correspondent for Reuters in Portugal and writing for The Industry Standard, the IDG News Service, and the Associated Press. E-mail Elinor.
