Fandango today added a "Buy Tickets" button on the company's Instagram profile, letting visitors to the page purchase tickets to films currently in theaters as well as pre-order tickets for unreleased movies (via The Hollywood Reporter). The move is said to be part of an overall push by Instagram into a "shoppable tags" commerce feature, and comes after the social network debuted a native payments option for select users last week.
The Buy Tickets button sits to the right of Fandango's existing Shop button on its Instagram profile, and when you tap it a mobile.fandango.com page loads with movies both now playing and coming soon. You can choose a film, find a showtime, and sign into your Fandango account (or check out as a guest) to complete the purchase.
"As millions of movie fans have gravitated to social media platforms to discover, share and engage with their favorite movie content, Fandango has been essential to that experience, offering ticketing capabilities and access to the most comprehensive network of U.S. theaters," said Fandango president Paul Yanover. "We're very excited to integrate ticketing into our Fandango Instagram, and look forward to working with our studio partners to help transform consumer passion into advance ticket purchases."
Instagram has featured ads that users can tap and purchase items with for over two years, but it's important to note that Fandango's initiative is housed entirely on the company's profile page and won't be a sponsored Instagram post. This should make it easier to navigate to Fandango and quickly purchase a movie ticket if you're already in the Instagram app.
Although movie subscription services like MoviePass and Sinemia have been gaining more attention over the past few months, Fandango says its traditional ticket ordering business has grown as well. The company says its own sales made up 33 percent of the U.S. box office for the opening weekend of Avengers: Infinity War, which is now the highest-grossing opening weekend at the domestic box office with $257.7 million earned in three days. According to comScore, Fandango nets more than 60 million unique visitors per month.
When pre-purchasing tickets, Fandango's iOS app also integrates with Apple's Wallet app, so movie theaters can easily scan your pass at the box office on the day of the showing.
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