Creating an app for booking movie tickets: things you need to know

By Kyrylo SavytskyiNov 20, 20199 min read

bookingticketscinema

Creating an app for booking movie tickets: things you need to know

The movie industry is flourishing. And it’s expected to grow and reach $3+ m in revenue by 2022, according to Statista. And those are only numbers for e-tickets, not to mention usual ones. The reason for the success of e-tickets is simple: users can get them with just a few taps. Users really appreciate that they can find movies they’d like to enjoy and buy tickets with their smartphone, and that’s why the demand for movie ticket apps will keep rising.

The best movie ticket apps to follow
What features should you add to your movie ticket booking app for iPhone and Android?
What technologies do you need to develop a movie ticket app?
How much does it cost to develop an app for movie ticket booking
In a nutshell

Who controls the market of ticket distribution in the US?

Due to the high demand for e-ticket apps and platforms, there is a significant number of ticket platforms which are still on top of the market. Before building your mobile app for movie ticket booking, you’d better take a closer look at e-ticket sharks.

1. Ticketfly
Ticketfly is a major US ticket distribution platform. It features an event discovery site along with handy iOS and Android applications for event ticketing, analytics, and marketing. This platform is designed for event organizers. Note, Ticketfly has recently become Eventbrite.

2. Eventbrite
Eventbrite is another mobile and web platform for e-ticketing. It works all over the world. The platform is a powerful tool for event planning and management. Eventbrite focuses on both event-goers as well as even-creators.

3. Ticketmaster
Ticketmaster is an online booking platform. In fact, it’s the oldest one, a company founded back in 1976. The platform is aimed at even-goers, but still, it offers some opportunities for event promotion as well as event discovery.

Building a cinema ticket booking app isn’t an easy task. There are lots of hidden burdens you may face. So running short research on e-ticket business seems a pretty good idea, doesn’t it?

Now we can understand that a key to successful cinema business is a smooth user experience while looking for and buying tickets. Making this true takes both your time as well as effort. You need to develop an online movie ticket app that on the one hand, will be easy to manage and support, and on the other hand, will be easy, useful and engaging enough for your users. Swipe up for more useful tips and tricks on developing a movie ticket app for Android and iOS.

The best movie ticket apps to follow

Ticket booking apps have become so popular because no one wants to spend a couple of hours in line at the movie theatre to purchase tickets, especially for premiers. Many theatres, as well as movie ticket purchasing apps, allows for buying tickets online ahead of time.
Here are some top apps for movie theatres and tickets to have a look at before building your own cinema ticket booking app.

#1 Fandango Movie Tickets & Time

Available: iPhone, iPad, Android, and Web
Cost: Free

Fandango tops the US charts of movie ticket apps. No wonder! The app is extremely easy to use, covering most movie theatres across the US, plus it works for the UK, Canada, and Australia. But Fandango provides only some of the features (showtime and release dates) in the countries mentioned above.

Fandango’s top features:

Movie trailers with scores from Rotten Tomatoes and the most recent reviews help users pick up the best movies to enjoy
Save a list of local and favorite movie theatres for quick & easy access
Make and share plans for movie nights with friends via iMessage
Loyalty program for special discounts

#2 Atom Movie Tickets & Time

Available: iPhone, iPad, Android, and Web
Cost: Free

Atom is one of the build apps to book movie tickets in the US as well as Canada. The app has a convenient bonus plan for ordering concession stand goodies and planning a night out with pals.

Atom’s top features:

Pre-order movie snacks and pick them right before the movie starts
Plan a movie with pals, pay for tickets separately, and choose seats
Support for GPay, Apple Pay, PayPal, and a credit card
Collect theatre rewards points to spend them on tickets or movie snacks

What features should you add to your movie ticket booking app for iPhone and Android?

A user journey is a decisive factor when it comes to the success of the movie ticket booking app. Thus, you should pay your particular attention to how smooth will be user journey from the login to purchase. Here you can find a few points that will lead you through mobile app development:

Easy booking of movie tickets
Smart search by venue, city or movie genre
Options to choose and list favorite movie theatres
Access to reviews, trailers, and theatre lists

In fact, these applications have two types of users to care for. First, it’s your customers. And your admins. Thus, while building your app to book movie tickets, you need to develop a user panel as well as an admin or business panel.

Essential features for a user panel

User profile
Without user profiles, users won’t be able to use all the features of your app. So users have to register and create their personal profiles for a more personalized app experience. They need to provide their personal information, including name, email id, phone, password, and any other details if required.
Log in
Having created their personal profiles, users need to log in using the required credential like password and phone number. It would be great to allow them to log in using social links or emails.
Location
In order to simplify the search for movie theatres, consider adding location tracking. It can be selected via GPS or manually before users get to the home screen.
Home screen
The home screen is the kernel of your mobile application. It features the most important movie information, including upcoming and ongoing events. Here users will spend more than half of their app time. Try to make it smooth and easy to navigate.
Push notifications
Notifications are a great way of staying closer to your users. It’ll be a good idea to notify your users of price changes or new movies.
Lists of movies
This section allows your users to look through upcoming and ongoing movies and choose something for a movie night out. Consider adding search filters to narrow the list of movies. For example, allow for filtering by genre, ratings, price or location.
Movie details
Adding a trailer, some movie details, and ratings seems a pretty good idea, doesn’t it? Thus, it’ll facilitate users to use your app for both ticket booking as well as movie discovery.
Purchase and choose a seat
This section helps users choose a seat and buy tickets. Finally, they can go further to payment options.
Payment options
Provide your users with as many payment options as you can. Generally, you app should include payment by credit and debit cards. But nowadays, it’d be great to use smartphones’ built-in payment systems such as Apple Pay or Google Pay.
Reviews
It’s one of the most important features. Users should be able to share their thoughts on both movies as well as movie theatres.

Other not less important features of the user panel may include:

Age verifications (some movies has age restrictions)
Loyalty programs
Updates

Basic features for an admin panel

Login
Admins should also have personal profiles. And using their credentials, they can log in the app and manage the processes of movie ticket booking.
Dashboard
The dashboard is a workspace for your admins. Here they can check business stats, total bookings, and earnings, numbers of movies and movie theatres featured. Add or change anything in a movie schedule, etc.
Manage users
Your user lists need regular revisions. Otherwise, your app will be full of phantom users.
Manage events
Thanks to Manage Events section, admins will be able to add new events, movie theatres, or delete by-past ones.
Check stats and manage earnings
In this app section, admins, as well as business owners, will be able to check the performance of their business. Here they can check the actual earnings and the amount that has to be paid to venues. Moreover, the app can provide some valuable stats on how many users have registered, how many users have left the app, etc.

The features mentioned above are a kind of basic. Consider adding the following to make your app the best movie ticket booking app on the market:

Scanning e-tickets
Managing promotions
Upload new content
Sending push notifications

What technologies do you need to develop a movie ticket app?

There are plenty of technologies and mobile app types. So how to choose the right ones? Choose your developers and that’s it. You don’t need to take care of technical issues.

Your idea = our implementation

At mova.io, we develop different projects for a vast array of business spheres. So we exactly know what technologies to imply to develop top-notch mobile app solutions. Let’s find out what tech stack we’ll use to develop your movie app.

Firstly, a discount movie ticket app is a business app. So you should pay more attention to its functionality and quality. Thus, hybrid or cross-platform apps aren’t right up your street since your app won’t be able to make the most out of the device’s features and deliver a smooth experience.

Though, they are cheaper and faster to develop. But for complex business app, it’s better to opt for native app development. So you need to go native.

Then your choice is quite a simple iOS or Android? That depends on lots of reasons and factors including users, location, and popularity of a certain platform. And if you need apps for both platforms, we can build iOS app as well as Android.
For iOS, we’ll use Swift and for Android, our developers will take advantage of Kotlin or Java. Speaking about the fullest tech stack, we’ll also use Node.js for Backend issues and take care of Frontend with the help of Angular.js or React.js

How much does it cost to develop an app for movie ticket booking

Estimating a project cost without any details isn’t an easy thing. Remember that the following estimate is broad-brushed since there are many factors that may change the end price of your mobile app. You can always get a free estimate for your project by dropping us a line.

Customer analytics

	User panel	Admin panel
Basic features	Home screen	Dashboard
	Registration	Login
	Phone validation	Manage users
	Search features	Manage current and upcoming events
	Location	Settings
	Book movie ticket	Manage payments
	Payment	Manage orders
	Booking history
	Coupons
	Push notifications
	Built-in video player for trailers
	Calendar
Development time	3-4 months	5 weeks
Cost for developing an app for booking movie tickets	$12,000 - $14,000	$3,000 - $5,000
Advanced features	Rewards and loyalty	Manage transactions
	Support chatbot	Create and manage special offers
	Blog and newsfeed	Dashboard analytics
	Mobile wallet integration	Customer analytics
Development time	~1 month	2-4 weeks
Costs required to develop advanced features	$4,000 - $6,000	$2,000 - $3,000

In a nutshell

Movie ticket apps deal with a massive volume of user-generated data, photos and videos, and payments. So it’s needless to say that development requires more resources than let’s say the development of any entertainment app.

Before going in for mobile app development, you need to run deep research on your prospective market, find out if there are some free slots for your app, understand users and detect their pains, etc.

Any questions left? You know what to do if there are any issues you want to clear out. Right, just contact us.

Have a question? Just write to us at:

📮 mail@mova.io

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