IIHF ticketing platform

Designed and built the Riga ticketing site for the 2023 IIHF World Championship in Finland and Latvia, on an external ticketing API. It held up on launch day.

Client: IIHF
Country: Switzerland
Industry: Sport
Year: 2023
My role: UX and UI design; front-end build
Team: Via Graftik

Riga ticket site for the 2023 IIHF World Championship: a day ticket with its three games

Problem

The official IIHF site sends buyers to the local ticketing site, which had to present the offer clearly and connect to an external ticketing platform.

Games by group, early-bird offers and grouped ticket packages
An external ticketing platform with technical restrictions
The traffic rush when tickets went on sale

Approach

Every decision traces back to evidence. Each step has an ID, and every insight and decision names the evidence it came from.

S001
Source
The ticket offer
Games, groups, early-bird offers and packages.
S002
Source
The ticketing platform
Its API and its technical restrictions.
S003
Source
On-sale planning
The traffic expected when sales open.
E001
Evidence
Many ways to buy
Single games, groups and grouped packages.
From S001
E002
Evidence
Hard limits
What the API could and couldn’t do.
From S002
D001
Decision
Organized by game and group
With early-bird and grouped tickets easy to find.
From E001
D002
Decision
A front end on the API
Easy to use while working around its restrictions.
From E002
D003
Decision
Traffic control
Prepared before launch so the site wouldn’t crash.
From S003

Solution

I designed the UX and UI and built the whole front end on the platform’s API.

The 2023 World Championship

Riga’s games were sold as day tickets, each covering every game of the day.

Offer structured by games and groups
Day tickets that bundle all games of a day
Front end built on the ticketing platform’s API
Involved in traffic control before launch

Day ticket banner with the date and three games, each with team flags — Day ticket banner, in the tournament’s “We live the game” look

Day ticket overview without team flags — Day ticket overview, first version

Day ticket overview with team flags next to each game — Second version, with team flags for faster scanning

Where it started: 2021 and the Olympic qualification

The site first launched for the 2021 World Championship in Riga, with seat selection on the arena map. A few months later, the IIHF used it again for the final qualification for the 2022 Olympic men’s ice hockey tournament, also in Riga. In 2023 it carried the Riga games of the World Championship.