Atom Tickets teams with Flikflix on 'Tinder-like' movie app

Brief:

Movie search app Flikflix teamed up with ticketing app Atom Tickets to let Apple TV viewers discover and buy movie tickets. The integration of their platforms means that users of the Flikflix App for Apple TV who look up movies based on the name of a favorite actor can immediately buy tickets for nearby theaters and view trailers or synopses, per an announcement.
The platform can also help users find movies from video-streaming services like HBO, Starz, Showtime, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video and YouTube, among others. After users select a desired actor, the app will surface top films featuring that actor in a swipeable "Tinder" fashion.
Flikflix's Matchmaker tool virtually connects friends looking to watch a film together by delivering suggestions through AirDrop, direct messages or email.

Insight:

The integration between Flikflix and Atom Tickets aims to make ticket-buying more convenient for Apple TV users who base their movie selections on personalized preferences. The combination saves a few steps between browsing for movies and opening a separate app to search for a film title and make a ticket purchase.

Flikflix touts itself as a "Tinder-like" app for moviegoers with its focus on searching films based on favorite actors. By incorporating Tinder's familiar format, users may be more comfortable with Flikflix's movie discover tool, while the mobile messaging feature could help to boost app awareness and longer-term usage.

Atom Tickets seeks to help mobile users avoid sold-out shows, eliminate paper tickets, order food and drinks from the concession stand and skip lines at theaters. The integration with Flikflix comes as Atom Tickets expands its footprint to more theaters. The company — which is backed by Lionsgate, Disney and Fidelity — recently partnered with the Cinemark chain to add more than 4,500 movie screens at 340 theaters in the U.S. to its network, per an announcement.

Atom Tickets is seeking to expand its usability while facing a rivalry with Fandango, the movie ticketing app and website owned by Comcast. Fandango recently began letting moviegoers buy tickets to "Brightburn," the superhero horror film from Sony Pictures Entertainment, by pointing their smartphone cameras at a TV screen. Commercials for the movie showed a QR code that, after a quick scan, automatically brought mobile users to the Fandango website to make a ticket purchase. Both Atom Tickets and Fandango have expanded their services to voice platforms to let people buy tickets from Amazon's Alexa virtual assistant, further demonstrating how consumers are growing more reliant on mobile platforms for discovering entertainment options and making transactions.