iTickets.com’s main purpose is to allow users to find Christian happenings in their area, and possibly buy tickets for them. A deeper look reveals more goodies!
The Good
iTickets is good at what it’s designed for. Almost every Christian act is listed and the tour dates are regularly updated. I’ve noticed over the years that they’ve been offering tickets to more shows, a testament to how much they’ve grown, no doubt. iTickets has even become the early retailer for some shows, forcing you to use them if you want to get those good seats for bigger shows.
It’s when you look around the site, however that you truly find the gems. For one, each week at least one song is offered up for free, legal, download to registered users. Registration is free, so there’s no pain there. Many of these songs are by top Christian artists, from current albums. As I write this three songs are available, one from Pillar, one from Fireflight, and one fom Worth Dying For. Also, iTickets has a lyrics section where you can search for lyrics to your favorite songs. To be honest, this is the best laid out part of the site, and the best lyrics site I’ve used. It has a Web 2.0 feel that the rest of the site is lacking, and would be nice to see on other lyrics sites.
The site also has a section to advertise family friendly movies. You can look through the movies and even view the trailers. Rounding out the non concert searching on the top menu is a live show photo gallery, a section for promoters, and a help link. They even have a link to follow them on Twitter!
The Bad
The website is good at what it does, but it does not look good doing it. Search, although improved over past versions, is somewhat clunky. Also, the site looks like it was designed in 1999. We’re not talking Google simplicity, it looks cluttered. It reminds me of one of the first sites I made using the old homestead.com. It was ugly then, and would still be ugly now!
The site’s look is cluttered with what appear at first to be random advertisements, but when you look closer are advertisements for concert tours that link back to the site itself. The implementation of the ads is distracting. Also distracting from the main page are polls, and a picture of the week.
The Bottom Line
If you can get past the ugly, iTickets is a very nice site. The lyrics feature is a nice touch, and the free music is great! Who doesn’t love filling an iPod with legal free music? I use iTickets all the time when looking for a specific act, or if I need to buy tickets for a show. Hopefully the designers will learn some Ajax, and take some web design courses. Even if they don’t, I’ll still trudge through the ugly to get to the goods. Try it out!
Filed under: Web
