New app INWEGO gets you game tickets for monthly fee

For $29 a month, fans will have the ability to attend Braves, Blaze, Silverbacks, Hustle, Hawks, Falcons, Dream and Georgia Tech games. In addition, local PGA Tour and NHRA events are included.

INWEGO was created and will be managed by Experience, the technology used by more than 300 live entertainment partners worldwide and nearly 75 percent of all professional sports teams including those in Atlanta. Experience is a division of Cox Enterprises, which owns The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“The really cool thing to me is I’ve never seen a consumer application that is like this,” said Greg Foster, president and CEO of Experience. “It requires that in a market, you have enough breadth to make it worth your money. You can’t just pay the money but the Hawks are out of the package or the Braves are out of the package. You have to have breadth to it. We worked really hard to get those deals in place to make the value proposition really compelling.”

There is no limit to the number of events a user can attend a month. The technology also allows a group to attend and sit together. Once inside, fans have a number of other options, including ticket upgrades.

Atlanta will be the first market where INWEGO is available, although new markets will soon be considered. Users can get a list of live events and can make an instant decision to attend, even up to the last minute.

“Research has shown that young people are not necessarily planners to go to a game weeks in advance,” said Steve Koonin, Hawks CEO. “We see tremendous utilization of the app on weekend games and featured games where people are saying, ‘What do you want to do tonight?’ Sports in Atlanta are an entertainment option. We are fortunate to be in a city with great restaurants and a lot of things to do. If you are deciding what to do on a Friday or Saturday night, going to a sporting event is an option.”

Being included with the significant inventory of Atlanta sports is an important element, especially to Georgia Tech. The school has the ability to engage its student body and alumni with existing platforms. The new app will allow Tech to reach new audiences.

“All lifelong Yellow Jacket fans started with attending a first game,” said Rick Thorpe, Georgia Tech associate athletic director for sales and fan experience. “We are excited about the prospect of introducing new event-goers throughout Atlanta to Georgia Tech athletics via choice, flexibility, access and value because that’s what today’s event-goers are demanding.

“The millennials are the largest segment of our population now. They are an on-demand constituency. Having an app that is available to them, we make sure that at any point that fans have the ability, with a technology such as this, that at a moment’s notice to make a decision and walk into a game. The opportunity to be tied in with all the significant sports properties in greater Atlanta, we consider it an excellent opportunity for us to continue to expose our athletic programs to event-goers here in Atlanta.”

Non-tickets sports, such as men’s and women’s tennis and track and field, will also be included on the app for Georgia Tech.

For local teams, the app provides a chance to fill seats that may have gone empty. It also helps provides important information for return fans or possible new season-ticket holders.

“For anybody with a high volume of games — baseball and basketball — they love this because if it’s a Tuesday night and a team is coming in that isn’t really going to draw a crowd, this is an excellent opportunity to pick up people,” Foster said. “They still make most of their money on season-ticket holders but I’m going to get more people in the seats. … You would rather have somebody in a seat at a discount than not have somebody in that seat.”

Experience has a relationship with Live Nation, which means access to a number of local concert venues is a possibility in the future.