Seattle Symphony-Listen Boldly

Whoever made the Seattle Symphony app spent their entire budget on high-res graphics and selecting just the "right" shave of magenta, leaving nothing for implementing the sort of functionality and usability needed in such an app. The performance is sluggish, the back button often fails to work, scrolling is often wrongly registered as a tap, and when you do manage to go back to what you were scrolling through, after the spinner finishes (caching, people!) you get back to the top of the list instead of where you were. Purchasing tickets is less than even an afterthought. Tickets are listed with words ("Founders Tier", "Orchestra B", etc.), with no indication of where in the auditorium those sections are. Furthermore, there seems to be no ability to actually choose which seats in these mysterious section my tickets apply to! This app is nothing more than a cruel joke. If I could give it zero stars, I would.

The symphony does not promote mobile-friendly tickets well enough to make using this app a convenient or reliable way to obtain digital tickets on the go. The app itself fails to load promptly nor does it show all of the ticket information. Ticket information is also not compatible with Apple Wallet or other apps that are designed to save the tickets for ease-of-use. The parking tickets are not accessible on the mobile app at all. The Symphony needs to seriously consider a new app platform or modification to the existing app to improve its functioning. I can see many people running into the dilemma of not being able to access their tickets upon entry with this app not meeting modern mobile platform accessibility standards. Boo.

The symphony itself never disappoints, but the business operation seems to have two modes: “gimme-gimme” or “distrust.” Believe me, everyone is not out to get you, SS. There isn’t some big syndicate trying to scalp your precious tickets. Venues with budgets an order of magnitude more than yours seem to beable to treat their customers with respect; learn from them. We all know that running a business is tough these days and only getting tougher, but begging for more and more money on every page gets bothersome. I’ve given; I gave. I’ll give again, but not every single time I open your app or access your web page. If you can’t run your business, you need to step aside and let someone else do it.