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New Metasearch for Events and Ticket Providers

You know it’s a search engine because it’s got some kind of weird name you’re not sure how to pronounce. Oyaka allows you to meta-search for both events and tickets; it’s in beta and available at http://www.oyaka.com/.

The front page has a multi-line query box; not sure why, but okay. Run a search that describes an event (concert) or a place (Boston) or the object of an event (Carolina Panthers). You’ll get a waiting page as the search runs (the first time I ran a search it took a long time; subsequent searches seemed to be faster) and then a list of events.

I ran a search for “carolina panthers” charlotte, looking for just home games. I didn’t get any results; Oyaka likes simpler searches. I reran a search just for Carolina Panthers and got a result list that included event name, location, date, number of tickets available, and a link to find tickets. (More about that in a minute.)

To filter by location and date, look in the left nav of the search results. Click on location or date and you’ll get a list of filter options. Click on one and the page refreshes with the new list.

Find an event and want tix? Click on the “Find Tickets” link for any result, and another search will run, providing you with a list of available tickets from several different markets. I saw eBay, StubHub, TicketLiquidator, and Ticketmall. (In the case of my Carolina Panthers search, there was an available popup window that shows the layout of the Panthers’ stadium.) From these results there’s another link that’ll take you directly to the marketplace (not, it appears, to individual auction pages — at least not on eBay — but to the marketplace.)

Though you won’t be able to buy tickets from it, there’s also a mobile version of Oyaka; details are available at http://www.oyaka.com/mobilepg.php. And for some reason you can make blogs at Oyaka (don’t really get that): http://www.oyaka.com/blog/.

I liked the two stages of searches for Oyaka, though there was an occasional wait lag for tickets. An advanced search that lets you do a little bit of preemptive date and location narrowing might be nice too.

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