SeatGeek connects millions of fans to thousands of live events, from NFL games and major concerts to emerging artists and local comedy shows. SeakGeek’s audience marketing team faced a challenge in promoting thousands of smaller Tier 2 events, which involved more data and targeting decisions than manual workflows could sustain.

SeakGeek worked with Simon AI to create a propensity-driven system that can evaluate millions of fan-event combinations and identify real intent across thousands of Tier 2 events. Instead of the team building one audience at a time, AI agents identify who is likely to buy and when. The experiment shifted the team from manual work to an always-on workflow in the test markets, improving fan relevance and accelerating how quickly SeatGeek can act on new events.

Finding the right fans for thousands of events

For Tier 1 events such as NFL games, MLB matchups, and headline tours, SeatGeek’s audience marketing team had reliable templates, predictable patterns, and well-defined audiences.

Tier 2 was different. Smaller shows represented meaningful revenue, but each required identifying the right buyers amid constantly shifting signals such as genre preferences, venue proximity, and demand patterns.

The team faced a fundamental constraint. Broad regional blasts would annoy fans unlikely to care. But building precise audiences by hand for thousands of Tier 2 events meant covering only a fraction of the inventory. 

"Our biggest challenge was figuring out which events to promote to which person at the right time, with so many events to choose from," says Steven Mastrocola, Senior Director, Audience Marketing at SeatGeek. "There are so many decisions the team needs to make every day when you try to match fans to great event experiences."

Manual audience building couldn't keep pace. By the time the segments were ready, conditions had changed,  and targeting was outdated before activation. SeatGeek needed a way to identify purchase propensity for this complex segment with the team they had in place. 

How AI Agents match fans to the right experiences

For SeatGeek, staying top of mind with millions of fans means being there at the right moment: when a favorite artist announces a tour, when a similar act performs locally, or when prices drop for a show they've browsed. These moments create natural re-engagement opportunities, but only if you can identify which fans care about which events before the window closes.

SeatGeek partnered with Simon AI to build an AI-powered propensity-scoring system that continuously matches fans to Tier 2 events they're most likely to attend.

In addition to analyzing purchase history, browsing behavior, location, and Spotify preferences, Simon AI Agents create AI personas—AI-generated fan profiles trained on SeatGeek’s signals—to better understand taste patterns and predict affinity even when historical data is sparse. This helps the system interpret intent for new artists, niche genres, and first-time performers.

For example, when a new indie rock show is announced at a venue, the AI Moment “New Indie Show – Market Area” triggers automatically. The agentic system identifies local fans with strong indie-rock propensity scores— informed by both real behavior and AI persona look-alike patterns—and sends the audience directly into Iterable. The campaign is ready to launch with no manual rebuilds.

During the initial test, the team's workflow changed completely. They set the goals and shaped messaging. The agents handled propensity modeling, audience assembly, and timing. No more monitoring signals or guessing at intent. The system triggered messages when the right moment met the right audience.

SeatGeek designed the campaigns to prove the model worked across real operational complexity in markets with diverse demographics, music scenes, and venue ecosystems.

Elevating how fans experience SeatGeek: Building trust through relevance

As the Tier 2 propensity program ran across three markets, the team realized the experiment had proven something more fundamental than better targeting. They'd built a repeatable framework that could scale to additional markets without human bottlenecks.

With AI, the operating model began to shift:

Traditional approach: Team capacity determined reach. Manual prioritization introduced bias. By the time audiences were built, moments had passed.

AI-powered approach: AI agents handle the data and execution complexity. A propensity model replaces guesswork. Fans receive recommendations when interest peaks.

The impact on fan experience became the critical unlock. When fans receive notifications about artists they love, venues they frequent, and events in their area, the recommendations feel personal.

"Simon AI lets us reach fans at the right moment with events they're genuinely likely to attend," Mastrocola explains. "Fans trust our recommendations because we're not spamming them with irrelevant shows. When they do get a notification, it matters, and that's what brings them back."

That trust enables a shift from campaign-first to fan-first thinking.

"Traditionally, we think: 'We have this campaign, how do we find an audience?'" Mastrocola notes. "But it should be flipped to start with a goal: 'How can we give fans the best live experiences?' Then AI agents identify the fans most likely to value upcoming events. By having machines make these decisions using the best possible data, it frees my team to focus on things like creative testing, where human judgment is more valuable."

Results: Unlocking Tier 2 at scale

With AI-driven Tier 2 targeting in multiple markets, SeatGeek achieved results that proved the value of agentic marketing:

• ‍70% increase in GTV per contact sent compared to a baseline of manually built audiences in all three markets‍
• 7.1% of each market was targeted weekly with high-propensity recommendations, demonstrating the model could operate continuously with reliable precision across events

The agentic system delivered significantly better performance while operating autonomously in support of SeatGeek's existing team. In addition, SeakGeek sees an opportunity for increased cross-sell, with fans engaged through Tier 2 promotions frequently purchasing other events, potentially at higher price points.

What's next: From mass marketing to relevant moments across SeatGeek's markets

SeatGeek proved that AI agents can solve problems human teams can't. Matching thousands of events to millions of fans with high relevance was operationally impossible, leaving both revenue and fan experience on the table. Now, the marketing team has an agentic marketing system that can operate alongside their team.

"Simon AI changed what's possible for us," Mastrocola explains. "The constraint was our capacity to identify the right buyers and engage them fast enough. Now that barrier is gone. My team isn't composed of data scientists, but we can operate like we have an army of them working in the background, continuously matching fans to events they'll actually value."

Instead of deciding which inventory to promote and assembling audiences by hand, Simon AI surfaces opportunities as they emerge, enabling the team to act quickly with recommendations that reflect what fans genuinely want to experience.