Making the 2016 World Figure Skating Championships truly exceptional

In the ramp-up to the 2016 Worlds, the International Skating Union encountered a problem: Visa and MasterCard rules won’t allow the sale of tickets to an event more than twelve months in advance. 

Since a cardholder has six months to dispute a charge, sales more than a year before the event would put banks on the hook for 100% of the liability until six months after the show takes place. Rather than judge it on a case-by-case basis, Visa and MasterCard wouldn’t allow far-advance purchases for any event. 

But the fact is, the World Figure Skating Championships aren’t just any event. It’s the type of spectacle people wait years for—and FPP understood the importance of getting those tickets into market with time to spare. We worked hand-in-hand with Visa and the 2016 Worlds to get a waiver that extended the pre-sale period to 18 months. This gave early access to the friends, family, and teammates of all the hopefuls. 

The result: $1.2 Million in sales in the first ten minutes, and major site traffic that crashed the servers and led to duplicate sales. This massive barrage of WooCommerce customers showed the banks the classic signs of credit card fraud. We reassured Visa that wasn’t the case, and worked with them to manage their payment cycles all the way up to the event. Together with the ISU and Visa, FPP managed the flow of transactions, streamlined high-volume sales, and made sure that everyone got exactly what they purchased.