Case Study: A Ticket Booking Platform

1. The Question

"Design the backend for a ticket booking platform for concerts and sports. Seats are named and numbered. When a popular show goes on sale, 50,000 people hit it in the same second for 20,000 seats."

The e-commerce case study had inventory too, but a phone case oversold is a backorder and an apology email. Named seats cannot be substituted or restocked, so overselling puts two ticket holders in one seat in front of an usher.