e-ACE: seat-booking e-Assistant for Cultural

 

Angelos Vardakis¹, Evi Papaioannou²*, Christos Kaklamanis²

¹University of Patras, Greece, vardaki@ceid.upatras.gr

²University of Patras and CTI “Diophantus, Greece, papaioan@ceid.upatras.gr, kakl@ceid.upatras.gr

*Corresponding author

 

Abstract

We present e-ACE, an online e-assistant for seat booking in the context of cultural events (concerts, performances, festivals, etc). e-ACE is an online platform built on PHP, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery and MySQL. It is an open platform which can be accessed by registered users, i.e., cultural event organizers and participants/attendees. Cultural event organizers - or Managers - create events providing as input event details like event name, a plan of the hall where the event will be hosted, attendee list, start time and duration. In addition, a seat-editing functionality allows Managers to classify seats into categories like VIP, average, upper, unavailable, etc. Then, participants/attendees owing a valid ticket for a particular event can simply register using their ticket identifier and book their seat according to restrictions imposed by their ticket category. Results appear online but can also be exported and saved locally in .xls format. e-ACE follows a responsive web design which allows it to automatically resize, hide, shrink or enlarge in order to automatically fit on the screens of different devices (desktop computers, tablets, smartphones). e-ACE suggests a very useful management tool for entities (individuals, groups, institutes) organizing cultural events. It can significantly facilitate the event management process offering flexibility and efficiency. Furthermore, e-ACE could be also used for seat booking or allocation purposes in the context of scientific, social or educational events.

Keywords: smart service; online application; management of cultural events; online seat-booking; CentOS; hmtl5.