BlazeMeter Uses the Force of Performance Testing to Prepare MovieTickets.com for the Release of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”

SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Movie releases are major traffic events for online ticket providers. So when the most storied movie franchise in history comes out with a new chapter, it creates a unique performance challenge. That’s whyMovieTickets.com, a worldwide leader in advance movie ticketing, turned to BlazeMeter to ensure that its new Amazon Web Services infrastructure could manage the volume of online ticket orders around opening weekend for “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.”

The majority of online advance ticket buying occurs 1-2 weeks prior to a release date, but the release of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” marked a historically unique buying trend, as MovieTickets.com was inundated with pre-orders months prior to the film’s December 2015 release date.

“The demand for advance ticketing during the first buying opportunity was unprecedented,” said Craig Lefkowitz, Director of Infrastructure Systems at MovieTickets.com. “We had not seen that type of volume two months before a movie release, so we needed to make sure we were well prepared for opening weekend.”

To prepare its site to meet demand, MovieTickets.com wanted to upgrade its infrastructure to manage spikes in volume, migrating to an Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud environment that could scale alongside demand. However, in order to make sure the new cloud-based infrastructure could perform optimally, the company enlisted the help of BlazeMeter’s continuous performance testing technology.

“We chose BlazeMeter because it’s the leader in performance testing,” said Lefkowitz. “BlazeMeter is a standout and very well-respected in the industry. We needed to utilize a proven solution to get us ready for such an important event.”

MovieTickets.com used BlazeMeter’s performance testing solution to examine various load volumes and times across the AWS infrastructure. A member of the AWS CodePipeline partner network, inaugural DevOps Competency Program member and trusted partner, BlazeMeter’s testing solution can integrate directly into an AWS DevOps or continuous delivery framework, identifying trouble spots in real-time and readying the site for major traffic events.

With BlazeMeter’s help, MovieTickets.com tested their infrastructure to manage more than 30,000 simultaneous users per second. As they continued to extend their infrastructure, that number expanded to more than 300,000 concurrent visitors.

“The higher the performance expectation from an event, the greater the need to ensure an infrastructure can support the required service level,” said Alon Girmonsky, CEO and Founder of BlazeMeter. “The trust that large companies have in our technology around critical events speaks to the importance of performance overall. The inability to manage the volume directly equates to lost sales, making performance testing a critical investment for any company that needs to maintain peak performance at all times.”

“Performance is our top priority,” said Lefkowitz. “Our customers have high expectations and we need to meet those expectations.”

For more information on how MovieTickets.com works with BlazeMeter, visit https://www.blazemeter.com/case-study/movietickets?utm_source=BM&utm_medium=newswire&utm_campaign=MovieTickets. And for more information on how to improve site performance through continuous performance testing, visit https://blazemeter.com/.

About BlazeMeter
BlazeMeter ensures delivery of high-performance software by enabling DevOps teams to quickly and easily run open-source based performance tests against any mobile app, website or API at massive scale to validate performance at every stage of software delivery. The rapidly growing BlazeMeter community has over 100,000 developers and includes prominent global brands such as Adobe, Atlassian, Gap, NBC Universal, Pfizer and Walmart as customers. Founded in 2011, the company is headquartered in Mountain View, California with Research & Development in Tel Aviv, Israel.

For more information, sign up for a free 14-day trial at www.blazemeter.com, visit our blog or find us on Twitter @BlazeMeter and on LinkedIn.

About MovieTickets.com
MovieTickets.com is the leader in advance movie ticketing with nearly 250 theater chains, representing over 28,000 screens in its group, offering moviegoers a quick and convenient way to purchase tickets online, via mobile devices and at 877-789-MOVIE. The company currently enables remote ticketing for consumers across 21 countries/territories including the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, Argentina, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and the Caribbean. Fans can stay connected with MovieTickets.com through Facebook (facebook.com/MovieTicketscom), Twitter (twitter.com/movietickets) and YouTube (youtube.com/c/movietickets).