Sure there are services to sell tickets to arenas and event spaces (not to mention parties and the like) but thus far there hasn’t been a good way to allow customers to pick their seats. TicketLeap, a ticketing website, has solved that problem.

Wedding planners don’t get too excited yet: the system is mostly for folks who run bigger event spaces like halls and arenas. You can lay out your space using TicketLeap’s browser-based tools and add various features like bathrooms, Wi-Fi points, and handicapped access spots.

I’ve seen a few startups in this space, including one promising one that actually allows you to create seating charts for parties and smaller events, but this is an interesting start, especially in the stagnant world of event ticketing.

Seats can be color-coded according to price and all layouts are stored in the cloud for future use. Definitely handy for organizing the spectators at your next game at the old ōllamaliztli court.

Ticketea operates in particularly crowded sector. Locally, there’s the traditional but perhaps stale player, Entradas, and the early-stage StageHQ. Internationally, competitors include Eventbrite, Amiando (both of which have traction in Spain) and TicketLeap, among others.

Ticketea recently reached agreements to partner with EMI Entertainment, as well as a number of independent record labels, such as Arctica Pro.

Javier Andres, Ticketea’s CEO, insists that they’re not to be confused with a mere ticketing company, however, but are working to provide a more robust event management system. The new funds will be used to develop and reinforce event distribution through a number of social media features.

Tickets are, after all, “social tokens”. Therefore Ticketea is focusing on providing social distribution channels for event organizers who can use the service to set up an event on a domain or subdomain of their choice, and include their own branding or look and feel. They can then integrate their in-house email database, sell merchandise along with tickets, and take advantage of a number of promotional badges, widgets and integration with blogs, Facebook and Myspace. Pricing is set at 8%, with a €0.80 minimum commission.

To enter other markets, mainly LATAM, Ticketea offers an API for event portals who can integrate the technology as a whitelabel. What’s still not clear, however, is whether Ticketea plans to directly enter additional, more complex markets.

Next up on the company’s agenda: further distribution and mobile apps.

So far, US companies like Eventbrite or Ticketleap dominate this market, although Germany’s Amiando is giving them a run for their money and Belgium’s Oxynade is gearing up for launch.

Now Spanish startup Ticketea, an online service that tries to boost the traditional management of events, has entered the game, raising a modest $280,000 and will launch in the next few weeks. The company will be based in Spain and is backed by American and Spanish business angels. Investors include Jaime Diaz, founder and CEO of the NYC Investment company, Worldwide Wealth Management. Diaz is also an experienced investor in relevant Internet companies such as Digital Domain, Artica or Domin-8.

This Spanish company aims to develop a different way to promote events and sell tickets for small and medium size event organizers by levering 2.0 tools, and will try to make organizers’ life easier in six areas when it comes to manage an event: Attendees Registration, Event Promotion, Event Monetization, Ticket Distribution, Ticket Validation and Data analysis.

This will be the first venture of this kind in Spain, and was set up by two friends who came across this business idea when they were trying to organise a party in order to raise funds for a non-profit organisation: the 2009 Mongol Rally. Javier Andrés, founder of the venture, initially developed this original idea as a student project for the Instituto de Empresa’s Venture Program.

While there are many companies offering online ticketing services to organizers (full disclosure: I’m a partner at Oxynade, which also markets an e-ticketing solution), TicketLeaps claims to be the first one that provides its customers with a way to use their own computers to sell tickets at their events. It does acknowledge however that there may sometimes be extra equipment needed too (think bar-code scanners or printers) and thus offers a way for their customers to rent it directly from them in case they don’t own any.

The cloud-based Anywhere software service includes ticket barcode scanning, the ability for customers to choose their exact seat and support for all sorts of venue customization. TicketLeaps charges a ‘small fee’, although it’s unclear exactly how much, for every ticket that gets sold through the platform and says most organizers opt to simply charge the extra fee to the patron. The company expects most ticketing solutions to follow suit and eventually live in the cloud as well.

“It’s only a matter of time before every ticket you buy comes from web-based ticketing software like this,” TicketLeap CEO Chris Stanchak says. “There’s really no comparison when it comes to cost, convenience and flexibility.”

TicketLeap was started by Stanchak as a recent Wharton graduate back in 2003. In July 2008, the company raised its first round of financing: $2 million from MentorTech Ventures and Ben Franklin Technology Partners.

TicketLeap, a service that helps promoters sell tickets to their events though a self-serve platform, has raised $2 million in a Series A funding round led by MentorTech Ventures and Ben Franklin Technology Partners.

TicketLeap differentiates itself from large ticket vendors by catering to small companies and events. Rather than charge event coordinators for selling their tickets, TicketLeap passes on the cost to the ticket buyer by charging a small fee along with each ticket. The Philadelphia-based company was founded in 2003 by Christopher Stanchak, who initially created the site as part of Wharton’s Venture Initiation Program.

There are a number of strong competitors in the ticket management space, most notably Eventbrite, which charges event planners a set fee of 2.5% for every ticket sold (users can also choose to pass on the fee to their customers, as they can with TicketLeap).