AttractionTickets.com
Attraction Tickets is the UK’s No.1 broker for Florida theme parks — providing real, gate-ready tickets with next-day delivery and a seamless online experience.
Overview
AttractionTickets.com is a leading e-commerce platform specialising in theme park and attraction ticket sales. With over 4 million tickets sold, they’ve built a reputation for delivering real tickets (not vouchers) for major parks including Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando Resort, SeaWorld, and more.
Unlike typical e-commerce websites, their platform handles high volumes of time-sensitive bookings, complex pricing rules, and third-party API integrations — all while maintaining PCI compliance and fast performance across devices.
The Challenge
The business was scaling fast and needed a tech stack and development process that could keep up. The original infrastructure had legacy elements that were limiting performance and maintainability. Key pain points included:
- Outdated PHP codebase with inconsistent practices
- Frontend templates that were hard to scale or reuse
- Slow page loads on mobile and high drop-off rates at checkout
- Complex API connections to vendors and ticketing systems
- Limited DevOps infrastructure, making deployments risky and time-consuming
The Solution
I joined their tech team to lead improvements across the full stack — from backend architecture and frontend usability to infrastructure and developer workflows. My contribution included:
- Backend Development: Refactored legacy PHP logic to be modular and testable. Implemented caching strategies to improve speed on high-traffic endpoints.
- Frontend Enhancements: Introduced reusable components with JavaScript and modern templating to standardise the user experience across pages — especially the booking journey.
- API Integrations: Maintained and improved connections with third-party ticketing systems, handling complex data like calendar-based availability, time slots, and pricing rules.
- DevOps & Infrastructure: Helped containerise the application using Docker and wrote deployment scripts to streamline staging and production workflows. Improved error monitoring and rollback processes.
- Security: Supported efforts around PCI-DSS compliance, implemented secure handling of sensitive customer data, and resolved vulnerabilities in outdated packages.
Tech Stack
Languages: PHP · JavaScript
Frameworks: Symfony , custom MVC structure
DevOps: Docker · Git · Linux servers
Integrations: Bloomreach · RabbitMQ · Custom API connections to Disney, Universal, and other global vendors
Other Tools: CI/CD scripts · MySQL · Redis · Cloudflare