From a WooCommerce perspective, product variations actually make a lot of sense in this situation. You would have the ability to set stock levels per variation if required (as is currently the case with WooTickets) or set a total number of tickets.
From the WooCommerce docs: “Stock quantity – Stock for the particular variation, or left blank to use the variable product’s stock settings.”
I would definitely like to see WooTickets start to use “variable” products in place of “standard” products in future.