Event Ticketing in the Age of Bitcoin

Event Industry has seen a significant shift in its era after the wave of technology surfaced. From carrying notepads for taking notes to a tablet in hand, from carrying an address book to having a contact list in the smartphone; technology has become an integral part of an event.

Event Planning and Management is a broad subject which consists of several functionalities. Event organizers have to manage a load of work and pay attention to every detail.

Among the many tasks that have seen technological integration, one of the essential ones is Event Ticketing. Online ticketing feature is an inbuilt within the event app or the event website, easing the booking for the attendees.

Organizers and planners get together to design strategies on how to sell the tickets, what audience to target, the discount options and so on the list goes.

The ticketing system is so designed that not only gather an audience for the event but also make the event successful by increasing the event ROI. The ticketing that started with an exchange of direct money has taken a big turn and is being exchanged online in return for event tickets.

Since the tickets started getting booked online, so for the safe transaction, a new technological payment method came into existence — cryptocurrency.

Cryptocurrency, bitcoins, block chains etc. are trending words that are floating in the tech news space since past few months. Many of you must be aware of what these are and might have also invested in them. But for those who still are a bit confused about what all these heavy digital words are, here is a simple explanation for it.

Cryptocurrency — widely referred to as the currency of the future.

Blockchain — a public ledger of all cryptocurrency transactions.

Bitcoins — commonly defined as a coin that is transferred via the internet.

Bitcoin is an uncomplicated version of financial transactions in which there is no involvement of a third person. This ensures elimination of fraud which generally occurs due to the involvement of unrequired third parties.

Nowadays, the event organizers have to carry out extra safety measures as there has been a sudden rise in frauds with the event ticketing. Many of you must have read about companies(online and offline both) selling deceitful tickets to the attendees.

All these schemes are plotted to make customers spend more money than the usual rate of the ticket. Sometimes, these plotters or third-party people sell tickets to the event/concert/meeting that isn’t going to be held.

To stop this fraud, a process of mining takes place.

Let’s see how a bitcoin works?

1. Start by installing a bitcoin wallet on your PC or smartphone.

2. After installation is successfully completed, an address will be issued to you that is known as the Bitcoin address. This address acts like an e-mail id which can be given to your friends to make transactions.

The transactions of bitcoins are stored in “blocks”. The miner’s task is to determine the authenticity of the transaction that is on the block. Once the process finishes, a permanent transaction record is created by the bitcoin.

Now, how all of this affects the event ticketing system? To know the answer to this question, what are the issues faced in the normal ticketing system? The reason I ask this question is that any new system is designed to cover the flaws of the previous or existing system.

The numbers of issues faced are ticket duplication, fake event tickets, internet bots readily buy all the tickets as soon as the sale starts and re-sell them to the users at enormously high prices.

Such problems are unacceptable if they keep on happening in every event. Ticket touting and fraudsters have given all the event profs to think deeply about the ticketing system currently in use and its disadvantages that attendees face.

According to a resource, the United States Congress passed a law in 2016 banning the use of bots to buy tickets.

To wipe away these problems, cryptocurrency came into limelight. And, how exactly it happened?

· Crypto tickets provide surety that the tickets being bought are valid. These tickets are made safe with the help of block chains.

· In addition, it also makes the purchase through tokens as well as flat money except within the platform, where all transactions happen in tokens.

· It has a specially designed architecture that allows one ticket to be sold to only one buyer. It all helps in controlling fraud in the ticketing system as the block chains have a transparent history of issuing, reselling, or any other transaction.

· Another problem that gets solved is the computer bots that re-sell the tickets at high prices, gets ruled out of the scenario.

· Moreover, crypto tickets allow the event organizers and planners to define protocols whether or not to get in contact with secondary market dealers.

· Along with it, the organizers also have an advantage of being provided with a decentralized system that helps them create, manage and promote the event and sell the tickets at a reasonable fare.

· This secure methodology helps manage the digital money and safeguards it from falling into the wrong hands.

· The utmost essential motive of the crypto ticketing in events was to create a simple system for the event organizers, ticket sellers and also for re-sellers. This specially designed system gave the spectator an amazing event experience with an ease of buying tickets that weren’t fake.

What are a few benefits of bitcoins and block chains?

· Security — There are a number of scalpers, frauds, fake sellers etc. The creation of block chains offers fraud protection and ensures no third person/party is involved in event ticketing process.

· Transparency — Every transaction in bitcoin comes along with details of its previous use. Transparency helps in gaining the trust of the users and allows them to buy tickets with cryptocurrency.

· Extensibility — It simply means that the system can be extended without changing the roots of its architecture i.e. new features can be introduced.

· The simplicity of Ticket purchase — Purchasing a ticket with cryptocurrency has an ample amount of security layers that is by far the safest method to make payments. Since there is just a single wallet, an in-between interference or transaction cannot happen.

· Ticket resale market — For the middlemen, it became a chaos because they were the profit-makers in the original ticket selling business. There still exists a ticket resale market, which can access the sale of tickets, the commission and surge pricing but under a set of rules and instructions.

The popularity of cryptocurrencies and bitcoins has seen an elevation in followers. Bitcoin still is a mystery to lot many people with a bundle of questions in their minds.

Bitcoin is still an in-transit concept, which is yet to be accepted worldwide. But, with the pace of its growing knowledge among people, Bitcoin will soon gain its popularity.

I hope this blog solves a lot many queries that you had in your mind.

For any queries or suggestions, feel free to write us. You can connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

For more information on event ticketing feature, browse through our website, Hubilo. Know more about us here.