The Crypto.tickets blockchain project promises to solve the problems of the market of tickets to entertainment events and transform the relations between ticket buyers and ticket vendors. The founders of the project have long been active in the ticket business. They have even already created their first ticket sale platform, Tickets.Cloud. The new Crypto.tickets ecosystem, now protected by cryptography, engages to change the whole mechanics of selling tickets to entertainment events, with the Tickets Wallet application becoming an instrument for spectators to protect their rights. How are they going to do this? Here is a column by Egor Egerev, the CEO and founder of Tickets.Cloud.
“How can we sell the tickets with maximum efficiency?” At first, such question may seem a purely technical one that can perhaps be important for event organizers but does not really concert the buyers aka spectators.
However, all the traditional problems of the ticket sale market such as extra charges on the secondary market, repeated sale of the same tickets, buying-up of tickets by the bots, difficulties in getting refund for the events non attended — all this is possible only because of the existing algorithm of sales. These market problems damage both the organizer and the spectator. Indeed, even if the spectators have managed to get to the concert of their dreams, their mood may be killed by the complications they experienced. It can especially be the case if the controllers did not want to let them in because somebody had already came with their tickets. Or if, after buying their tickets, they discovered that it was possible to purchase them at the site of the organizer — 5% cheaper than the vendor’s price and 20% cheaper than the dealer’s price. The last great overcharge scandal took place during the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro when the ticket price on secondary market could exceed the initial price seventeenfold.
In the traditional model, the spectator often does not understand the conditions of the ticket sale. Was the ticket sold by the organizers themselves? How significant were the extra charges? How much can be refunded if the ticket is returned? Who to ask for refund in case of annulment of the concert? The ticket-office near the metro station? The box-office? Somewhere else? If such questions appear, the reason is not the lack of reading of public offer on the spectator’s part (though it also happens); the reason is non-transparency of pricing policy on the ticket market and the incapacity of event organizers themselves to fully control it. The Crypto.tickets project aims to change the existing system.
We create a transparent decentralized system for ticket sale, open for event organizers and existing ticket systems to join. The transparency is assured by the use of blockchain, the very technology that already has caused many sensations.
The tickets to every event are issued on the base of a blockchain smart contract with the event organizer detailing all the conditions of sale, resale, donation and return of the ticket: such conditions cannot be changed by anyone else. In essence, the tickets are digital tokens protected by cryptography, issued by the smart contract and then transferred from the general system to the Tickets Wallet mobile application, a wallet for cryptotickets installed on the buyer’s smartphone. Such a cryptoticket is programmed in a different way: for instance, “it can be resold only if 10% of commission are paid to the organizers” or else “the ticket can be returned”. It is important because some events require special conditions of ticket sale — for instance, to get to the competitions during the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, one needed to use a ticket with one’s name on it, it was impossible to buy an anonymous ticket. These settings cannot be ignored: the smart contract will not send the ticket to the ticket wallet of the spectator or the dealer if the conditions of the purchase/sale were violated or no money was paid for the ticket.
However, the range of functions of the Tickets Wallet is wider: we conceived it not just as a storage place for a bought cryptoticket. As a matter of fact, the application is multifunctional: it is a wallet for cryptotickets and a guarantor of their authenticity, a customer feedback book and a channel of direct communication between a spectator and another spectator.
Firstly, Tickets Wallet makes the whole ticket economy visible not only to the organizers and to the distributers but to the buyers as well. When buying the ticket to an event, this interface allows the future spectator to be positive that the ticket had not been previously sold twice or thrice.
Secondly, the same application allows the spectator to directly contact the organizers of the event and demand a refund if for some reason the event did not happen. Those who wish can also give the organizer of the event their feedback, complaints and suggestions, and also vote for or against the event.
Finally, the functions of the application include the ability to form the chats and share the impressions about how well the event was organized. It means that our software lays down the bases for the development of a kind of popular democracy.
We provide for a possibility to vote because we see the whole Crypto.tickets system as a prototype of a decentralized organization of the future that would be self-governed by the votes of the token holders of our project. We also believe it is the best way to protect the rights of the spectator: disaffection of several spectators enhances the chances to get the compensation, and we give them a voting instrument that will always be at hand.
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