WHAT’S HOT?
SEPTEMBER | TECH
A monthly look at the newest products and
services for the live events industry
Cosmic vision Electric dreams
The Cosmic Truss U-Torm
is a flexible solution to
hanging drop positions
for lighting fixtures. As
well as projection or other
equipment in a completely
modular design. The system
can be set up as different
shapes according to your
requirements.
www.tourgosolution.com Chillisauce has launched a
series of tours around London
in electric Renault Twizy cars.
The Twizy, which looks a
bit like a large quadbike, is a
two-seater vehicle designed
for city environments.
Chillisauce’s Twizy Tours
take users on one of three
tours around the city. They
are painted in the Union Jack
and guided by a GPS system
around London, sharing
facts on history, heritage and
culture.
chillisauce.com
Drink up
Drinks-only
marketing
company Garnish
has announced a
partnership with
Portech Systems,
who are offering
new technology it
hopes will revolutionise its services. Garnish is a
communications agency in the drinks sector, and
provides advice on how to set up a brand, how to
distribute products, and more. The new technology
uses barcode scanners and system software to
record all stock in/out, samples and sales. It allocates
time stamps to each sample and sale, letting the
company know best sales periods and ensuring
staffing is correct.
garnishcommunications.com
50
Blockchain blocks unfair ticketing
By James Morgan
Ed Sheeran’s recent world tour grossed $214m.
The ticketing strategy set by Sheeran’s manager
was to make every effort to cut out the online
touts and ensure that fans can buy tickets at face
value. But how can promoters and artists develop
trust and long term relationships with fans; when
Ticketmaster research found that about 60% of the
hottest tickets are bought by bots?
Even tickets for free events, like Pope Francis’s
visit to New York in 2015, were gobbled up by bots
and sold for thousands of dollars on secondary
sites. Add to this, primary ticket sellers - the seller
appointed by the organiser – may allocate some
of the tickets to their own secondary websites to
hike ticket prices too. Or, touts offer fake tickets
to desperate fans outside the gigs? Promoters and
artists are not happy when everyday fans cant buy
tickets or if there is a cancelation, refunds are drawn
out for months.
According to Rob Edwards advisor to London-
based Aventus Protocol Foundation – the open
source Blockchain ticketing protocol - offers total
control over these issues. Artists and their fan bases
can develop a relationship based on transparency,
fairness and trust.
Rob explains that the chain allows the organiser
to create their business rules. The organiser
determines a set amount of tickets at particular
prices; then sets other rules for those tickets
that are going to be issued. A rule could be to
set to not allow reselling or tickets transfers.
These are embedded in every ticket code and sold
electronically. Fans can be comfortable about buying
an authentic ticket; the artist to fan relationship. For
fans, it’s not a complicated transaction and there is
little difference to the usual purchase process.