Ticketing platform Eventbrite is focusing on developing software to identify bots in its bid to fight scalping.
The company is developing and testing technology that will prevent mass ticket purchasing by bots as part of a wider industry kickback against the growing secondary market. However, while companies such as Songkick are focusing on humans who it has identified as touts, Eventbrite wants to identify the software they use.
Renaud Visage, co-founder and chief technology officer of Eventbrite, told the Music Ally website that the scalping of tickets is a problem for the entire live music sector.
“It is definitely a problem area for promoters and for artists not getting the share that they deserve,” said Visage. “We’re seeing how we can make our product evolve to prevent mass buyers from actually buying tickets.
“[Prevention] is the first barrier that we want to put in place and we’ve already invested quite a bit on the product side. It’s about fraud detection and understanding if the buyer is a real person or a bot.
“We have deployed a lot of machine-learning algorithms to detect that and to block them right there and then when they’re trying to purchase. This will allow as many people who are legitimate buyers as possible to buy the tickets that they want for the events that they want. That is quite sophisticated. It is invisible to the buyer, except for the ones that are bots – which we are blocking actively.
“It’s an area of interest that has already proven benefits for several organisers who have actively prevented mass buying of tickets at events using this technology.”
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