Industry News

Evopass takes aim at touts

Evopass, a ticketing software startup, has launched its exchange platform that it claims “will finally put a stop to ticket touting and ticket fraud.”

The Dublin-based firm will focus on independent ticket providers and self-ticketing venues.

The company will make its money by charging a booking fee on its own tickets (about 4.5 per cent versus industry norms at 10 per cent or more) and from sharing booking fee revenues with those using its system.

According to the Irish Times, Jake MccGwire, co-founder of Evopass, explained the firm’s Exchange feature as: “A white-label ticket exchange that enables ticket agents and self-ticketing venues to have their own fully operational resale market.

“This not only allows them to have complete control over the price at which their tickets are resold, but it also gives them an opportunity to generate revenue from the ticket resale market. This represents a huge opportunity as over €1bn was made from resold tickets in 2016 in the UK alone.

“Having experienced both touting and fraud first hand we saw a huge opportunity to try and find a solution to this problem.”

The founders claim that Evopass will reduce the volume of tickets going through major secondary market sites, as well as allowing smaller ticket agents to compete with more established players.

The company’s first product, Evopass Application, was launched last September and it covers events directly ticketed by the company. Over the last five months it has processed more than €100,000 in sales for a number of different events. Evopass Exchange will be launched shortly.

“Existing resale platforms do not have any form of price restriction on resold tickets. If anything they encourage high prices by taking a 10-20 per cent commission,” said MccGwire.

“Unless an agent is large enough to purchase one of these exchanges, they are unable to exert any control over how their tickets are resold or to generate any revenue from it. Our exchange gives them control and increases their revenues while also providing a verified and secure secondary market.”

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