Asia

Ticket2Me launches integrated ticketing and streaming platform

Asia-facing ticketing platform Ticket2Me has launched an integrated ticketing and video streaming platform.

The platform was developed in the wake of the collapse of the live events industry, with Ticket2Me steering towards serving organisers’ online event ticketing needs with its array of payment options and customer service tools.

The Philippines-headquartered company said that while its system can work with an organiser’s virtual platform of choice, the potential for piracy led to it building a proprietary pay-gated video platform with a multi-level security feature to deter online pirates from illegally distributing organisers’ intellectual property.

In addition, Ticket2Me has started preparations on the productions of its first digital web series, Boys’ Lockdown, to be released in September 2020.

Ticket2Me founder and chief executive, Darwin Mariano, said: “Content development is always a complementary strategy to accomplish our growth objectives. Pre-COVID-19, this meant producing plays and musicals to help build scale and strengthen awareness for our ticketing system.

“Now that everything has shifted online, our digital series hopes to achieve this for our integrated ticketing and video platform. Whatever we learn from this, we will share with our clients to help them successfully manage the transition from offline to online content.”

The developments come in the wake of Ticket2Me spearheading a number of relief campaigns in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak.

In March, the firm helped to raise more than €215,300 ($232,400/£199,500), to go towards obtaining personal protective equipment (PPE) and care/food packs for health workers and frontliners fighting COVID-19.

The Kaya Natin! Movement, a non-profit organisation that promotes good governance and ethical leadership in the Philippines, led the fundraising initiative and distributed thousands of daily sets of PPE, suitable for 15 days, to thousands of front line workers.

Mariano said: “We needed to innovate ourselves out of the crisis. If we waited, hoping to see the COVID-19 crisis blow over quickly, we would be in worse shape now.

“Repurposing our platform to help raise funds for various causes and manage appointments between doctors and patients gave us a unique vantage point – we saw how dramatically the market was changing real-time and what we needed to do to survive. Our integrated ticketing and video streaming platform is the direct result of what we learned during the early days of crisis.”

Ticket2Me’s campaign allowed fans to purchase two types of ‘ticket,’ which translate into a donation towards the scheme.

The company also initiated what would later become the Open House campaign, an online fundraising project by Artist Welfare Project, Philstage, SPIT MNL, Third World Improv, and the Theater Actor’s Guild and Ticket2Me, for the benefit of the performing arts community.

As of June 2020, Ticket2Me has hosted more than 20 fundraising campaigns and raised over €311,500 collectively for various organisations and initiatives, including aid for displaced workers in the film and performing arts industries and the construction of emergency quarantine facilities throughout Metro Manila.