Major events, ranging from athletic to musical, are an important aspect of most people’s lives, bringing people together to share a common interest in various ways. Even though major artists such as Mumford & Sons, Coldplay, Adele, and Ed Sheeran have spoken out against the issue, the problem persists. According to the United Kingdom government, bots are being used to purchase tickets and resale them at inflated rates, which has proposed laws to combat this. Still, according to data, more than 21,000 individuals in the United Kingdom have reported being victims of ticket fraud in the past three years, with the vast majority of these complaints using secondary ticket marketplaces.
CFO Harry Boisseau and COO Philip Shaw-Stewart founded Edinburgh-based Citizen Ticket to address fraudulent tickets and the high prices. During their ten years of experience in the events business, the couple has worked on various projects ranging from large-scale music festivals and pop-up culinary events to underground concerts and charity fundraisers. Before we move to the problem, register yourself on the bitcoin market to know all about the British currency and how you can earn in it.
The Issue at Hands
In April, more than 1,500 individuals attempted to purchase concert tickets through a bogus ticket website named ‘Surfed Arts’ as part of a series of Facebook flash sales organized by the three groups. The advertisements, which claimed to be for a secondary ticket service, targeted specific areas where events were scheduled during the summer but had already sold out.Â
Those who did visit the Surfed Arts website were notified that they could not purchase the previously sold-out tickets before being provided with information on how to better prevent themselves from being a possible victim of ticket scammers. According to the National Federation of Independent Business, the goal was to encourage consumers to reconsider their online activity and evaluate if secondary ticket transactions were genuine.
The use of social media to promote ticket sales is becoming more popular among ticket scammers. The public in the United Kingdom lost £5.2 million ($6.75 million) due to fraudulent concert and festival tickets, which accounted for 15% of all sales. Those who buy phony tickets may be surprised to discover that the nature of the tickets may vary. Instead of appearing, they either do not exist or charge much higher rates via secondary ticket websites than what is advertised on the main ticket website.
A Blockchain Technology Solution
They were able to bring the recent launch of BitTicket to reality with the assistance of Colin Palmer, Chief Technology Officer (CTO), a fellow team member. BitTicket is the first digital event ticket on the blockchain for public events, and it is powered by the cryptocurrency Ethereum Classic. The inspiration for the project came to me when I was looking for Ed Sheeran tickets on a secondary ticket website with a hefty price tag.
However, it wasn’t the only issue that the crew came into. As Shaw-Stewart explained to Bitcoin Magazine, “the event ticketing monopolies control main ticket websites as well as secondary ticket market websites.” “Secondary ticket websites enable monopolies to gather event tickets from their main ticket website and then charge excessively inflated rates for the tickets on their secondary ticket website under the pretext that the secondary ticket website was established to allow fans to resale tickets.” As an illustration, they mentioned a Robbie Williams performance in the O2 Arena in London as an example. The tickets were listed for sale for £40 ($52) on a major ticketing platform. The same tickets were being offered for sale for £300 ($390) apiece at the venue.
“There is an issue in the business that we think is immoral, namely the resale of event tickets by secondary ticket companies, which frequently sell tickets at exorbitant rates,” says the author. BitTicket is attempting to create a safe and transparent system that is resistant to fraud and forgery via blockchain technology. According to Shaw-Stewart, it is because every ticket purchase is eligible on the blockchain, it protects and maintains the validity of its ticket in a way that individual registries or traditional techniques can still accomplish.
