This year, Softjourn again joined the Ticketing Technology Forum in Dublin, one of the biggest industry events to explore, debate and showcase trends, innovations and technologies for live entertainment ticketing solutions. Last year, we shared some great takeaways,but this time, we were even more impressed by the huge number of ticketing specialists who move the industry and think about the next generation live entertainment ticketing solutions.

TTF started with global perspectives and emerging trends, with three exciting speakers:

Jasper Hope from Dubai Opera introduced a new venue in a “new” market, the Dubai Opera, which opened just 7 months ago.

What’s so special about an opera house in Dubai? Thequality of attention that they pay to their guests.

For instance, after each show, opera goers can leave feedback on DO’s website and if there are three stars or less, opera house staff actually calls those guests to find out what they found unsatisfactory and how DO might make their next attendance perfect.

The second speaker, Luke Xiang of Weying, one of the fastest growing start-ups in China, showed how Weying has reached tremendous success in just three years on the market.

To say that we were impressed means to say nothing after we heard just a few facts: 1,800 employees, 6,500+ partnering cinemas already, 6 million tickets sold in one day, and over 130 film distribution partners.

At the right moment, Weying integrated their solution with WeChat, the Chinese version of Facebook, making it possible to sell tickets and other merchandizing items online. Now that it can provide tons of statistics and detailed analysis on movie performance, ratings and other important indicators for cinemas, Weying is growing so fast that it should soon be ready to supply more than just the Chinese market.

The third topic was especially interesting for us, since this is a technology that we are actively exploring now – Blockchain for ticketing. Vincent Larchet from Secutix talked about how Blockchain could change our business forever. Sounds intriguing, doesn’t it?

At first, Larchet concentrated on the applications that are currently on the market and how they could be eliminated with the arrival of Blockchain: high commission charges, massive purchases by bots, and high markups during resale. One related issue Larchet brought up was security: organizers have little idea who’s attending their events. The same ticket could theoretically have been resold multiple times by brokers, which makes it really difficult to track any statistics about event audiences.

So what’s the point in Blockchain here? For one thing, Blockchain provides an open centralized database, where every transaction is recorded at a public level.

“Everything that happens, stays there forever,”

says Larchet.

“The ticket holder is really the ticket holder.”

At the 2017 Paleo Festival Nyon, SecuTix tested their pilot solution to selling tickets with Blockchain. The results were great: the risk of fraud was reduced dramatically and the process was innovative like nothing else before! The company is still in the final stage of preparing to launch this approach officially, and we’re all looking forward to seeing it in action!

In-between the networking and meeting with ticketing gurus, Softjourn also managed to get to a presentation called “Beacons: When ticketing meets the Beacosystem.” Stephen Statler, the top world expert on all things “beacon” flew especially from San Diego to share his insights into how the emerging beacon ecosystem will impact ticketing, access control, the visitor experience, and new marketing opportunities. Based on sports and arenas use-cases, Statler showed how beacons have been taking over the North American sports market: 93% of MLB stadiums and 75% of NFL stadiums have already installed beacon technology.

Beacon makes it possible not only to get information about attendees and gates, but also to receive contextualized and segmented information based on location and proximity inside, and to eliminate lines at concession stands. Beacon technology can also provide the data necessary to tailor the visitor experience for each customer by, for example, allowing them to upgrade their seats.

These are just a few of the great takeaways from the Dublin Ticket Technology Forum! There was much more besides that we’d be happy here at Softjourn to share with you, including other ticketing trends and ideas that you may be exploring. Give us a call or e-mail us! Next year, TTF will be held in Manchester, so who knows, maybe we’ll meet there!