TicketSwap Case Study: Sziget Festival
565,000 fans on a beautiful island in the middle of the Danube.
- Secure Swap-enabled festival partner since Spring 2017
- Empowers fans attending three festivals, (Sziget, Balaton Sound and VOLT), to buy official resale tickets, as directed via the festival websites
- 39% more tickets resold on TicketSwap for the 2018 edition than in 2017
With 565.000 visitors in 2018, Sziget Festival in Budapest is one of the largest music and cultural festivals in Europe. More than 1000 acts perform during the week-long festival, which transforms a small island in the middle of the Danube into mid-sized city. Sziget draws revellers from all around the world, and uses dozens of ticket vendors to ensure its tickets get into the hands of as many fans as possible.
During the course of its 26 years of existence, the festivals’ tickets sales have attracted all manner of shady resellers and fraudsters, who attempt to prey on the surge of tourists coming to camp at the festival, and the local music fans who attend from across Hungary. TicketSwap and Sziget Festival teamed up to ensure that fans can sell their tickets safely to other fans, proactively providing an official channel for secure and fairly priced second hand tickets.
“Integrating with TicketSwap enabled us to offer our thousands of festival attendees a single, safe method for reselling their spare tickets and buy official resale tickets. This meant we could reduce the number of problems with fake tickets at the entrance and help improve the overall fan experience before and during the festival.” — Akos Remetei Filep, Head of Sales, Sziget Festival
Through an integration between Sziget’s in-house ticketing service Backstage, and TicketSwap’s Secure Swap platform, we’ve ensure that the thousands of Sziget tickets that change hands in the months leading up to the festival, are verified, and transparent transactions. Since the 2017 edition, Sziget festival-goers can buy official resale tickets directly from other fans through TicketSwap, without worrying about fraud or getting overcharged. Additionally, the Secure Swap system was rolled out for Sziget’s sister festivals Balaton Sound and VOLT Festival.
In 2018, TicketSwap sponsored our own stage at Sziget, the TickeSwap Music Box. The beautifully constructed stage played hosts to a mix of local and international talent playing unplugged sets to fans who wanted to lounge and relax in the middle of the festival grounds.
If your festival has problems with unfair pricing and ticket scams on the secondary market and you want to take control of your resale, get in touch here with our team!
