E3 Event Management and Ticketing Platform by Dr. VK Liew

6 min readDec 8, 2019

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The event management and ticketing industry is a growing and huge market, particularly for event management software. Markets Insider reported that the Event Management Software Market is projected to grow from USD 5.7 billion in 2019 to USD 11.4 billion by 2024, at a CAGR of 15% from 2019 to 2024.

However, despite the great potential of the event and ticketing industry, there are numerous problems and issues plaguing the current centralised event ticketing industry. The main issues include ticket counterfeiting, ticket scalpers, instant sell-outs and overpriced resale tickets on secondary markets (EventChain, 2017).

The good news is, blockchain has the ability to address these issues. Blockchain is a distributed digital ledger which can be used to record transactions and other data across a decentralised peer-to-peer network made up of a cluster of computing devices.

Using blockchain technology, every ticket sales can be publicly verified and the authenticity of the ticket can be guaranteed. It also has the ability to prevent fraudulent and counterfeit sales. It sets rules (using smart contracts) preventing secondary ticket websites from hoarding tickets and charging inflated prices for premium events. If the rules are broken, the fraudulent accounts are frozen and the tickets are made invalid.

In a nutshell, blockchain based event and ticketing system has the following benefits:

Elimination of ticket duplication and counterfeit tickets
Elimination of scalpers
Elimination of ticket touts and purchasing bots
Fully transparent ticketing aftermarket
Automatic refund at the time of cancellation

Use Cases

BitTicket

Powered using Ethereum Classic, this Edinburgh based citizen ticket is an event ticketing platform which was launched back in May 2017. Known as BitTicket, they have successfully deployed and delivered their first ticketing system and first live event using blockchain technology.

BitTicket is a ticket delivery service which event organisers, venue holders and artists can use to secure their tickets with blockchain technology. BitTicket provides users with one wallet QR code that holds all their BitTickets securely, no matter which ticketing provider they bought them from. They simply present it along with proof of ID to gain entry. Due to the security of BitTicket identity, ticket transfer to friends and family can be done easily and with assurance. BitTickets are immutable, transferable and verifiable.

BitTicket guarantees the following:

Your purchased ticket is genuine
Inherent protection against industrial-scale ticket touts and ticket purchasing bots
Transfer your tickets securely and with ease between friends and family
Provides one wallet for all your tickets — no more individual tickets

GUTS

GUTS uses blockchain technology to create a transparent ticketing ecosystem where inflated secondary market prices and ticket fraud can be eliminated. Their motto is simple, transparent and secure.

GUTS brings numerous benefits for different stakeholders:

Artist and Managers

A fair chance for all fans to attend the show
Expand the fan base with precise data
Direct and personalised communication with the fans (e.g. Send them a message right before the show starts)

The Venue, Festival and Theatre Operators

No ticket fraud - fewer complaints and a stronger brand image
You know exactly who is present at anytime
Automatic refund procedure at the time of cancellation or resale
Identification via mobile phones means a shorter queue

Ticket Providers

Complete control on the tickets at both the primary and secondary market
Easy to integrate with existing ticketing solutions

LAVA

LAVA is a blockchain-based ticketing system that guarantees fair and secure smart tickets for music lovers. The system could prevent ticket touting and fraud ruining festivals for music lovers.

The LAVA ecosystem has the following features:

100% safe
Using latest blockchain technology to eliminate ticket fraud
Smart tickets
Smart tickets to stop the exploitation of festival tickets using a unique digital footprint
Lava Wallet — Eliminate printing completely by generating the ticket digitally and sending the digital ticket to the Lava wallet directly
No booking fee

PouchNATION

PouchNATION is an event management software system that uses the blockchain technology to good effect. PouchNATION is the first platform to implement blockchain and new digital currency across all verticals in event management. Its components comprise guest registration, cashless payment, access control, activity tracking, social engagement and detailed analytics reporting.

This innovative platform could overcome issues that the ticket industry is currently facing with managing events, attendance tracking apps, eliminating duplicate tickets and validating registration at the door.

They have executed over 100 events including cashless events in Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand and Myanmar.

EventChain

EventChain is a global Smart Ticketing blockchain project that allows events worldwide to sell SmartTickets through a peer-to-peer network, solving the issue of the centralised event ticketing industry.

It implements the EventChain token network for event management to ensure faster transactions, indisputable ticket vouchers, transparency from event hosts and programmable SmartTickets. With the use of the EVC token, smart contract code and the Ethereum blockchain, EventChain’s transaction network brings increased accountability, transparency and security to event ticketing.

To fix the excessive ticket fees, EventChain is distributing EVC tokens, a digital ERC20 token created for buying, selling and programming SmartTickets on the Ethereum distributed network. EventChain claims that their transaction fees are much lower and the transaction confirmation speed is near seconds.

E3 Event Management and Ticketing Platform

After examining the above use cases, I propose that we can use a similar concept to develop blockchain-based event management and ticketing system for E3 Net. Below is a simple conceptual model of E3 Event Management and Ticketing platform:

The platform allows an event organiser to create an event and broadcast it to E3 website, as well as the E3 wallet. The event should comprise of details such as event title, date, time, venue and a ticket ordering button. The participant can then order tickets by paying E3T. Once the organiser receives E3T, the e-ticket shall be automatically delivered to the participant’s mobile wallet. To enter the event venue, the organiser just needs to scan the e-ticket of the participant which is stored in their mobile wallet.

To build the platform, we need to build a smart contract layer on top of E3 Net to automate the buying and selling of event tickets. We shall use Solidity to write the contracts. There shall be at least two smart contracts — the event contract and the ticket contract. The event contract will need to link to the ticket contract, as it needs to use the data in the ticket contract. The keyword to access the data in another contract is import. For example, we can create an event contract event.sol that imports the ticket contract ticket.sol, using the syntax as follows:

Pragma Solidity ^0.5.0
import "./ticket.sol";

The event.sol file shall create an event contract that specifies event details such as total tickets, collected funds, start time, etc. The code could be as follows:

Contract Event { 
struct EventDetails { 
uint256 ticketAmount;
uint256 SoldticketAmount;
uint256 CollectedFunds;
uint256 StartTime;
 }

The event contract shall also include a create event function, as follows:

function CreateEvent{
uint256 _ticketAmount;
uint256 _Startime
}

There are many more functions to be included in the smart contracts, but for the sake of newbies, I shall not dwell too much on it. For more information and further reading, please check out the References section.