GET 2020 vision — CEO Maarten Bloemers
This was originally posted as a part of the December ’19 update blog.
Where we stand & where we are headed
By GET Protocol & GUTS Tickets CEO Maarten Bloemers.
So, how are we doing?
In short: Excellent… but we can always do better. The thing I’m most proud of is that we are now at the level to be fighting with the big ticketing companies. We’ve lost a few pitches, but also won a few — announcements are in the making ;-). Battling with the behemoths within 4 years since our founding, proves to me that we’re on the right track, and we’re just getting started.
Lessons learned
Almost four years in the midst of the ticketing industry gave us some valuable lessons and they are not that pretty. The industry is littered with vague signing fees, kickbacks and other ways to drain money from the pockets of fans.
Truth be told; often the ticketing companies just take the blame for managers, bookers and venues who are not willing to adjust the prices of a ticket. They maximize their profit by receiving kickbacks or signing fees that are collected through ticket fees. Here are some more insights we’ve used to tweak our strategy.
Small vs. Huge;
There are two types of ticketing companies, very big ones and relatively small ones. There is virtually no middle ground. This inequality has spiralled out of control and the threshold to enter the market is huge!
Road to market
Most of the new players in the ticketing market failed. The ones that succeeded did so by growing with a new upcoming vertical.
Money talks;
Signing fees and kickbacks of hidden fees decide if you land a client. Everything else is secondary.
Patience;
Sales cycles are very long. Landing a new client takes years, not months.
Fans will pay whatever, whenever;
A major player in the industry said it best to me after a few drinks: “After over two decades in this business, it never ceases to amaze me how much fans will put up with just to see a fucking show. Never underestimate what a fan will put up with.”
Mum’s the word;
Management, bookers, agents, venues do not care about scalping or fraud and do not want the market to be transparent. Artists do, and often have no idea how revenue is split between the actors in the value chain.
Race to the bottom;
Online ticketing is highly scalable and therefore the fixed cost component of organisations is huge. This results in a race to the bottom in terms of ticket fee. Ticket volume counts.
Control is key;
While we’re trying to bring transparency to the market our competitors are doing the opposite. All major players are copying our concept of a closed digital ecosystem to be even more in transparent and … drain some more money out of pockets of fans.
Value of secondary market;
Is HUGE and everybody is getting a slice. Time for true transparency.
Missions & Models
We’ve implemented these learnings and tweaked our strategy. Our road to mass adoption consists of 3 models which are — mostly — launched in subsequent phases:
1. GUTS tickets
Showcasing and battle-testing the possibilities of truly digital ticketing on blockchain by servicing a new vertical; content creators in the Netherlands.
2. Whitelabel
Scale vigorously by making our tech available for parties who were not able to make the large investments needed. Usage only costs GET, nothing else. New and existing ticketing companies, integration in third party applications or a simple plugin. Start selling tickets under your own brand within 1 hour.
3.) GET Protocol
Become the worldwide standard for tickets on blockchain. Create a plugin for existing ticketing companies that is extremely easy to integrate but with all the functionalities and transparency.
Onwards!
We believe we’ve achieved our first and foremost goal with GUTS tickets. We’re a well known name in the industry and are servicing major clients in the Netherlands. All necessary features are in place and we’re ramping up to showcase some more crazy possibilities with truly digital tickets.
With the currently signed deals for GUTS only, we’re growing by 182,9% next year.
The emphasis for next year, however, shall be on scaling through the whitelabel (or Lingchi) model. Bringing down the ticketing behemoths requires a flood of new players who weren’t able to reach the threshold to seriously enter the market before or didn’t even consider selling their own tickets.
By radically enabling anybody who is willing to sell their own tickets by merely using GET, we believe to disrupt the ticketing market in a big way. As Bob (not the Alice one) put it: “Times they are a-changin…”
More about GET Protocol
Any questions or want to know more about what we do? Join our active Telegram community for any questions you might have, read our whitepaper, visit the website, join the discussion on the GET Protocol Reddit. Or get yourself a smart event ticket in our sandbox environment. Download the GUTS Tickets app on iOS or Android.
