Update June ‘19
Although it was not supposed to happen and we do not intend on making this a recurring thing whatsoever, this month’s blog has once again taken on a size that requires some indexing.
Hence, behold, an index:
1.) ‘Groots’ stadium sale & media
A look at the biggest sale conducted to date, for the Guus Meeuwis shows in 2020.2.) Business development news
Bringing GUTS to the world of Dance music.3.) Improvements around the office
A variety of news, from new hires to selected press, to community meetup info!4.) A look at the upcoming Korean developments
Some insights into the KLAYTN blockchain project and the potential benefits of the expected partnership.5.) Addressing the recent ‘secondary ticketing’ news
The big players are going after secondary ticketing profits. Why consumers (and the media) shouldn’t be fooled.6.) Technical development update
Product Designer Frans shares some behind-the-scenes insights on how the scaling to the larger, stadium-sized events has come to be.
Bigger with a capital ‘B’
Of course, arguably the biggest news this past month was the announcement that GUTS will be ticketing the ‘Groots Met Een Zachte G’ stadium concerts in 2020. Performed by Guus Meeuwis, ‘the Dutch Bruce Springsteen’ according to our CEO Maarten, the yearly shows in the Philips Stadium in Eindhoven (home of football club PSV) are a massive party for the tens of thousands of attendees.
This is of course in line with last month’s business development insights and the conscious decision -made a little while ago- to not settle for smaller events, but rather put time and effort into growing the capabilities of our system in order to keep innovating and growing towards bigger things. It’s safe to say that this sale is a result of that decision.
Here’s the aftermovie of last year’s edition, so you can get a sense of the scale and festivities of the event.
Following the news, we sent out press releases which were picked up by the following outlets:
IQ-Mag
Ledger Insights
CryptoBieb
Cryptobenelux
The sale went live at 10AM, Friday, June 7th, and we were ready for anything to come.
In the weeks, months even, leading up to this sale, tons of testing was done in order to prepare for the sale. In fact, so much testing was done that the sale went very smoothly. Due to the capacity of the venue, these shows aren’t instant sell-outs, so the sale is ongoing.
To account for this potential spike in support, we set up a dedicated support area where our support team could take calls (yes, calls!) and help ticket buyers through messaging service Intercom.
On Friday, June 14th, a part of the team attended an event during the 2019 series to check out the location, the flow of attendees and to of course do some hard-earned singing and dancing.
Did someone say dancing?
We are glad to announce that, effective immediately, GUTS Tickets is the ticketing partner of Audio Obscura.
For years now, Audio Obscura has been a household name in the party scene, synonymous for organizing the best electronic dance events with world famous DJ’s in some of the craziest locations. (I know this sounds hype-y, but check out their Instagram if you don’t believe me.)
A list of previous events can be found here. As you’ll see they tend to have several events during Amsterdam Dance Event, perhaps the most well-known electronic music event in the world.
Just to give you an idea their previous events, they have included parties at the Rijksmuseum…
…and the Concertgebouw, which is usually only reserved for classical music:
We are very excited and proud to work together with such a progressive and creative team, and look forward to providing the attendees of these top-notch events with the ticketing experience they deserve.
If you’d like to check out some more of their previous events, head over to Audio Obscura’s facebook or instagram.
Happenings around the office
Some news from in and around the GET Protocol office!
Let’s have another meetup!
Since it’s been a while and there is a lot to catch up on face to face, it’s time for a meetup.
The next GET Protocol community meetup will be on Friday, August 30th, at the GET Protocol office in Amsterdam.
There will be drinks, food, a speech or two, and of course the chance to mingle with the team and shake Kasper’s surprisingly life-like hand.
More specifics will be released in due time, but we wanted to give you a heads up so you can mark the calendar and book a babysitter.
Three big additions at the GET / GUTS office this month; one in the shape of hardware, two others in the shape of human flesh vessels.
#1.) Let’s start with the hardware.
We’ve finally set up our screen display (that any visitors of the first community meet-up will recognize) in a way that it provides continuous relevant information, such as:
- Upcoming events;
- Who on the dev- and customer support teams is responsible for these events;
- Important calendar notices such as meetings, holidays and birthdays
- The GET price and market cap;
- Recent social media posts;
- Last but not least, at the bottom-left, we have an automatically refreshing demotivational poster. Because, hey, why not make every day a blue Monday? It really helps the team remember that we are all fleeting blobs of space dust and serve no meaningful purpose whatsoever. How was yóúr weekend?
As you can see there is still some panelspace left unclaimed. Although we do have some ideas on how to fill them, feel free to chip in suggestions in our Telegram channel!
#2 & 3.) The other new additions — which I realize now are far more interesting than the first one but I will most likely forget to change the order before publishing— are two new GUTS Tickets sales associates Anton and Sascha.
They join the team with the goal of further branching out the GUTS Tickets foothold, especially in the festival market.
There is a lot of ground to be gained there as Holland has over 1000 festivals every year, totalling over 19 million attendees. (For reference, we have roughly 18 million inhabitants in Holland.)
We are of course very glad to have both of them on board and will make sure their ‘GET to know us’-blog is published before too long!
Sharing insights
Talk of the town in crypto-ville this month was the white paper release of the controversial Libra project. The project seems divisive in the crypto community, as one side praises the undoubtable mainstream adoption it is going to bring to those filthy nocoiners of the world who don’t want to get their hands dirty with public and private keys, ledgers and ‘free Ethereum’ scams. (Come on, live a little.)
On the other side, there is a critical argument to be made about these huge companies such as VISA and Paypal, and their choice to now suddenly start meddling in a market that was in a lot of ways designed to make them obsolete.
It’s a hot topic, with many angles to consider. IQ-Mag asked our blockchain developer Kasper to rack his brains and provide some context about the news, along with some insights into how it is potentially going to effect the ticketing market.
Find his thoughts in the article below.
Tickets without borders
This past month, GUTS ticketed a Get in the Ring event in Berlin, and on July 6th an event is scheduled in Luxembourg.
These foreign events are great ways of discovering the needs of clients in other countries and putting to work our system in new environments.
Klaytn mainnet launch: The sun will never set on the GET Protocol
By Kasper Keunen, blockchain developer at the GET Protocol Foundation.
“Kakao’s global public blockchain project Klaytn is an enterprise-grade, service-centric platform that brings user-friendly blockchain experience to millions.” - Klaytn.com
Several months ago we announced that the GET Protocol was one of the launching partners of GroundX’s Klaytn blockchain. On the 28th of June Klaytn will launch their mainnet. An exciting moment for sure!
How the GET Protocol will work on top of the Klaytn blockchain, will not be disclosed in this blog. Rest assured that details about this will be provided as soon as they are relevant. If actions are required from GET holders, instruction will be clearly communicated and the timeframe to act will be extensive (if not indefinite).
To summarize, until further notice, the GET Protocol remains running on the Ethereum blockchain as does its ERC20 token. As we are not rushing the migration process we will await the mainnet launch of Klaytn before making permanent decisions.
Why we are choosing for Klaytn
Our choice for choosing to be an ISP of Klaytn is based on two aspects. The first aspect is the fact that Klaytn’s blockchain infrastructure is fully business and integration focused, more than any other blockchain in the market. This results in huge improvements in areas as cost-efficiency, scalability, and data reliability. The second aspect is fueled by the potential of being part of the Klaytn ecosystem.
This blog will mainly expand on what exactly constitutes the Klaytn ecosystem and why it is especially interesting for the GET Protocol to join.
Recipes for adoption
Putting your tech in the hands of ends users requires more than having a code base available. You need a strategy to actually commercially roll out the solution.
Our tech
As a company active in the ticketing industry for over 3 years we have experienced that having an objectively more elegant and complete service, doesn’t mean you have the keys to the whole ticketing sector. It just doesn’t work that way, although GET Protocol is undoubtedly gaining prominence (with Itix and Audio Obscura additions being prime examples).
We realized soon that if we want to make bold and rapid moves in countries far beyond our ‘reach’, we would benefit from having a strong local partner. This partner would have to bring us deep market knowledge, access, and connections needed to gain traction and market share effectively.
Where traditional ticketing companies like Ticketmaster and Eventbite enter markt this by company acquisition in a foreign market, GET uses a novel approach, by creating added value through organic network effects. Partnering up with Kakao’s Klaytn is a prime example.
Kakao’s network & reach
This partner we found in GroundX, a subsidiary of Korea’s Kakao Corp. In the following paragraphs, I will briefly elaborate on what the ‘Kakao/Klaytn ecosystem is and how we envision this ecosystem to support further GET growth and integration in the Korean peninsula.
More users, more room for synergy
Whereas gaining market share by simply buying it with brute force surely works (as proven by LiveNation), at GET we believe that in this day and age of connectivity and decentralization more opportunities for adding value lie in vertical integration, meaning that we believe that platforms allowing for different services to compliment each other drive more value than platforms or products that are about locking a user in completely (WeChat being an example of this value model).
It is this immersive and integrated ecosystem we see in Klaytn’s platform. While the vision is surely ambitious, Kakao’s track record and company portfolio are more than sufficient to back this up. The Klaytn blockchain makes this vertical integration possible as it is a scalable base-layer for asset, identity and content distribution.
In the next few paragraphs I will list a few of Kakao Corps achievements and from there will show that we have a fertile shared vision to build on.
Kakao Corp & the Klaytn business ecosystem
GroundX is a subsidiary of Kakao Corp, a large Korean conglomerate that is owner/shareholder in a wide array of prominent internet & media companies. All data listed below are all available for the public on Kakao Corps website.
Kakao is active in almost all internet & media verticals in Asia. Totaling more than 250 millions users spread over 50+ countries it is safe to say that this Korean company is a leader in building consumer-facing and innovative products.
Business focus
As Kakao controls a large number of large internet businesses, they set out to build a blockchain component that would be able to support actual real-world use of blockchain technology. As such Klaytn is specifically built to be a blockchain for economically scalable and 100% legal business models.
A shared vision of the future
Partnering with a company that is part of a larger conglomerate only really makes sense if there is a shared vision in how the future looks. As stated in one of the reports, Kakao aims to bring a portion of the companies in their portfolio together on the Klaytn blockchain. By joining this network the GET Protocol will also be able to tap into this network of collaborating companies and their users.
A peek in Kakao Corps portfolio
To give an idea of what is possible, I will list a few companies in Kakao Corps portfolio that have overlap in our ambitions.
- Crypto /Blockchain: GroundX -> The Klaytn blockchain.
- Kakao Chat/Talk-> Messaging app with more than 50 million active daily users.
- Melon Ticket -> Ticketing providing services for prominent K-pop stars and other events.
- Fintech/Crypto -> Exchanges like Upbit & Coinone.
- Kakao Game, Kakao Friends, Daum Portal -> Digital content, e-sports, gaming
- Kakao Music -> Music distribution, Fan engagement, artist management & event promotion
Focus on actual adoption and business use case
There is no shortage of high-performance blockchains with little to no actual users. Even if a blockchain has high amounts of traffic, generally this traffic then originates from applications in the ‘grey zone’ of the digital economy (like gambling, prediction markets & erotic content).
What is more, since the very start the team of Klaytn has shown tremendous support in stimulating growth in the Korean event market.
“Klaytn welcomes GET PROTOCOL’s active efforts in effectively adopting blockchain to not only address long-standing ticket scalping issues within the existing industry, but to also bring forth new business paradigms to further enhance the ticketing experience for global users. We are very excited to support GET PROTOCOL in establishing its strong foothold in Korean market.”
- Chase Choi, Head of Business Development at KLAYTN -
It is safe to say that this all-encompassing ecosystem of Klaytn & Kakao offers a wide array of possibilities for us to collaborate on. The future looks integrated! We are very excited for what is to come.
Product/market fit. The problem of ticket scalping in Korea
As most of the readers will be aware, one of the GET Protocols main USPs is the fact that we specialize in locking fan identity to ticket assets. The main added benefit of this feature is that it allows us to practically eradicate ticket scalping.
Due to the extreme popularity of Korea’s K-pop, ticket scalping is rampant in Korea. Combined with the high percentage of smartphone penetration in Korea, it is safe to say that Koreans are more than ready for honest and fair tickets!
As a testament for how big Kakao is in Korea, the ticket company mentioned in the article above is actually part Kakao Corp (Melon Ticket, based in Seoul). To get an idea of the type of events they service check out the feed below:
Important disclaimer
Klaytn, is launched by GroundX, a subsidiary of Kakao Corp. In no shape or form does this article directly imply that this status will surely result in integration or usage by any of the aforementioned Kakao Corp subsidiaries.
The fabricated battle for secondary p̶r̶o̶f̶i̶t̶s̶ ticketing
Also this month, Dutch divisions of Ticketmaster and Eventim published news that they will release (separate) reselling platforms where fans can sell tickets to other fans. For a friendly fee, of course.
This is an obvious attempt to grasp for market share in the secondary market from TicketSwap, the current market leader in secondary ticketing.
A press representative from Eventim claimed that TicketSwap is far from perfect, saying:
‘TicketSwap makes it easier and ostensibly safer to get second-hand tickets, but that’s also why con artists like to make use of the service. Their verification goes through facebook and is not airtight.’
This is true. What’s also true is that Eventim’s secondary marketplace Fansale, which is already live in Germany, is far from perfect. It charges 15% on every transaction, and an additional €7 for the sending of the ticket. Besides that, it allows for tickets to be auctioned off for the highest price, which is not capped or regulated and therefore can exceed the original price to unlimited heights.
While Ticketmaster’s new secondary platform isn’t live yet (to my knowledge), their track record speaks for itself. The UK version does appear to be live, and has already caused controversy. There are countless articles about TM’s conduct to link to, but this article below is an especially awful account of its workings, that gets to the core of the problem.
It’s been a little over six months since undercover journalists exposed the structural, large-scale systems that the company has in place that support and even facilitate scalping on a large scale. By offering discounts on fees to scalpers who buy and sell huge volumes of tickets, Ticketmaster incentivizes professional resellers to use the platform for scalping.
While I generally try to see the glass as half full, in this case I see a whitewashed glass filled with hot air and caviar-scented farts.
This move comes across to me as an obvious attempt to generate positive media attention that chips away at the -empirically justified- image of being a money hungry company that doesn’t take the best interests of its end users into account.
Sadly, it seems most Dutch mainstream media outlets are taking the bait, and framing the announcements as some sort of exciting gameshow business battle of who will corner the secondary ticketing market.
The truth is, there is no need for external secondary ticketing platforms. In fact, artists and organizers who truly have their fans best interests at heart, should do everything in their power to avoid their tickets from being sold on these platforms.
These platforms are nothing more than unnecessary hurdles, designed to charge additional costs, on top of the sketchy service fees that a lot of ticketing companies charge. As long as there is no transparency in the ticketing process, consumers are going to keep paying the price. Now that the public is becoming aware of the shady scalping practices, it seems the big boys are hedging their bets and ensuring that they will keep making excessive fees.
A classic example of a TM fee:
Nice, now I’m depressed!
I know — it sucks. But what’s important to realize with all this, is that secondary ticketing in this capitalistic, zero-transparency manner is simply not necessary.
GUTS Tickets merges the primary and secondary markets, hence preventing the tickets from leaving the ecosystem. This, along with the tickets’ digital and programmable nature, prevents any third party or malicious outsider from transferring tickets for any other value than the assigned one.
Once more for those in the back: external secondary resale platforms simply aren’t necessary.
It’s important to not let these big players get away with half-assed walkbacks on their sketchy business conduct and to keep calling them out on their unfair, cartel-like behavior.
This isn’t just the way it is, a change is coming.
#PleaseExcuseTheRant
Technical development
From Product Designer Frans Twisk.
With our client base expanding, it was time to add support for clients that sell out a whole stadium. (Cough, cough, Guus.) When it comes to selling tickets, large stadiums are a whole different game compared to small-scale events or theaters.
Just to name a few things:
- The sheer amount of tickets: 34.000 per show;
- Standing areas combined with seated tickets;
- Large amount of sections, tiers, tickets that a visitor can choose from;
- Crowd management: e.g. different entrances for different sections;
We’ve made huge progress in this area and now support all of the above, while also making some big steps in our scaling possibilities in order to handle (even) more transactions. For the sake of keeping it focused, we want to highlight one new feature we’ve been working on to be able to sell stadium-contents: the new section-picker and its user experience.
There are many things that you need to take into account when designing an optimal webshop and ticket experience.
Luckily, as a -relatively- new startup, we have the luxury to design modern mobile solutions without having many legacy systems to take into account.
As 70% of our users buy tickets via a mobile device, our experience is optimized for mobile usage.
Analyzing the competition
Of course, it’s important to look at how the competition does things. It appeared that none of the major players in the ticketing industry had a particularly good mobile experience in this area. Yet, it stills helps a lot to identify user experience problems with the design solutions they applied, and define clearly what the exact challenges are that can be improved upon.
Some shops don’t offer any visual floorplan of the stadium sections on mobile and leave the user with a 50-item dropdown list, making it very hard for users to figure out where in the stadium their seat will be. Others do offer a floorplan, but since you can’t interact with it, users still need to scroll through a long list of tickets to find the section they are interested in.
The best example offers users an option to buy tickets via an interactive floorplan on both desktop and mobile. While some improvements can be made, this seems to be the most user-friendly design solution out there: What you see is what you get.
Setting our design goals
After analyzing the current challenges users have with similar products, we defined which problems we needed to tackle and solve in order to deliver a great experience.
Our main goals were:
— To offer a clear overview on limited screen space. Allowing users to compare tickets, location, price and availability with the least amount of interactions.
— More specifically: solve interacting with a (big) floorplan on mobile. Allowing users to zoom, pan and continue in the flow without needing to scroll on the page (as scrolling doesn’t work well in combination with zoomable area’s).
— To show the status of a section directly in a visual way, so a visitor would immediately see if a certain section is sold, or almost sold-out.
— Implement this in a scalable way, so we could reuse this feature for other organizers, even ones that have a smaller floorplan layout.
— Backwards compatibility with our existing events, API and front-end / UI design.
The results
So from now on, we offer interactive floorplans which are designed to handle any type of venue/map, work on any device, and tackle all the earlier mentioned challenges/goals.
Which means:
— Users can still use the traditional ticket-list but are now offered a call-to-action to have a better experience by using the floorplan. This opens the floorplan fullscreen, also making sure there isn’t any other content on the page, since scrolling and zooming at the same time is nearly impossible on touchscreen devices, and this combination confuses users.
— A floorplan can have a completely custom design and requires one simple tag per section in code to make them interactive.
— It will automatically grow as big as possible, depending on the screen-size of the user, making interacting as easy as possible.
— It can be zoomed and panned, offering multiple ways to do this, depending on the device of the user: double-click or tap to zoom, drag to pan, scroll to zoom, use the small interface, etcetera.
— The UI uses the same sticky footer, which shows the available tickets for the selected section, and allows the user to buy these in the same way it already worked in the ticket list-view.
To conclude
We couldn’t wish for a more perfect first stadium event than the “Guus Meeuwis — Groots met een zachte G” shows in 2020. Working towards this sale in a relatively short amount of time has been a great process, as we have been able to merge our design process with real-time client demands. This has led to a design and flow that we are already very proud of and has proven its first success. We look forward to building on it and applying it far and wide in the future.
More about the 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.
