GET update March ‘20 —The Quarantine Chronicles
Even in these crazy times, there is plenty to share.
Usually these updates contain a fun and chaotic mess of recent and upcoming events and sales; things that can (almost) be shared and things that are under development. With the recent developments in the world — if you have been living in a remote cabin for the past several weeks and this is the first thing you are reading I implore you with all my heart to immediately smash your device on the pavement and head back to your remote location — the world is a vastly different place than it was, even just a month ago.
Nevertheless, we have enough to share and even plenty of positive notes to bestow upon you in these crazy times.
In this blog we will share:
- How the team is working through these unconventional times;
- An outlook on the times ahead by our CEO Maarten Bloemers;
- Two exciting points on the horizon;
- An introduction to two important new(ish) team members & two new people;
- A look at a big new feature!
When the show must not go on
It’s the elephant in everyone’s suddenly-much-smaller-seeming room: Covid-19. Most of the world has come to a screeching halt in order to thwart the spread of the virus, and the ticketing and entertainment industries are no exceptions.
The GET & GUTS teams have been working remotely, being the exemplary citizens they’ve always been at heart.
It requires a bit of coordinating, but all departments have managed to find ways to remain productive and effective. Our support team and account managers have been working closely with clients that had events planned in the past few weeks, or had them coming up in the near future.
Even though there aren’t any events taking place, our developers are churning out countless new features, tweaks and bugfixes — but there’ll be more about that later in Frans’ part.
In case you missed it, our CEO Maarten Bloemers published a blog this month, giving insights into the state of the company and what lies ahead from an empty office.
A few noteworthy parts that I think everyone should read:
1. Silver linings
‘A big part of the GET Protocol proposition is innovation that actually benefits users. In a way this unfortunate crisis allows us to demonstrate what smart ticketing can do, beyond ‘just’ anti-scalping.
In the wake of the virus regulations with mass rescheduling and cancellation refunding, it has become clear that our top-down smart ticketing approach is superior to that of those that have half-assed it. The dynamic nature of our smart ticket provided flexibility for adjusting prices, rescheduling and our clients could communicate directly to the actual ticket holders. Refunds are executed with the click of a button without having to worry about what tickets ended up in the secondary markets.
It’s good to see that our system has taken away some of the stress and hassle that usually comes with postponement and cancelation.’
2. Saving the best for next
‘In the months leading up to the outbreak we have actively started marketing and promoting the GET Protocol proposition to the market. In light of current market conditions we have decided to save up our gunpowder for when the smoke clears.
This means that we will be saving our resources and large announcements until we are certain we can hit the ground running.
The upcoming listing will occur in accordance with the ticket sale of one of Korea’s largest K-Pop events.’
3. Coming back with a bang
‘For now, we will continue improving our ticketing product as we have been doing for years. We have the opportunity to allocate more of our development efforts to improve our system and work on extending our innovative edge over our competitors. Times are tough for all, but we believe less so for our organisation. From this crisis opportunity shall rise and we will seize it.
There is a lot to look forward to, and we are more focussed now than ever. We are monitoring all developments in this crazy world we live in, and can’t wait to roll out what we have prepared.’
Eyes on the prize
While the world is collectively not doing online work-out classes but instead watching TigerKing, don’t forget that there are developments for GET in the near future to keep an eye on!
Here are two examples:
#1 Where there’s fire…
This upcoming Friday, April 3rd, the burnback report for Q1 of 2020 will be published. As you know, all tickets issued using GET Protocol lead to GET tokens being burned at the end of the sales cycle. In this report we will see the total GET that is to be burned following the first quarter of this year, and we will find out whether it passed the record-setting amount of the prior quarter.
From the previous burn back report:
In Q4 of 2019:
The GET Protocol processed a total of 350.332 state changes.
A record number of 62 215 tickets have been issued.
To fuel these state changes a total of 98 348 GET has been burned.
You can read back the full report of the previous buyback here:
If you want to boost the excitement for Friday an extra notch, you can do so by participating in the guessing game of how money GET is going to be burned. Closest guess wins 250 GET!
All you have to do is:
RT the following tweet:
…and leave your best guess on this Reddit thread:
Best of luck!
#2: It’s a different time in Korea
It might seem like several lifetimes ago, but just last month we announced the arrival of a new joint venture in South Korea: getTicket. The team there is working tirelessly to get the first sale of the ground as soon as circumstances allow it.
Thankfully, it appears that Korea is winning the fight against Corona and things are slowly starting to return to normal.
The getTicket team is working towards the announcement of the first ticket sale, and if I weren’t so principally against hyping I would say that it is going to be a big one.
Meanwhile Korean blockchain press have already taken notice of the arrival of GET Protocol.
Decenter:
And HKB News:
We’ll share more details on timing as they become available to us!
Meet the team: Ashley & Jenny
This moment of quiet also gives us the opportunity to introduce some team members that have yet to be introduced. Everybody, meet Ashley & Jenny!
Hi there! Could you introduce yourselves?
Ashley: I’m Ashley, 28, and I live in the Northern parts of Amsterdam, together with my boyfriend and seven bunnies. Yes, that’s a lot of bunnies, but my love for bunnies (and all animals) is very big. That’s why I love doing things like visiting animal farms with pigs and even alpaca’s!
Before I started working here, I worked at a pharmacy and as a healthcare professional. I’ve got a degree in Social Work, and worked in the psychiatric field for nearly five years.
I decided to make a switch to something lighter, and that’s how I ended up at GUTS!
Jenny: Hi I’m Jenny, 26, and I have a passion for cooking. My mom is Spanish, and combined with my Dutch dad I have a wide variety of recipes to choose from.
My first challenging job was at a platform for CEO’s, as a business coordinator. There I worked together with Joris, sales manager at GUTS, and through him I was introduced here!
Could you describe what you do here?
Jenny: As ‘Account & Operations Manager’ I have a pretty wide range of responsibilities. I’m here to bring structure and efficiency to some of the processes that take place, and to provide a better insight into the data that we have. I’m also the point of contact for event organizers and a central point between departments within the company.
Ashley: My title is Office/HR-manager. As Office Manager I concern myself with the office being presentable and well-stocked, but also things like taking care of supplies and deliveries, and organising get-togethers and other events at the office.
As HR-manager I’m responsible for the ‘human’ parts of the GUTS & GET teams. Things like performance reviews, personal connections, drafting contracts, etcetera.
How do you go about your task?
Ashley: This is still pretty flexible, as it is a new job within this company. I talk a lot with everyone and try to find out what works and what people need. I’m also doing a Human Resource Management course to make sure I’m up to date on the latest tips & tricks.
Jenny: Currently I’m working on the ‘Wiki for GUTS & GET’ project, where we are making a manual that contains all of our work flows and processes. Soon I’ll also tackle the ISO27001 implementation. I try to be involved in a lot of different things, in order to stay up to date on everything that’s going, so that I can also be of good service to our clients.
‘Not a week goes by here without something fun happening.’
What’s some of the fun or unexpected stuff that you’ve already experienced here?
Jenny: Not a week goes by here without something fun happening. Right now there a lot of great projects and opportunities that we are working on. The most fun and important things for me would have to be ‘FOMO Fridays’ at the end of the month, where eat together and discuss everything that people have been working on.
Ashley: The colleagues are great and that makes our get-togethers and drinks a lot of fun. I also love it when we have a big sale and the whole team works together to make sure things go smoothly.
What are your expectations for GUTS & GET Protocol the upcoming years?
Ashley: I think (and hope) that more and more artists will see the added value of selling their tickets with GUTS. It doesn’t just make ticket fraud impossible, it’s also an easy and handy system. And of course the goal is to make all ticketing honest!
Jenny: I hope and expect that we have plenty of reasons to toast and celebrate!
Other big team news!
While life for most came to a halt, for some it was only just beginning! This month the GUTS/GET business development team made some excellent expansions, as not one but two new babies were born! First Tom’s son Reinout come into the world, and just yesterday Sander’s daughter Meijs was born.
We wish the dads and their families all the best!
Development update
From Product Owner Frans Twisk.
The product team has been working completely remote this last sprint and we are happy to have kept the same level of productiveness! We are also taking the necessary actions to learn and improve our teamwork remotely, which of course is a bit different than working closely together at our awesome office, which we all are starting to miss.
We have delivered over 40 big and small features, improvements and bug-fixes: from creating brandable apps for the Korean getTicket partner to improving the attendee-details page in our organisers’ dashboard. But more exciting for you readers: we have created the first version of the new Resale Market where anyone can browse and buy tickets that people have put up for sale!
While this first version is actually ready to be used in a production environment, we are currently not yet doing so. We will slowly roll-out the resale market for specific events, and the old way of reselling tickets through the primary market will still work for all events.
As you can see in the screenshot, the resale market looks very familiar but there are a couple of things different compared to the primary market. Tickets are grouped by the type of ticket, and upon selecting the ticket you are looking for, you can see everyone who has one or more tickets of this type for sale. This list is ordered by date (and soon: price) so people who put their tickets up for sale first, will be higher in the list.
The buying flow has more or less stayed the same: you put the tickets you want to buy in your cart and pay for them! It is possible to buy multiple tickets from multiple people at the same time, so you can buy the exact amount you are looking for in one go. There really isn’t more to say about this: it just works.
Of course this is only the first phase of the Resale Market epic. There are two noteworthy add-ons that will be added in the near feature: the ability to set your own price for tickets you want to resell (with some honest rules of course) and a way to share the tickets you are selling directly with a friend or family member. To be continued…
More about GET Protocol
Have any questions or want to know more about what we do? Join our active Telegram channel here.
Our Korean Telegram channel can be found here, and the GET Naver page is here.
For any questions you might have, read our whitepaper, visit the website, join the discussion on the GET Protocol Reddit.
