Everfest Launches Festival Ticket Rewards Program; Lollapalooza, Austin City Limits On Board

Gary Miller / FilmMagic – Austin City Limits Music Festival 2017
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Festival community and resource Everfest has launched a ticket rewards program allowing festivalgoers to buy tickets and earn points — regardless of event, promoter or ticketing company.

“A fan has no loyalty to a ticketing platform,” Everfest founder and CEO Jay Manickam said. “They have events they love, but they buy the tickets from whichever product that event happens to use. If those events are all in one place, that’s the only way they can earn rewards they can use anywhere – their festival life finally has a home.” 

The Rewards pilot program launched July 18 with C3 Presents events like Austin City Limits Music Festival and Lollapalooza, and is working to add major independent festivals like Chicago’s North Coast festival and KAABOO Del Mar in Southern California.

Fans purchasing through Everfest Ticket Rewards can earn points redeemable for perks like VIP upgrades, free general admission or merch. These rewards can be redeemed at the

time of purchase or saved for future purchases through the platform. Fans can also join Everfest Premium to earn points faster and unlock exclusive bonus perks. The ticketing is all primary as opposed to resale, also known as the secondary market. 

With many festivals already counting Everfest as an official ticketing partner, such as Voodoo Music + Arts Experience in New Orleans and Sea Hear Now in New Jersey, the company says it plans to add major ticketing providers like Eventbrite and Front Gate Tickets to streamline the buying process and, from there, add full travel and accommodations.

Austin-based Everfest launched in 2014 and recently raised a $3.6 million Series A led by Live Nation and ATX Seed Ventures. C3 Presents partner Charlie Walker sits on its board of directors and chief strategy officer is Chip Conley (Burning Man, Airbnb, Joie de Vivre).

Although Everfest has ties with Live Nation, a representative told Pollstar the company also work with rival promoter AEG, and any competition between the two “is something the average fan doesn’t care about at all. Ultimately building something that helps fests drive ticket sales — if it helps the fests, it helps the fests.”