Giglist And Blockchain Ticketing Company True Tickets To Offer Live Music Fan Analytics To The Industry

Giglist, a data aggregation site for the live music industry, and True Tickets, a blockchain ticketing platform, have announced a partnership to deliver an end-to-end analytical view of the true music fan to ticketing partners.

– Giglist and True Tickets
The partnership promises new analytical tools for the live industry

According to the announcement, both companies’ analytics tool provides select partners  with an in-depth view of the ticket transaction life cycle. Companies working with the tool are supposed to better understand the demographic of the event-attending music fan and thus provide a far more personalized experience.

By linking the knowledge of which fans are actually turning up to the event, including their search and browsing behaviour, social tastes, and communication sentiment analysis, artists and their teams are no longer blind to who is actually standing in front of the stage.

None of the “select partners” could be disclosed at press time.

Pollstar spoke to Giglist co-founder and CEO James Eddleston and True Tickets CEO Matt Zarracina. Besides explaining their new product, the answers highlighted the benefits that blockchain technology can bring to ticketing.

Please explain what Giglist does, and how True Tickets fits into the equation?

Eddleston: The focus at GigList is on information provision rather than transaction. Our belief is that it is increasingly difficult for music fans to get a holistic view of the ever shifting and evolving live music space. Most fans end up piecing together a patchwork of different systems to try and gain that view – which is far from ideal.

We’re aiming to provide that single source of accurate and informative data and content that fans are looking for. We’re not setting out to be a ticketing provider and as a result we can choose to work with the best in class ticketing partners to provide our users with a seamless extension of their journey.

We’re also working with other partners to develop other functionality and products – such as the analytical element of our partnership with True Tickets.
 

– James Eddleston
Co-Founder and CEO of Giglist

What do you do differently than other data analytic applications out there?

Eddleston: No other analytical application that we know if, can provide artists or businesses the ability to gain such valuable insights in to the entire end-to-end experience of the gig goer, from search and discovery, through point of sale, and on to redemption at the event (whether that be the original purchaser or a secondary user) and beyond to post-event behaviour. The potential for business users and artists is huge, the insights they can garner could help to inform their marketing strategies, plan tours or releases, and even capture new audiences.

How exactly does Blockchain technology come into play?

Eddleston: I’m sure Matt can elaborate on this much clearer than I can, but in my mind Blockchain is exactly the type of technological innovation that the ticketing space needs. Blockchain means that the artist or seller can control and set certain controls and limitations on the resale of tickets, and tickets can be locked to the user themselves.

Plus it helps to prevent the use of robots by touts, all of which basically means that the real fan has a better all round experience.

Zarracina: Blockchain enabled solutions are best suited for environments where there is an asset, a set of actors, and a transaction involving that asset, this makes ticketing a very appealing opportunity. What blockchain provides is essentially transaction integrity.

The asset in question cannot be copied or duplicated, it can only be transacted with the circumstances surrounding that transaction recorded in an immutable ledger (who sold it, who bought it, for what price, under what rules, etc.).

We believe this functionality can solve most of the problems encountered in the industry today. This also gets to how we, at True Tickets and Giglist, do analytics better than other applications out there. Once you have transaction integrity, you have data integrity, and with data integrity you finally have accurate and actionable information for the artists, venues, and promoters.

Have you created a B2B or B2C tool?

Eddleston: Both. As mentioned above, GigList is a B2C platform that’s focused on the gathering and presentation of the broadest range of live music information and content to the music fan. Our sole motivation is to create an engaging and detailed experience that we feel isn’t currently offered anywhere else. That experience will be tailored for the sole benefit of the fan, as we believe that many of the major players in the live music space care little about the fan experience – we’re aiming to challenge that.

Our B2B tool that we’re developing with True Tickets gives business users that wish to access it, the ability to learn about those fans and provide a better, more personalised experience – so everybody wins. Plus, it means that we don’t have to rely on invasive advertising or heavy promotional tactics to make our business work, which often ruins the user experience entirely.

You also hint at preventing scalpers from getting the best of the industry: how exactly? And does your technology allow for any kind of ticket resale?

Zarracina: Currently the true tickets platform is a smart phone only based application (there are plans to grow beyond that). Constricting initial access to a smart phone only solution helps us be sure that there is a person behind the transaction (e.g. no bots) and levels the playing field for fans desiring access.

Our solution also provides end-to-end ticket lifecycle data (enabled by blockchain) which can help identify scalping behavior as we will now have an accurate view into how each and every ticket went from origination to scanning at the gate. Our platform does allow for resale, unless the artist/venue chooses to restrict it. The resale rules can be set to allow for remuneration as well (the artists or venue could receive a percentage of the net mark-up with the remaining profit going to the resellers.
 
What would a ticketing utopia look like in your eyes?

Zarracina: Venues, artists, and performers issue their tickets on a blockchain enabled platform. Ticket distributors license nodes for that platform to access those tickets and then sell/distribute tickets to fans. Distributors succeed based on their ability to better serve their customers, not on their ability to hoard inventory.