May 23, 2013
Tech Startup of the Week: TicketFire Helps Ticket Holders Go Paperless
Your coworker’s nephew wants to buy The Roots tickets for Saturday night. The problem is that the concert is in New Jersey, you work and live in the Bronx, and she lives in Long Island. How do you get the tickets to her without one of you going out of your way?
?uestlove cue the drumroll, please.
Introducing Ticketfire. No, Ticketfire is not affiliated with The Roots, but thanks to its emerging technology, musicians and venues everywhere might see increased attendance at their events.
“TicketFire allows anyone with a paper ticket to scan it into a smartphone, where it becomes a digital ticket,†says serial tech entrepreneur Tanisha Robinson, who launched TicketFire after witnessing the frustration ensconced in the existing model. “From there, they can use it, share it, resell it, or even upgrade their seat–all through the mobile application.†This is all possible without having to meet random people in person or spend extra money to express mail the tickets.
Robinson and co-founder, Eric Kerr, raised $25,000 from TechColumbus, a public-private partnership with the mission to accelerate Central Ohio’s innovation economy. They are in the process of raising more funds to expand the platform.
The app creates a digital ticket with a barcode that works with all major ticket scanners, including TicketMaster, EventBrite, and Tix.com. In addition, through its use TicketFire produces a lot of relevant data for venues, teams, artists, and promoters.
“With paper tickets, besides knowing who bought them, there’s no way to know who actually shows up to an event,†says Robinson, who sold her previous startup, the food discount platform Fudha in 2011 for an undisclosed sum. “With digital tickets, and our scanned-in digital tickets, we are able to really understand who is sitting in the seats. There are a lot of marketing opportunities that come with that understanding.â€
TicketFire has been used at multiple major venues and events, including Madison Square Garden, English Premier League Football; the NCAA, NHL, MLB and MLS games, and the NBA playoffs — to name a few.
Today we celebrate TicketFire as Tech Startup of the Week for making it more convenient and environmentally sustainable to change plans on a dime and not inconvenience yourself or anyone else.