It’s no secret that there are some serious problems in the ticketing industry; everyone knows about scalpers/touts and counterfeit tickets, and most people are cognisant of the fact that there is consumer confusion, not knowing if you are buying tickets at face value or at inflated prices on secondary markets. However, it seems as though the majority of people are not aware of the single biggest problem troubling the industry: unsold inventory.

While it’s true that there are a number of high profile events that sell out in 5 minutes and we are left scouring Stubhub for leftover tickets, that is certainly not always the case. When there is a championship final game that is highly anticipated, you’ll see bots, resellers, and brokers buying as many tickets as possible and reselling them knowing there will be an enormous demand. But what happens when we’re talking about a mid-season game? Well, tickets go unsold, and stadiums are left half empty.

Arsenal FC has felt the sting of empty seats recently during a match against Hull City. Before the match, Arsenal Supporters Trust estimated that there would be 10,000 empty seats, and during the match, fans’ reactions looked like this:

Football teams are not the only teams reeling from under-attended events either, according to ESPN Statistics, the Pistons NBA team averaged 13,272 tickets sold per home game, and they play in the 21,000-seat Palace arena!

Why does this happen?

Well, the truth is promotional efforts in making the target audience aware of the event are not good enough. According to Sean Moriarty, the CEO of TicketMaster “nearly 35% of ticket inventory goes unsold, and if you ask fans why they didn’t go to shows, one of the most popular reasons is ’I didn’t know about it.’”

But don’t sports teams spend millions on marketing? Yes, but it seems as though these efforts are focused towards short term rather than long term gains in terms of fan engagement. Until recently, TicketMaster and other primary outlets kept purchasing data to themselves. Further, paid advertising on Facebook may garner more likes and follows, but Facebook shields who those people exactly are from the team, making it very difficult to pinpoint the best demographics to target with promotions and ticket sales.

At Aventus, we are trying to fix this problem in the best way possible. Instead of finding a way to exploit consumer data and hand your credit card history straight to Arsenal’s marketing team, we allow anyone to become a promoter.

What does that mean?

Well, basically, Aventus has created a platform that lets anyone act as a promoter for an event, be it an application, website, or even a fan! A global pool of legitimate events will sit on the Aventus that anyone can add to, anyone can pull from and curate for their audience. Any verified participant can sell tickets and thereby earn commissions for doing so. This way, artists and sports teams alike are able to reach a much wider audience and ensure that their fans are not only made aware of their events, but also have a means of purchasing tickets.

Think — ESPN, Sports Daily, influencers, really anyone with an audience could curate events that their users would be interested in and get commissions on every ticket they sell. Since event organisers could see which of these platforms are selling what tickets, they would now know who their target audience is without having to take personal data from anyone.

So what would this look like from the perspective of a ticket buyer?

Let’s look at Dude Perfect, a social influencer, as an example (see below). Dude Perfect offers one of the most diverse ranges of sports related videos, where the influencers play games against prominent athletes. As an avid sports fan watching the latest video with my favourite athletes, I would now have the ability to purchase a ticket directly off of Dude Perfect’s videos to see my favourite team play! By allowing any verified participant, in this case Dude Perfect, to act as a promoter, I would be able to watch videos of my favourite athletes, buy tickets for their events, and do so in a fair, transparent, and secure environment. From the perspective of Dude Perfect this is great too! Now, by acting as a promoter selling tickets, influencers like Dude Perfect can increase their own revenue potential, everyone wins!

This promotional method doesn’t just have value for smaller teams that have limited support or resources but also larger teams with massive audiences like the New York Yankees or Arsenal FC. Had Arsenal utilised Aventus as it’s ticketing service it could have reached a significantly larger audience, prevented touts from reselling tickets at exorbitant prices (protecting their fans in the process), and ensured a full house for their match against Hull.