This post on blockchain for event ticketing was originally published on the Blockparty blog on May 21, 2018. Blockparty maintains a Medium and native blog presence.

Credit: Alex Ward

Music festivals have a broken ticketing and user experience driven by outdated technology and centralization. Blockchain can provide the solution.

Blockchain For Your Weekend

Anyone who attends enough live events eventually runs into one (or more) of the following problems with event ticketing. These maddening challenges seem to have only one solution — a tokenized blockchain protocol.

1. Bots: You furiously type in a captcha on a ticketing site, desperate to buy great seats at your favorite artist or team’s upcoming event — only to find that all tickets are sold out and have magically re-appeared, within minutes, on a reseller site (such as Stubhub) for up to 5 times the original price.

2. Resellers: With the event mysteriously sold out, in a moment of desperation, you take the extraordinary risk to purchase less-than-ideal and possibly fake tickets at an exorbitant price on a reseller site.

3. Fraud: You arrive at the venue with the overpriced tickets from the reseller — only to learn from gate staff that your tickets are indeed fake.

4. Ticket Accounting: You learn from gate staff that there happen to be a few “last minute” legitimate tickets available at even higher prices at the box office, which you manage to purchase, leaving you wondering why the event was listed as “sold out” in the first place.

Introducing Blockparty

Blockparty is not the first project to have identified the many problems in ticketing. In the 1970’s, Ticketmaster was the disruptor, offering a markedly better technology than its predecessor Ticketron. Don’t even try to imagine how bad that system was. Since then, a slew of startups have come along trying to offer better alternatives, but none have succeeded.

Blockparty will be different. We believe that the Blockparty project offers the only protocol that solves the above mentioned challenges. Here’s what we’re doing:

Digital Identity:

Creating an immutable and transferable digital identity is perhaps one of the holy grails of blockchain. Blockparty accomplishes this with a user-friendly digital identity mechanism that converts a touch ID or facial recognition scan from a customer’s phone into an SHA-256 encrypted key (a “digital fingerprint”) and attaches this digital fingerprint to the ticket’s QR code, thereby linking identity to ownership.

At the event gate, an attendee logs into the Blockparty app with their own fingerprint or facial recognition scanner on their phone to access the ticket. The ticket QR code, which is already associated with the digital fingerprint, is scanned by gate staff using the Blockparty enterprise app, verifying both the ticket QR code and the attendee’s digital identify. While anonymity is maintained on the blockchain, it would be virtually impossible for an attendee to enter an event without being the current owner of the ticket.

Further, Blockparty enables the transfer of a ticket from one user to another in a transaction that detaches the QR code from the owner’s digital fingerprint and attaches it to the recipient’s digital fingerprint. Each transaction is logged onto the blockchain, which forms the basis for a legitimate market through which tickets can be resold.

2. Integrated Smart Contracts:

The Blockparty protocol does not use ERC-20 tokens to create tickets. If we did, we would be limited to only offering General Admission tickets, because all tickets would be created with the same characteristics and rights. Instead, we have built a protocol that integrates an ERC-20 token (“BOXX”) and non-fungible ERC-721 smart contracts (the tickets). This seamless integration of ERC-20 and ERC-721 contracts is unlike any blockchain protocol in existence and we believe represents a groundbreaking innovation in utility tokens.

As ERC-721 smart contracts, the tickets can store data that’s unique to them, such as seat number, VIP or general admission, drinking age, etc. These smart contracts serve as the underlying accounting mechanism that operates within the blockchain. BOXX currently act as a financial and reward mechanism that interact between the consumer and the blockchain.

3. Demand Mechanism:

The event operator’s dilemma, that of funding an event without the support of alternative financing, can only be solved by creating programs that incentivize rapid demand for tickets. In the Blockparty protocol, BOXX tokens can be utilized in powerful incentive programs that encourage customers to buy early to gain access to special rewards, like VIP seating or artist meet-and-greets, as well as invite their friends to participate in events — providing a straightforward mechanism for demand growth.

To demonstrate the capability of the reward mechanism, Blockparty will enable early users to earn BOXX for a variety of activities:

o Referring new users to download and use the Blockparty app;

o Downloading and using the Blockparty app; and

o Using the protocol to purchase tickets with fiat currency.

The reward levels for these activities will be higher during the introductory phase, and will slowly decrease as more fans begin using to the platform.

The Blockparty Launch

Unlike many other heavily hyped blockchain projects that promise exciting utility tokens, Blockparty is developed and ready to go. It’s not “3 months” away. The protocol has already been tested in private alpha mode in a rigorous environment at a major music festival. The Blockparty protocol was subsequently utilized in private mode during Consensus 2018 at the official Blockparty Launch Event, which was ticketed using a Blockparty web app and featured musicians Playboi Carti, A-Trak, Topaz Jones and James Murphy from LCD Soundsystem.

The Blockparty mobile app, enterprise web dashboard and BOXX token will formally beta launch at Elements Lakewood Music Festival on Memorial Day Weekend in Pennsylvania. The app and web platform are designed for universal accessibility via iOS and Android platforms. Blockparty intends to roll out its product at music festivals throughout the summer 2018 festival season.

Blockparty will ticket a section of Elements Lakewood Music Festival during Memorial Day Weekend, 2018.

Meet the Team

The team behind Blockparty has unmatched experience in both the blockchain and live events industries, bringing expertise and a network that will be key to penetrating the ticketing industry.

We’ve operated festivals, managed ticketing systems, built and successfully exited blockchain startups and launched cryptocurrencies. We understand the nuances of the problems as well as the necessary solutions.

Shiv Madan, CEO

Madan previously served as COO at a division of Time Inc.’s music brand NME.com. Madan is no stranger to the live concert world, having owned and operated a 20k+ person music festival and run multiple college tours. He cut his teeth at eBay, Accenture and Lehman Brothers in banking, derivatives trading, strategy and business development.

Andy Goldstein, COO

Goldstein comes to Blockparty by way of Metal Payments, a cryptocurrency payment app where he served as COO. His career also includes a term as a sales executive at BitPay and 16 years at Visa (managing merchants) along with First Data.

Rikesh Thapa, CTO

Thapa is an experienced blockchain engineer with a background in blockchain, artificial intelligence, cryptography, cybersecurity and product development. His specialty is in building and managing robust, scalable applications from the ground up, in startup environments. Thapa’s most recent accomplishment in blockchain was building, scaling and selling a decentralized energy blockchain system to a billion dollar company.

Aaron Chawla, Board Advisor

Chawla brings a rich history of connections and experience in the entertainment industry that gives Blockparty vital insight into the scope of the problem. Chawla has produced or directed operations at the Super Bowl halftime show, Coachella, Life Is Beautiful, Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo, Kanye West, Daft Punk, Kaskade, Kevin Hart, Aziz Ansari, Michael Jackson, Prince and more.

Greg Consiglio, Board Advisor

Consiglio is a veteran of the ticketing, live events and consumer technology industries and brings a deep understanding of the industries’ challenges and opportunities. He previously served as Executive Vice President of Ticketmaster, Chief Operating Officer of SFX Entertainment (now renamed Livestyle) and CEO of Beatport. He also served as an SVP at AOL.

Get involved

We believe Blockparty is the future of live events. To get involved, simply register here to earn the chance to win tickets to music festivals during the 2018 summer festival season. Join the conversation on Twitter.