News Technology Media Telecoms

Ticketmaster owner Live Nation partners with blockchain ticketing firm

live events concert

Live event company Live Nation’s French subsidiary has partnered with digital ticketing service FanDragon Technologies to use TixTo.Me, a blockchain-based digital entertainment wallet. Live Nation is the owner of Ticketmaster, one of the largest ticketing companies in the world. 

The ticketing industry has progressively shifted towards digital ticketing. Paper ticketing is inconvenient for consumers as it can easily get damaged or stolen. For the ticket issuers, a digital process is more efficient and less time consuming. However, going paperless has not addressed some other industry challenges, such as fraud and resales. 

Blockchain-based ticketing initiatives enable event organizers to control resale purchase prices, track the ticket purchaser and the event attendee, and limit fraud. This can give the event far greater control over ticket scalping.

The FanDragon concept is to enable consumers to access tickets in one secure digital wallet. As Live Nation France hosts a series of entertainment events, consumers can purchase and access all tickets through a single platform. Event organizers and artists will be able to communicate with ticket holders through the TixTo.Me platform to inform them of special offers, updates, and other content and it’s particularly valuable as event venues reopen with social distance precautions. 

“We were looking for a way to connect with ticket holders for events postponed by COVID-19 and keep fans entertained while waiting for news of a rescheduled date,” said Live Nation France’s CIO Eloi Blodeau. “FanDragon worked with us to create a simple mobile application with which we can aggregate fans into one location and instantly deliver messages, media and tickets. It’s also an innovative solution with many future opportunities to create and test new revenue generation ideas.”

Ethereum is the blockchain being used by Live Nation. However, current Ethereum transaction fees are prohibitively expensive for a ticketing application. Hence it uses the Aventus Network, a blockchain layer 2 protocol that batches transactions before writing to the blockchain. Artos Systems is a company created to build applications that use Aventus, and it has a blockchain ticketing solution used here. The system enables consumers to pay in fiat money for the tickets, which are verified through Aventus.

In the first stage of the partnership, FanDragon will enable thousands of Live Nation France tickets to be purchased through the platform. The transactions will be processed through the Aventus Network as a combination of fungible and non-fungible tokens. 

For the blockchain ticketing industry, this partnership carries tremendous potential. Ticketmaster is used by some of the world’s most renowned artists and high profile events in the entertainment industry. If the initiative between Live Nation France and FanDragon succeeds, this may set the new standard of paperless ticketing. 

But Ticketmaster also has some history with blockchain. Back in 2018, it acquired Upgraded, a sports ticketing blockchain app.

Meanwhile, other initiatives in the blockchain ticketing industry are kick-starting as events restart. True Tickets partnered with Tessitura, which serves over 700 not-for-profit arts and cultural institutions, to help the organizations safely reopen through the Covid-19 pandemic. The blockchain firm also recently partnered with the Boston Symphony Orchestra to ensure the summer season runs smoothly ticketing wise. In the sports world, leading Dutch Soccer team Ajax has a partnership with SecuTix for blockchain ticketing and UEFA was planning to implement the technology in over one million tickets for EURO 2020.