advertisement
Facebook
X
LinkedIn
WhatsApp
Reddit

Mobile ticketing app wins R200 000 startup prize

Are you one of those poor saps who queued from 5am to try and get tickets to the up and coming Eminem gig? Imagine how much easier your life would have been if you’d simply rolled over, tapped your phone, and gone back to sleep again safe in the knowledge that you had a ticket and weren’t going to be late for work?

That’s the basic premise behind Micket, a mobile ticketing app for concerts and events which has just picked up R200 000 of investment courtesy of the Startup Knight competition and its backer, Byte Orbit.

Founder and sole employee Riaan Nolan thinks that the ticketing industry – such as it is – in South Africa is ripe for change. Right now the choice is between physical ticketing like Computicket, or something very generic and unsuitable for large gigs like Eventbrite. Micket, Nolan says, is designed specifically for South African venues, is fast and allows you to buy tickets and use them directly from you phone screen. If you choose not to print a ticket out, you can simply flash a QR code at the entrance to you chosen event.

“The difference between Micket and Computicket, for example, are like night and day,” says Nolan, “The only thing we really have in common is, both of us sell tickets to events. Micket is fast, mobile, we are green, we dislike queues we do ticketing in a new way, a smarter way.

“Computicket and all other Ticket vendors are not our competition, currently they are their own worst enemy. We can help them get fit and fast again, we can deliver their tickets to their customers in a matter of seconds.”

Nolan says that he began work on Micket in 2010, along with his twin brother Winston and a friend, Robert Adams. As part of the Startup Knight prize, they will receive R100 000 worth of PR assistance, and R100 000 of development assistance from Byte Orbit, which will also take a stake in the company. Martin Ras of Byte Orbit says that Micket was chosen because it has a clear revenue model and addresses a sizeable market. Competition, he says, was fierce.

“The startup phase we have seen an increase in the quality of the applications this year compared to last year,” Ras says.

For his part, Nolan says that he’s looking forward to working closely with the Byte Orbit team.

“We have such great plans for the future,” he explains, “The Byte Orbit team have really made some stunning suggestions and we are eager to get things going, we do rapid development projects all the time for major business in our day jobs anyway, so it will be refreshing and really liberating doing it for Micket.”

There are challenges ahead, however.

“Honestly, the biggest challenges was and still is, the monopolistic, anti competitive state the ticketing industry finds itself in,” he says, “No matter how hard we tried exclusive contracts that some vendors have with the Venues and the Organizers does close the door on new business like Micket.

“The Playable on Death show [which inspired Micket’s creation] had to change it’s Durban and Cape Town venues, Cape Town, could not change to the Grand Arena for example, because Computicket had an exclusive contract with Grand West, which meant that all the tickets already sold for that venue had to be refunded and resold via Computicket. It was a mess. In the end the show did not work. Some local organizers did try to save the tour, but it was in the end too late, and the POD tour was cancelled.”

No more last minute cancellations for tours and big shows? Sounds worth investing in to us.

advertisement

About Author

advertisement

Related News

advertisement