Three University of British Columbia students have launched a new paperless ticket app that they say will help artists and promoters by reducing the fees charged by ticket agents and by putting scalpers out of business.
The goodnights app, available on iTunes and the Android marketplace, allows event promoters to sell tickets to fans via their mobile phones.
Similar apps are already in use by movie theatres, like Cineplex, which allows moviegoers to buy tickets ahead of time on their smartphones and then type in a confirmation number when they arrive at the theatre.
The goodnights app works in a similar way for sports and music events. Good Nights Entertainment – the company formed around the app – is targeting smaller venues and promoters who are not locked into contracts with large sellers like Ticketmaster.
Michael Moll, one of three co-founders of Good Nights Entertainment – which won first prize at the University Mobile Challenge at the GSMA World Mobile Congress in Barcelona March 1 – said his company will charge lower services fees than the larger ticket agents.
The paperless ticketing app has another advantage over paper tickets in that it can be tied to buyers’ social networks, which adds a secondary marketplace.
“When people buy tickets with us, through the app they’re able to share that to their Facebook wall or their Twitter profile, and that creates another marketplace for their friends and followers to buy tickets right off that post,” Moll said.
The app gives the artists or promoters control over resale of tickets, which cuts out the scalper.
“If you want to give that ticket away to a friend, we’ll let you do that and we won’t charge you,” Moll said. “But if you want to sell it at a markup, we will take a percentage of the markup and redistribute that back to the artist or the event promoter.”
The goodnights app has already been used at a number of local nightclubs. Moll said Battlefield Fight League will be one of the first promoters to use the app.
