UK’s Ticket Fairy expanding into Australian market [exclusive]

In the wake of its latest funding round, UK-based disrupter ticketing platform The Ticket Fairy is looking at ramping up its presence in Australia.

There’s already a connection as its two founder CEOs Jigar and Ritesh Patel have dual British-Australian citizenships, and the idea for The Ticket Fairy began in Australia in 2011.

Ritesh explains to TMN, “Living in Sydney and having been an event promoter there is what actually inspired the original idea for Ticket Fairy so it’s a market close to our hearts.”

However, the greatest adoption in private beta was in the US, UK and New Zealand.

Jigar says, ”Australia has always been an important market for us and we plan to put it back on the agenda this year.

“Perhaps sooner than you might think.

“We definitely want to help grow the events economy in Australia, especially considering how hard NSW has been hit with such harsh licensing laws and lockouts.”

Image: Ritesh & Jigar Patel

Ticket Fairy is more than an alternative to its more expensive and market-dominating companies.

Its advanced technology handles sales, pre-registration, check-ins, budget metrics, different ticketing demands based on music styles and ad campaigns but also challenges scalping through ID-locked tickets and offers customer analytics including demographics and listening habits.

Its events cover music festivals, concerts, DJ gigs, esports tournaments, food festivals, conventions and more.

During its private beta period when it focused on electronic dance music festivals and sold 850,000 tickets, Ticket Fairy estimates it increased revenue for promoters by 15% to 25%.

“We’ve always known there was a place for Ticket Fairy, but it took some time not to be seen as just another ticketing platform,” explains Jigar.

“Ticketing’ isn’t what we were trying to solve.

“Ticket Fairy is Salesforce for the events industry and is an essential part of event organisers’ businesses.

“When that penny dropped, especially following promoters’ response during the invite-only phase, investor interest grew and some even doubled down.”

The startup’s first funding of $485,000 came from the likes of Twitch/Atrium founder Justin Kan, Twitch COO Kevin Lin and Reddit CEO Steve Huffman.

In early June, an over-subscribed $2.5 million round included YouTube founder Steve Chen, venture capitalist Arielle Zuckerberg, Spotify’s head of label licensing Niklas Lundberg, high profile celebrity lawyer Ken Hertz and Serato DJ hardware founder and CEO AJ Bertenshaw as well as Fantastic Ventures, G2 Ventures, Tempo Ventures and WeFunder and Silicon Valley incubator Y Combinator.

The recent $2.5 million will be used to increase support and admin resources, launch new products and initiatives, continue expansion into new territories, and post-private beta marketing.

“We have a few Aussie clients who use Ticket Fairy exclusively,” says Jigar.

“Over the following 12 months, I’d conservatively expect that number to grow to 50+.

“We intend to emulate what we’ve done in New Zealand, in Australia, but on a bigger scale given its relatively bigger events market.

Ritesh adds “We plan to build more event management and marketing features and simultaneously grow our presence in various different parts of the world.

“Developing markets like India are a big focus in addition to the more established markets like Australia and New Zealand.”