Tixel’s co-founder Zac Leigh talks tech, and the road ahead for live

The marketplace for ticketing hit a wall in 2020. A COVID wall.

With a vaccine on the way, and Australia’s states and territories largely getting a grip on community transmissions, that barrier should begin to crumble in the year ahead.

The ticket resale platform opened for business in 2018, initially as a reaction to a bad experience. Its creators Zac Leigh and Jason Webb were shafted with bogus tickets to a gig.

Never again, they figured.

Tixel was established to play in the space of facilitating legitimate ticket sales for concerts, festivals and live events. Its ambition, to create a safer and fairer way to buy and sell tickets online.

During a hot, six-month span in 2019, more than 150,000 music fans signed up to the service, while Woodford Folk Festival, Rhythm and Vines, The Grass Is Greener, Strawberry Fields, Grapevine Gathering and other events have used Tixel as their recommended resale partner.

The likes of Handsome Tours, Astral People, Beyond The Valley, G-Flip and Thelma Plum have supported Tixel’s technology.

TIO caught up with Leigh for a look at the road ahead for the live industry, and how tech is solving problems the music business doesn’t have the time or resources to fix.

Thelma Plum

How did Tixel begin life?

Funnily enough, Tixel came about after we were scammed ourselves.

We were attending live gigs, parties and festivals almost every week and my co-founder and I got caught out buying fake tickets for a sold-out Tame Impala show.

It’s so disappointing and frustrating, and we were motivated to try and build a solution to make sure other fans didn’t end up stuck in the same position.

After we first launched in 2018, we were accepted into the Bigsound tech showcase which gave us our first exposure to the industry.

Broadly, how does it work?

Our fan marketplace plugs directly into some of the world’s most popular ticketing platforms to ensure that fans are only ever buying legitimate tickets.

We check all tickets to make sure they are real and only allow tickets to be sold for 10% above face value to make sure they are a fair price.

From a fan perspective, there is a lot of security using Tixel that they wouldn’t normally get buying a resale ticket.

For promoters and artists, there have never been any insights available on the resale of tickets because it’s so fragmented. We are opening this data up to promoters to access the fans they didn’t know they had — and harness interest in their events to sell out sooner in the future.

We’re also supporting the events industry by giving event organisers unique insights, marketing support and communication tools to help them access their more fans and sell-out events sooner.

Rhythm and Vines

Why does the industry, and why do concert fans, need your platform?

Our mission is to get more fans to events that they love and to drive the industry to be fair, accessible, and transparent.

We know that plans change and tickets will always be resold, so we developed Tixel to create a safer and fairer way to buy and sell tickets online.

We already work closely with a bunch of amazing events and promoters from around Australia and New Zealand including Beyond the Valley, Unified Music Group, The Corner Hotel, Handsome Tours, Astral People and artists including Tones And I, Rufus Du Sol, Tash Sultana, The Teskey Brothers, and more.

What has been the feedback from the live industry?

Most promoters have embraced our technology and can see the value for their fans and themselves. There are however still a number of events and promoters we would love to work with.

Historically, the industry has had a negative association with resale because in the past, ticket resale sites have been used by scalpers to profit off the hard work of artists and promoters.

It takes money away from the entertainment industry and hurts fans with sky-high prices and fake tickets.

It’s taken some time to shift this perception and educate the industry that Tixel is driving resale to be more transparent and fair.

But we are partnering with more events and ticketing platforms, which is a great vote of confidence that more event tickets end up in the hands of real fans.

SCL, Centennial Parklands, NSW. Photo: Dara Munnis. @daramunnis

What are the big challenges in the year ahead?

We are trying to do everything we can to support the industry as it gets back on its feet. Obviously, there’s a lot of new hurdles facing in-person events.

We have always existed on the basis that the future is uncertain and plans change, so we’ve taken a look at the fan insights and expertise we have in this area to see how we can use them to support events as they recover.

Flexibility and safety is going to be really important to move events forward.

Everything has changed so quickly and the restrictions around gatherings are constantly changing. Fans want to feel secure knowing that they can change their plans if they need to — or be protected if plans change due to changing restrictions.

Safety is obviously paramount too.

We have been working with event ticketing partners to bolster contact tracing efforts and ensure that when tickets change hands, event organisers have the correct information for attendees.

We are already seeing lots of events resurface, and lots of tickets trading on Tixel, especially in WA, Queensland and New Zealand. We’re very excited about 2021.

This article originally appeared on The Industry Observer, which is now part of The Music Network.