Interview with Nicola Mei, CEO of Tocket, a powerful and easy-to-use ticketing platform that encompasses different features.
The sector of events, during these two years of pandemic, is the one that has inevitably suffered the greatest “damage” in terms of economic and survival. Especially for operators who somehow failed to “propose” themselves under new guises, exploiting online channels and streaming. For those who have understood the potential of the online, the problem was essentially connected to the “partner” to rely on to the airing of their events. In this sense, Tocket has succeeded in giving a concrete, technological and safe response to those who have wanted and want to invest again in their events, online and offline.
What is Tocket
Tocket was born from a very simple idea but with a precise mission: to revolutionize the ticketing market with the application of the most innovative technology, the blockchain. Thanks to this technology the platform is able to host events also in streaming and hybrids way, solving most of the problems of event operators.
Tocket’s services
Ticketing service
Through the platform you can create events and enjoy a system of reservations and/ or ticket sales for online, live or hybrid events. Thanks to the Blockchain, at the base of the ticketing system, they eliminate the scalping and every other possible form of fraud in the trading between end-users in the secondary ticketing.
All-in-one access monitoring service
Check-in system through which the organizer can verify and monitor access to the event at any time and consult the participation data. The control takes place for any type of event, whether a live event or a streaming one.
Tailor-made events
Events uploaded on Tocket are 100% customizable by adding parallel rooms, surveys, Q&A and many other features that you can “test” thanks to the free demo made available to the organizers.
Other services
Customer care, technical support, directing and managing of streaming events, pre-event reminders.
If you are an organizer and are curious to know all about the services of Tocket, read the interview with Nicola Mei, CEO of the company
Hello Nicola, nice to meet you and thank you for your time. Tocket: tell us what it is
Hello, thank you for your interest in our project! Tocket is an innovative startup operating in the event sector. We aim to improve the way the event is experienced by the end-user, eliminating some problems present in the various types of events.
How and when was the idea of Tocket born?
Tocket’s raw idea was born in 2019 from a personal experience. I had a sold-out concert ticket but I couldn’t attend it, and I wanted to sell it so I wouldn’t waste money. Finding interested people was easy, but they were all very far away from me. And figuring out how to trade online with a stranger, so without the trust between the parties, made me realize the need of a service that prevented fraud during this operation (one of the two parties disappearing in the middle of an exchange, a fake ticket, a ticket sold to several people, etc.). Soon in my head the problem of ticket touting was added, and I decided to work hard to try to limit these situations. I joined the Contamination Lab in Pisa, a free university course that trains graduates who want to pursue an entrepreneurial career. There I met Eugenio Paluello, my partner and first fellow adventurer. Being an expert in Blockchain, we realized that the use of this method was the perfect technology way to achieve the goal of Tocket, and we decided to work together on the project!
How long did it take to shape the project?
Ours was a rather troubled and peculiar story, I think… Covid has been hard for many, but I challenge you to find a sector more affected than live events! Anyway, back to the beginning, after the course we started to work full time on the project, and the first awards came from some competitions for startups, that allowed us to be accompanied by mentors and have small financial grants to cover the first expenses.
The Covid completely shuffled the cards: we were ready at that time to do the first tests for live events, and they suddenly disappeared! In the summer of 2020 we finally made them, but the second wave of the pandemic (in autumn 2020) forced us to shift to online events. In the meantime, however, experience had been accumulated and the team expanded, increasing fundamental knowledge: our members Lorenzo Nosari and David Pilco have become part of the project. So we decided to create a platform to host online events, which we have added to the existing ticketing.
In December 2020 we started with online events, and until May 2021 we focused solely on those. In May came the establishment of the company too, which had been put on standby at the arrival of the Covid, and which required more time than expected for bureaucratic problems of Italian law changes. Without going into details, it is as if in fact we had to do the constitution twice, because the first one was blocked when it was practically over (we had already celebrated!). But we are a startup, the troubled stories are the most exciting!
Who is Tocket targeting? How is the market responding?
Tocket caters to event organizers, whether live, online or hybrid! Initially, before the pandemic, we focused solely on live events, and we created a digital ticket model to entry events based on the Blockchain. After the pandemic, as already pointed out, to meet our customers who could no longer organize live events we created our own platform to host online events. It’s a highly customizable platform suitable for various types of events, with the ability to create many rooms, stage type or network type, trying to recreate online what was once done live. This also leads us to the elimination of the limits that often prevent the participation in a live event: geographical limits (too distant), time limits (due to travel), economic limits (always linked to travel and possible overnight stays). Being able to attend the event from the comfort of home opens many new possibilities.
But the real revolution is the union of the two services, which allows you to manage hybrid events with a single service. In this way, you can participate in the event live, while for others there is the opportunity to enjoy it online. In the field of live events so far we have followed some music festivals by thousands of people, and in this period we are talking with some organizers of major events that are considering choosing our service, which would make us make the leap in quality.
In the online events sector we started, one month after the decision to go online, to offer the platform to an Italian music association, which used it to make about 300 small concerts. For us it was a great test and a first validation. Later we developed the service further and started to sell it more to business and network events. It is a very interesting structure both for public business events and for internal and semi-internal corporate events, thanks to the high degree of customization of the platform.
How is the Blockchain in Tocket exploited? Explain it as if it were telling your grandparents
Fortunately, I am not a technician, so I can understand the limits of those who are not expert in understanding such a difficult technology. Trying to explain it in a very simple way, and clearly simplifying significantly,our tickets live inside the Blockchain, and are technically NFT (Non Fungible Token). Thanks to the intrinsic characteristics of the Blockchain and through the use of Smart Contracts we are able to limit to the maximum the risk of scalping and other possible frauds in buying and selling between online end-users (who do not trust each other). In practice, tockets (so-called because the noun mixes the words ”ticket” and “token”) can be put on sale at a lower or equal price, compared to the original, and these rules are imposed by the Smart Contract and technically impassable. The Blockchain allows us to set the rules at the basis of these exchanges without having to manually carry out checks on our part. We must not guarantee the veracity of a ticket, it is the Blockchain itself that does it!
How did you launch your project?
From the point of view of bureaucratic and corporate embarrassment we had various mentors who in different ways gave us help and taught us something! From the point of view of the service offered, as I told before, for live events we participated in the first big event (the Stanno Tutti Bene Festival) in August 2020. Like any startup, at first you have to go a bit and make sure everything runs as smoothly as possible. We offered him the service for free, we went personally there to manage the check-in and in this way we tried to better manage every problem. And seeing your service on the ground helps a lot. Funny anecdote (or rather, nice after a while, in those days it was quite stressful): the first day the app had some obvious bugs, so at 11 pm we left the event, we went home, we switched on computers and we got to work. We finished at 7 in the morning, but the next day the problems were gone!
This is to say that at the beginning problems are many, and I believe that we must have the right balance between awareness and courage in taking some risks! It doesn’t mean jumping into random things, but packing up plans to manage any problems that may occur.
For the online event platform, it was pretty much a full-fledged new launch! In that case, thanks to the experience accumulated in the previous months, we were much faster and more concrete. On October 24, 2020, the DPCM came out to close all events live. A week of brainstorming followed, after which we developed very fast, and on December 13 we started with a series of 275 concerts over the next month! Again the service was offered at a derisory price, but it allowed us to test a lot and consolidate the first version of the service. Once again, the right compromise between awareness and risk!
Cool Fact: Do you also use Tocket to plan and launch your events?
Interesting question! It’s clear that it’s not our job, but it actually happened. When we created the online platform, we needed to test it with a lot of people and show their potential. It was not easy to find events, so I decided to organize an event, the Italian Startup Network. Started almost like a game proposed on Linkedin, it got serious and together with me joined Daniele Mogavero. The event brought more than 200 people within the platform for 4 hours, and had a following with the second edition in June, which managed to make the same numbers despite being a Saturday afternoon of beautiful weather in Italy and no more limitations due to the Covid. In short, if I would like to organize events again in the future, I will definitely not go to competitors!!! (laughs)
Credits:
https://www.tocket.org/