Blockparty, a US startup looking to bring blockchain technology to event ticketing, has launched its new platform now available for download in the Apple App Store. The mobile app allows users to purchase event tickets easily, transfer them, and get rewarded for bringing friends, sharing events, and more. Blockparty’s native token, BOXX, has gone live within the mobile app and can be both used on tickets and earned via the platform’s reward scheme, the company announced on Wednesday.
Blockparty aims to improve the ticket purchasing process for concerts, sporting events, and music festivals, by leveraging blockchain technology to address the issues and challenges that have been plaguing the industry including bots, ticket fraud, lengthy event check-in protocols, and predatory secondary market resellers.
“We want to rid the world of ticket bots and scalpers. We also want people to be able to easily transfer event tickets and safely purchase secondary tickets,” said Shiv Madan, CEO of Blockparty and former COO at a division of Time Inc.’s music brand NME.
“We’re proud to be able to offer a blockchain platform that can do that, and we are incredibly excited for festival goers, music lovers, sports fans, and all live event attendees alike to experience what we’ve built as we roll out marquee event partnerships over the coming months.”
Blockparty eliminates the possibility of fraud and counterfeit tickets by using blockchain technology to ensure ticket ownership and attendee identity. The platform utilizes secure, encrypted facial recognition and fingerprint technology to validate tickets at the gate and ensure that only the true owner of a ticket can access it while allowing user identity to remain completely anonymized.
For event organizers, ticketing companies, venues, and performers, Blockparty allows them to deliver tickets directly to customers, set prices, rewards, and discounts, as well as earn a share of secondary ticket sales revenues. Furthermore, the platform’s smart contracts eliminate bulk buying by bots and unfair re-pricing on secondary markets.
The public launch of the Blockparty mobile app follows the first use of the platform at Elements Lakewood Music Festival over Memorial Day weekend. Each ticket to the event was represented by a non-fungible ERC721 token. Each ticket’s smart contract included data points such as a digital fingerprint to safeguard proof of ownership.
Blockparty’s founding team is comprised of both blockchain experts and veterans of the entertainment industry including Andy Goldstein, former COO of cryptocurrency payment company Metal Pay, and CTO Rikesh Thapa, founder and former CEO of BitOverflow, a blockchain energy startup.
Advisors to the startup include Aaron Chawla who’s been involved in the organization of Coachella, Lollapalooza and the Super Bowl halftime show, as well as Greg Consiglio, former executive vice president of Ticketmaster.