Some years ago, Rana Bassi envisioned a kind of “ticket central” in the “.tv” domain. Ticket buyers would be able to invite their friends to purchase tickets for seating at a nearby event, and later, upload pictures and video of their experiences for all to see.
He saw social media as integral to this effort, creating a kind of global living room where fans could connect and share their knowledge and experiences of events they attend. As Bassi told TicketNews, “If you took Facebook and YouTube and combined them, just do that for tickets, you would have Ticket.tv.”
Now Bassi is trying to sell the name. He has not yet approached specific business sectors with his offer, but instead is spreading the word far and wide, “to see what the feel is at the moment.” His starting asking price is $100,000, which he considers to be a fair price for the market. “I personally believe [Ticket.tv] is the most unique name there is. One hundred-thousand dollars is nothing compared to what it’s worth as a brand, if you have a development team.”
A pawn broker by trade, Bassi bought the Ticket.tv name six years ago and started on development of the domain. Three years ago, he became an affiliate of ticket software developer TicketSwitch, which allowed him to start a ticketing business through the Ticket.tv site. But as he tried to move his site toward the social/media platform he had envisioned, Bassi was met with roadblocks. “To try and get the technology to overcome the hurdles [of building such a site], it’s a bit too big of a commitment. Also, there are other companies who are more equipped to deal with this, and I don’t have a development team to go forward.”
In fact, in the years since Bassi first conceived of this project, other sites have been able to provide pieces of what he had hoped to achieve with Ticket.tv. For example, 2007 saw the launch of Songkick, a ticket aggregator which encourages users to share pictures they’ve shot at concerts.
His frustration with trying to develop Ticket.tv further ultimately led Bassi to his current decision to sell. “I saw that Ticket.com had sold and I thought it would be time to cash in on my investment. I’ve been wondering why someone hasn’t started a ticket channel, a satellite channel, perhaps. It might be a television station that would take it. That is an opening, waiting.”
