Broker-owned ticket exchange company Ticket Evolution, in a nod to existing exchanges that base fees on performance, is asking potential members whether they would support a broker rating system.
In a multi-question survey on its Web site, organizers ask potential members for feedback on what type of affiliate program the company should offer and how it should implement the rating system and the fees it will charge, among other questions.
“We want to introduce a simple rating system to determine the percentage of the fee that will be assessed to each order based on two criteria, 1.) Percentage of confirmed orders and 2.) Amount of time to confirm orders. (You will not be penalized for time during non regular business working hours.),” the site states.
Depending on a brokers’ rating, Ticket Evolution is proposing fees of 4 percent (1 percent plus 3 percent for credit card processing), 6 percent (3 percent plus 3 percent for credit card processing) or 9 percent (6 percent plus 3 percent for credit card processing), which it says are similar to fees imposed by TicketNetwork.
Organizers said the fees are being proposed “for the company to be profitable and without putting too big of a financial burden on the brokers.”
Since its official introduction earlier this month, Ticket Evolution has quickly ramped up its outreach to brokers in an effort to move the operation along. And, in addition to the survey, the organizers have launched a private, online community for potential members where the founders can control their message.
Neither Ram Silverman, Steve Parry or Drew Gainor, the company’s founders, returned a message seeking comment.
The company has set a deadline of August 13 to raise $4 million to launch and operate the exchange, which organizers say will be one of the most technologically advanced in the secondary ticketing industry.
“Build and design software applications for the ticket community that will enable sellers to operate more efficiently while maximizing profit margins,” read the mission statement, according to the founders.
The company plans to use Ruby on Rails and the Amazon Cloud computing initiative for the effort, and Gainor, who is spearheading the technology rollout, wrote that he believes Rails offers brokers an innovative alternative to other exchanges.
“The productivity gains for which Rails is known, the automated testing that it facilitates, and the ability to run it in a cloud computing environment which eases scaling are just a few of the reasons [Ruby on Rails] was selected for Ticket evolution,” Gainor wrote. “You may have heard of a company called Twitter, which has built its platform on ROR. Another company that may sound familiar is yellowpages.com.”
Yet, while ROR offers several snazzy features, the platform is only being used to run Twitter’s front end interface, according to a 2009 interview with Twitter developer Alex Payne on Artima.com. Twitter ported its back end operations away from ROR to the Scala platform.
“Over time we found that although Rails works great for doing front-end web development, for doing heavy weight back-end processing, Rails had some performance limitations at runtime,” Payne told Artima.com. “And I think that—and this is more my personal opinion—the Ruby language lacks some things that contribute to reliable, high performance code, which is something we’re very interested in as we’re growing as a business. We want the code we write to be correct and maintainable. We want to keep our costs down—all the things most businesses want out of their stack. So that’s why we started looking at Scala.”
In addition to ROR’s limitations, Ticket Evolution’s cloud computing platform could have some issues with Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard compliance, which both StubHub and TicketNetwork have attained. According to Amazon Web Services, a cloud architecture cannot achieve certain levels of PCI compliance, unless a separate, encrypted platform is utilized for credit card processing. Amazon offers such a separate program but it costs more.
How Ticket Evolution will deal with these issues is unknown, but the company has not yet launched its exchange. And, to tackle those issues, the company will have Gainor exclusively.
Today, July 30, Gainor announced that he is leaving his current company to join Ticket Evolution full-time, and in his resignation letter from National Event Company, he said he wants to follow his passion of creating technology “to better the ticket industry”:
Fellow Brokers,
After ten great years working along side all of you great ticket brokers and learning everything I possible can about the secondary ticket industry, it is time for me to pursue my true passion in technology.
It is with great enthusiasm and honor that I resign from my duties at National Event
Company and commit my expertise on technology and tickets to better the ticket industry.
As of August 13th, 2010, Ticket Evolution and the community it seeks to support and bring together, will have my full dedication and commitment as we begin this amazing journey together.
I have always imagined a community so unified and powerful yet truly driven by the voices and opinions of every broker involved. That time is now and that is exactly what Ticket Evolution stands for.
Ticket Brokers deserve a truly cutting edge software platform that will enable them to operate more efficiently and return more money to their bottom line. It is my goal to provide this platform to all of you, especially in a time where margins have shrunk so much and there are so many outside forces looking to affect our incomes.
We are in a technological age where there is no excuse for platforms that are not truly seamless and intuitive. We are an industry that relies heavily on B2B transactions and we deserve a secure and reliable environment where this can be done without much effort or cost involved.
Please keep in mind our goal is not to replicate or rebuild another exchange…it is to take a completely fresh and new approach based on the feedback from the community.
I look forward to an extremely exciting and successful future with all of you!
Sincerely,
Drew Gainor
TicketNetwork is the parent company of TicketNews.
15 Comments
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Go Ticket Evolution! Brokers need an alternative to the big bully in the Sandbox TN.
You said no fees in the presintation and now you say their will be fees just like ticketnetwork. you said no broker ratings either and now you are saying pay more if we dont fill orders how they want you to.. so are either total l trying to steal our money or dont have any idea what they are doing and I dont care which one is true their not getting a penny from me
Broker rating? Mr. Gainor and his crew are just out to make money off of my investments. Why would I give my business to another TN exchange why there is TN and Stubhub that has the same tickets? Broker rating? That is just a another way for the new exchange to make more money. Never, Never, trust a tickets broker! Most of them are scamers. Why would you do business with your competition? This new exchange will never made it!! Trust me!! Why is Mr. Gainor and his crew trying to rise money for an exchange when the secondary market is on its last leg? Is the money they are raising a Golden Parachute from the failing secondary market? Think about it. Why would someone start a new company and try to rise money for that company in a failing industry? Remember PagNet and MCI in the late 90’s? Both CEO’s are in prison for fraud still today. Think about it
At first I thought you posted this late at night and you were drunk. Now that I see you posted at 11am I realize you are just an idiot. By the way who are these “scamers” you speak of.
You are!! And the idiots that think the secondary market will make it and invest money into a new exchange that will not compete against Stubhub. I think your drunk, you idiot!
Your just one of the brokers in moms basement that can’t perform or be counted on to fill orders. Good luck in the future your not wanted on the new exchange. The funny thing is you don’t even know what going on and i feel sorry for you and your future employers!
Your right I am one of those guys. I have no problem saying that. Also, I play video games all day long waiting for Stubhub orders. Plus, I have a bean bag that I seat in naked, eating popcorn, and watching porn. I am proud of it too. But your just one of those guys that are going to take investors money and find out that you cannot compete with TN & Stubhub and then say “Well guys, we cannot do this and we are sorry”. Then you will have your Golden Parachute! I was at the meeting in Vegas and I did not like what I heard. All I heard was a bunch of Hot Air! Why would anyone give money to a ticket broker on a business investment? We are some of the shadiest people in business. Good god man, wake up!
Sorry to burst you bubble but I’m not a founder. I dont even think you have the money to invest. Not having a broker rating was my biggest problem with the meeting. You have to have checks and balances with out them you would be wasting a lot of money advertising and not seeing you return because of brokers that dont fill orders. Good luck in the future we are better as an industry without you.
Your right you win, I am broke and don’t have the money. I am a poor broker. I do have a dollor but I will still not invest in that system or us it. Or I can be the guy that has a lot of money and low balls you guys to screw you. Because I maybe the guy that does not care about making 30%. Only 5-10% on my money maybe ok with me because I have a real business that makes me my money. But I don’t care. I was just having a little fun with this.
Whether or not they raise $4m or $8m they have only alloted $250k to site development. Seems weird. Also, the developer, Ticket Cloud LLC has been issued a promisory note of $500k to be paid in yearly instalments of $250k for the next two years. There is also a clause that says Golden Circle can sell their inventory on any exchange, not necessarily their own. This whole thing seems to be a cash grab (at no risk) for the founders of this exchange. How exactly are consumers going to even find their inventory? Ticketnetwork owns multiple websites that bring millions of eyeballs to their tickets, how the heck is TE going to compete? Let alone with Stubhub! Seems like a lot of theoreticals and pivoting by this company, before they have even launched.
Yes I really want to invest in a starter internet broker firm, that currently has no market position, access to consumers or track record. Seems like Ticketnews has one of these stories every week of how some guy(s) are reinventing the brokering wheel.
There is no way this company is viable on 1% margins. The Holy Grail of lower commission rates is hard to turn a profit. Stubhubs seller commissions of 10-15% are there because of buyer and seller protection, marketing etc. Ticket Evolution is full of wonderful gimmicks, but I doubt anyone who invests in this will ever see a return on their investment.
Yet another initiative in the long list of those who want to eliminate their risk by attempting to make money from transactions and never take an actual financial position in tickets. Things like this come and go with barely a whimper, and this one will be the same. Unless you have something nobody has thought of before, you’re doomed to fail. Can’t have your cake and eat it too. StubHub will eat your cake every time! If you can’t make money by taking a financial risk in a ticket, choose a different profession.
UNRELATED RANT TO EVERYONE: IF TRYING TO SHORTEN “YOU ARE” THE WORD IS “YOU’RE” NOT “YOUR”.
You’re welcome for this lesson in fixing your grammar. (Please note the difference. I refuse to believe everyone in this industry is illilerate.)
Golden Tickets want to raise money as a coop and run the the exchange as a private company, what fool would lend them money, and then let Steve & Ram call the shots with our collective millions..
ok We are dumb but not that dumb, if you so believe in your idea Golden tickets you GOLDEN should put up 1 million cash to show they are for real, or are they justing looking for a new source of income overseeing another exchange, I hope you fools do back them so Don will lower all broker rates the day they open the exchange and it becomes a race to the bottom on broker fees,,,good luck but i aint losing money on this ticket evolution
“Depending on a brokers’ rating, Ticket Evolution is proposing fees of 4 percent (1 percent plus 3 percent for credit card processing), 6 percent (3 percent plus 3 percent for credit card processing) or 9 percent (6 percent plus 3 percent for credit card processing), which it says are similar to fees imposed by TicketNetwork.”
So the alternative is good brokers paying more to TE than they would to TN? Whoops. So much for that fancy video showing the toll booths for Stubhub, TNow and TN and then paying TE nothing. (btw credit card fees are less then 3% on avg)
Smoke and mirrors to get broker’s money then reversing your philosophies…bad start TE.
I don’t think they were trying to shorten the word “you’re”….maybe it is the same person having an argument with himself??