ComeTogether provides infrastructure for event ticketing, fraud and scalping prevention along with secondary market revenue management.
As part of their journey on BlockStart’s Acceleration Programme, as a startup developer of blockchain technology, they were looking to further develop their solution and for new opportunities for collaboration with end-user SMEs that could validate and help them improve their “BackTogether” blockchain solution.
We spoke with Co-founder and Head of Product Efstathios Mitskas to know more about ComeTogether and their participation in BlockStart.
In one paragraph, what is ComeTogether?
ComeTogether is a ticketing solution that gives control of the entire ticket lifecycle to event organizers, with the power of blockchain. The tickets are delivered through a dynamic QR code, making it impossible for any resales to take place outside of the blockchain. Therefore, all tickets will always be official and the organizer’s rules enforced. The team has also developed BackTogether – COVID-19 access control Passport when events industry shut down, a functionality that has been integrated into ComeTogether, adding a health component to the tickets, to enable safe restart of live events.
Can you tell us how the idea for your startup began?
When we were young, we tried many consecutive years to buy tickets for Tomorrowland the moment they went on sale. However, we neglected the ticket bots and scalpers in this story! The moment the tickets were on sale in the primary market, they were bought by bots, thus, leading to confusion about their availability as well as their price. As a result, we were only able to find them available at much higher prices in the secondary market, a few minutes later.
After many years, we got to develop a strong passion and understanding for the blockchain technology and eventually we were thrilled when we realised, that it can tackle this problem.
What is ComeTogether passionate about achieving?
We give the technological tools to the event organisers so as to exclude, if they wish, the ticket scalpers from the ticketing ecosystem considering that they bring no value to it. That way the event organisers have the power to provide fair pricing to every single fan. More precisely, the key benefits that we achieve with the use of blockchain are:
- Elimination of ticket fraud.
- Combating of ticket scalping, as the event organizer can set resale price ranges.
- Event organizers get access to secondary market revenues, through a resale revenue management tool.
- Better audience insights, knowing who the actual attendee is, even if the ticket exchanges hands.
This allows for targeted marketing, COVID-19 tracing and regulatory compliance. Since covid-19 hit, we have shifted our main focus into bringing back the live events industry, this is the reason why we created BackTogether a covid-19 access control passport app.
Who are the team members and what backgrounds do you have?
Most of us are music or sport event enthusiasts and have had disappointing event experiences due to scalping and high prices, so we take this problem personally.
We have all the cross disciplinary skills we need, in-house already. Deep software, blockchain, business, marketing, UX and event industry expertise. The team spans from computer scientists with a passion for blockchain and the vast beneficial disruption it can bring to society, to successful entrepreneurs with millions in revenues (including in the event ticketing sector) and experienced marketing and UX leaders, with experience from startups to Fortune 100 companies.
Can you tell us about the prototype you have developed with the support of BlockStart Acceleration Programme?
During the Blockstart Accelerator Programme we launched the BackTogether app on iOS and Finalised the QR code scanner native app.
The scanner native app can scan QR codes representing tickets. On every scan it invalidates a ticket on the EOSIO blockchain and provides ticket status validation. The app works under low bandwidth and low battery consumption as well as in offline mode. We managed to achieve the aforementioned goals by using MQTT protocol and MongoDB realm sync. The app is also working concurrently for many scanner devices with real time sync amongst those devices for events with multiple entrances.
For example, as soon as a validator scans a ticket for a specific event on one device an update occurs to all other scanner devices that are connected to this event. The app is intended to be used by the ticket validators in the entrance.
What were you most excited about in taking part of BlockStart Acceleration Programme?
We were excited about presenting our solutions and improving our products based on the feedback from the programme. The mentor’s support played a key role in achieving that and by helping us to pay attention to the things that had the most value for our growth. In addition, we got a lot of support/sponsorship for attending industry events, where we increased further our networking.
Which were the major challenges you have faced during the development and market/fit validation of your prototype?
The fact that the live event industry was shut down due to covid-19 made it harder to solely validate ComeTogether’s ticketing value proposition. However, the usage of BackTogether health passport solution that provides archival and status validation for COVID-19 tests (rapid/RT-PCR), antibody tests and vaccinations saw a lot of demand as an access control management tool for sensitive or crowded places (eg. nursing homes, hospitals, airports, live events, theatres etc).
Additionally, the combination of those two products saw a lot of market fit as a way to bring back live events.
Overall, some event organizers expressed concerns regarding the short term future of live events but then again we saw many optimistic players in the market that embraced the solutions we provided and made efforts to organize live events, even under the covid-19 pandemic. The pilot live event that we got approval to run in May 2021 (Greece) witnesses those huge efforts that big event organizers and health service providers, along with our vision, have done.
What unique aspects does your company and the prototype you have developed have to offer to the market sectors/type of companies you wish to enter/sell and to the blockchain ecosystem in Europe, as a whole?
The key benefits of our blockchain ticketing are:
- Elimination of ticket fraud.
- Combating of ticket scalping, as the event organizer can set resale price ranges.
- Event organizers get access to secondary market revenues, through a resale revenue management tool.
- Better audience insights, knowing who the actual attendee is, even if the ticket exchanges hands. This allows for targeted marketing, COVID-19 tracing and regulatory compliance.
- Fans get the ticket as a digital collectible (NFT).
Considering that we provide our products as whitelabel solutions, we are not competing with any other ticketing company. Thus, any ticketing company that wants to upgrade their ticketing solution to a more advanced one and leverage the benefits that come with the use of blockchain, they can easily do so. In other words, we make this technology accessible to anyone, as we acknowledge that especially many medium/small size companies cannot afford to invest resources to develop such solutions.
In terms of BackTogether now, it is also provided as a whitelabel solution. Its covid-19 access control management functionality is meant to contribute to restarting the economic activity as well as enable the safe restart of live events, not only in Europe, but even in a world wide scale.
Is collaboration with SME adopters important for piloting your solution?
Yes, SME adopters are essential for piloting our products, we already have seen traction and have initiated talks from i) ticketing companies towards ComeTogether and BackTogether solutions combined ii) as well as for BackTogether from health service providers and insurance companies. The collaboration with SME adopters would further reassure us that we build our products according to the client needs, making them even more, innovative, user friendly and ready for the market.
Where do you see your company in 5 years?
We plan to create a network of ticketing providers, with incentives for collaboration between them, automatically enforced in a trust-less way (even if they are competing entities). This will enable increased ticket sale opportunities and an expanded reach through new geographic regions or event types.
In regards to BackTogether health passport app, we hope that the pandemic will be over at some point, and BackTogether will shift from being used as a covid-19 access control management tool to a digital health app. Storing all kinds of medical data in a secure way and giving control of the medical data to their rightful owners.
Apply to our Open Call #3. 3 days left!
In our 3rd and final Open Call, we are looking for early and growth-stage blockchain/DLT startups from all over the EU and H2020 Associated Countries in the fields of fintech, ICT and retail and will provide startups with access to a variety of perks, including equity free funding of up to €20.000, access to piloting opportunities, mentorship, and exposure to investors and advisors.
Interested startups should fill in an online application form at F6S platform. Deadline for applications is 26 May at 5pm CET (Brussels Time).
For more information on application criteria and how to apply, interested applicants can go to blockstart.eu and consult the FAQ section. BlockStart will also organize a Q&A webinars for future applicant on 12 May 2021 at 11am CET (Brussels Time), and you can save your seat here (takeaways of the previous Q&A webinar available here).
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