Fixing Taylor Swift’s problem, and that of many other artists and event organizers: connecting with their true audience: the people who pay for their events and attend their concerts.
Problem
Fact 1. Taylor Swift recently alienated many of her fans by asking them to buy her merchandise in order to “boost” their chances of acquiring tickets for her concerts. Many of her loyal fans feel scammed and outraged at this very moment:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/41094852/taylor-swift-criticised-for-new-ticket-sale-scheme-after-trying-to-stop-touts
Her intention was to avoid touts by ensuring that her most loyal fans got to buy tickets.
Conclusion 1. Taylor Swift needs Aventus to prevent touts. She should also know to ask her fans about this kind of decision beforehand.
Fact 2. Taylor Swift has attempted to ask her fans about her decisions before with unexpected results:
http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/10/03/internet-pranksters-win-a-taylor-swift-concert-for-school-for-the-deaf/Conclusion 2. Taylor Swift doesn’t really know who the people attending her events are. Anyone can follow her on social media and vote on her polls and platforms like Ticketmaster clearly offer her no way since many tickets are bought by resellers and the platform itself does not allow it. This is not only Taylor Swift’s problem, artists and event organizers in general have a disconnection with their final audience at event-day, due to the layers in between. This makes difficult gathering their opinion and targeting advertising to the fans which are most likely to purchase tickets.
Solution
A blockchain-based ticketing system like Aventus enables Taylor Swift to know exactly who the attendees to her events are by creating a trace throughout the whole resale process. Eliminating touts by ID verification for the most expensive tickets means that the event organizer can be sure about who is entering the venue at event day.
SwiftLink comes to enable this interaction with a backend and a social media application (eg. Facebook App) for famous artists and large event organizers to gather data and communicate with their attendees.
How it works
Taylor Swift sells her tickets through a websites/apps with social media authentication, running on Aventus + SwiftLink. When someone purchases a ticket, his/her social media ID is registered in SwiftLink. She offers a small discount or bonus for fans who sign up using social media to encourage them to do it.
Taylor Swift enables the resale for her events to occur through websites/apps with social media authentication, running on Aventus and implementing SwiftLink. In this way most tickets are tied to a social media profile, which is registered using SwiftLink. When a ticket changes hands the new identity is assigned to the ticket.
On event day, the final owner of a ticket is assumed to have assisted to the event if no ID verification was performed (and the ticket was registered at the entrance). For expensive tickets which require ID verification this can be checked precisely.
When Taylor Swift wants to know what her most loyal fans think, she simply creates, for example, a Facebook poll in which anyone can vote. No outrages. However, because she now has the social media IDs of concert-goers, using the SwiftLink Facebook App for artists she can now check the analytics with respect only to fans which have attended her concerts, and know exactly what is in their mind.
SwiftLink’s Analytics enables Taylor Swift to engage with the fans attending her concerts in all sorts of ways in social media, like for example, giving out merchandise, discounts or tickets to loyal attendees who have assisted to many of her concerts, encouraging other supporters to attend in a positive way. This is regardless of whether they had to buy their tickets in the resale market. SwiftLink creates a link between artist and loyal attendee.
SwiftLink enables tying tickets to particular social media identities, leveraging the power of social media advertising for big artists/organizers. It is up to the organizer/artist to decide whether he/she uses social media or some other kind of authentication (eg. email) to tie a ticket to an identity that can later be exploited. For example, a sports team without social media presence could organize the sale and resale through their website with email login and then conduct polls on the same website.
Monetisation
Since acquiring big customers like Taylor Swift is enough benefit in itself for Aventus, and SwiftLink is not technologically complex and could be implemented by the organizer itself (with some overhead), SwiftLink should not be a paid service but part of the Aventus value proposition for successful artists who organize their own events, and large event organizers (eg. football teams) which could benefit from connecting with their attendees. That is, Swift link will not be monetized directly but it will boost the Aventus Ecosystem in the best possible way: attracting famous artists and mass customers, enabling them to benefit from decentralization.
Customers and Acquisition Strategy
Target customers are:
Taylor Swift and other artists who are successful enough to organize their own events and want control over the sale and resale.
Purpose
Fixing Taylor Swift’s problem, and that of many other artists and event organizers: connecting with their true audience: the people who pay for their events and attend their concerts.
Problem
Fact 1. Taylor Swift recently alienated many of her fans by asking them to buy her merchandise in order to “boost” their chances of acquiring tickets for her concerts. Many of her loyal fans feel scammed and outraged at this very moment: http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/41094852/taylor-swift-criticised-for-new-ticket-sale-scheme-after-trying-to-stop-touts Her intention was to avoid touts by ensuring that her most loyal fans got to buy tickets. Conclusion 1. Taylor Swift needs Aventus to prevent touts. She should also know to ask her fans about this kind of decision beforehand.
Fact 2. Taylor Swift has attempted to ask her fans about her decisions before with unexpected results: http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/10/03/internet-pranksters-win-a-taylor-swift-concert-for-school-for-the-deaf/ Conclusion 2. Taylor Swift doesn’t really know who the people attending her events are. Anyone can follow her on social media and vote on her polls and platforms like Ticketmaster clearly offer her no way since many tickets are bought by resellers and the platform itself does not allow it. This is not only Taylor Swift’s problem, artists and event organizers in general have a disconnection with their final audience at event-day, due to the layers in between. This makes difficult gathering their opinion and targeting advertising to the fans which are most likely to purchase tickets.
Solution
A blockchain-based ticketing system like Aventus enables Taylor Swift to know exactly who the attendees to her events are by creating a trace throughout the whole resale process. Eliminating touts by ID verification for the most expensive tickets means that the event organizer can be sure about who is entering the venue at event day.
SwiftLink comes to enable this interaction with a backend and a social media application (eg. Facebook App) for famous artists and large event organizers to gather data and communicate with their attendees.
How it works
SwiftLink enables tying tickets to particular social media identities, leveraging the power of social media advertising for big artists/organizers. It is up to the organizer/artist to decide whether he/she uses social media or some other kind of authentication (eg. email) to tie a ticket to an identity that can later be exploited. For example, a sports team without social media presence could organize the sale and resale through their website with email login and then conduct polls on the same website.
Monetisation
Since acquiring big customers like Taylor Swift is enough benefit in itself for Aventus, and SwiftLink is not technologically complex and could be implemented by the organizer itself (with some overhead), SwiftLink should not be a paid service but part of the Aventus value proposition for successful artists who organize their own events, and large event organizers (eg. football teams) which could benefit from connecting with their attendees. That is, Swift link will not be monetized directly but it will boost the Aventus Ecosystem in the best possible way: attracting famous artists and mass customers, enabling them to benefit from decentralization.
Customers and Acquisition Strategy
Target customers are:
References
[1] "Aventus Whitepaper" https://aventus.io/doc/whitepaper.pdf [2] "Taylor Swift criticised for new ticket sale scheme after trying to stop touts" http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/41094852/taylor-swift-criticised-for-new-ticket-sale-scheme-after-trying-to-stop-touts