TicketMaster has long been unpopular with both music fans and many bands. GigsWiz' approach to building an alternative was to create a system that rewards artists for ticket sales resulting from their direct contacts with fans. Essentially an affiliate program, it encourages musicians to promote their own shows on social media. The band Human League recently encouraged the company to add another aspect to the program and allow bands to pass on their rewards as discounts on tickets.
Paul Sawers spoke with GigsWiz co-founder Juuso Vermasheinä about the new Fan Loyalty Discount Program that came out of discussions with The Human League:
"The Human League will reward fans with discounted tickets while also picking up new online fans and followers by utilizing GigsWiz’s Fan Loyalty Discount Program. The program enables artists to pass on their reward to their fans as a discount on the gig or festival tickets."
At this stage GigsWiz is not directly threatening TicketMaster so much as creating a new market. EventBrite cofounders Kevin and Julia Hartz recently discussed their new market:
"We like to think of the pyramid. And at the top is Ticketmaster. And they were ticketing Lady Gaga shows, the big complex events or the big sporting events. And the white space, or that area that's vastly under served beneath that is is really everything else, it's fundraisers, it's marathons, it's you know, high school theater."
Disruptive innovations emerge from underserved markets with business models that allow them to eventually take on more complex services and ultimately undermine large ticket companies, especially TicketMaster. Such incumbents are often picked apart, as we've seen with newspapers, by breaking off pieces of the market, as GigsWiz is doing for music ticketing. However that potential plays out, if Gigswiz rolls out their Fan Loyalty Discount Program beyond The Human League, they will have a much stronger service by creating a virtuous circle.
Hypebot contributor Clyde Smith is a freelance writer and blogger. Flux Research is his business writing hub and All World Dance: World Dance News is his primary web project.
