Event Genius’ Managing Director Reshad Hossenally featured in January’s Audience Magazine

If you pick up a copy of January’s issue of Audience Magazine and turn to page 22 you’ll find an article called ‘Ticketing the Future’, a six-page feature on where the ticketing technology industry is headed in 2017 and beyond. Our Managing Director, Reshad Hossenally, was invited to contribute his views to the feature and we thought that we would share the transcript of his answers with you on the blog.

Audience Magazine (AM): How many events did you ticket in 2016 and how many tickets did you sell?

Reshad Hossenally (RH): We sold tickets to over 5,000 events on our way to selling almost 2 million tickets last year.

AM: How many territories does Ticket Arena now operate in and have there been any recent expansions/acquisitions?

RH: We operate in 2 territories, the UK & Europe, and Asia. Over the last couple of years, we’ve set up offices in Leeds, London and Malta.

AM: What is the company’s USP and how do you tackle competition from huge operators such as Ticketmaster?

RH: What sets us apart is how quickly we can react to the needs of our clients and in doing so amplify sales or increase efficiency. We have an extremely talented team of in-house developers and designers that can take innovative new technologies and make them into the easy-to-use tools that make up our online platform, Event Genius. These tools work seamlessly and intelligently to help venues and organisers transform the way they sell, promote and deliver their events.

AM: Have there been any recent developments/trends with ticketing formats, i.e collectible paper tickets selling well or new formats created?

RH: I think we’re going to see the use of Facebook bots become more widespread in event ticketing. We’ll see tickets being sent via Facebook messenger in the same way that some airlines send boarding passes to passengers. RFID Cashless events is another trend which is developing very fast now and we have completed several RFID events successfully.

AM: What new features within your ticketing offering have you launched lately or plan to launch soon?

RH: One of our latest features is called Auto Sync and is an upgrade to our robust scanning solution, Entry Genius. It seamlessly synchronises any live ticket sales with your on-the-door scanning operation, increasing the online sales window to even after doors have opened. The other is our RFID Cashless system which has been a huge success for both punter and event organiser.

We have a heap more innovations in the pipeline as part of a £3 million investment we’re making into our branding and online platform. I can’t give away too much now, but it’s a seriously exciting time, one to watch out for is our new tout-proof technology which we are announcing later this year.

AM: In what ways does your service embrace the power of social media?

RH: As Facebook and other social platforms constantly update how paid adverts are served to potential customers, it’s important to build tools that enable organisers and promoters to maximise their organic visibility.

To help we have numerous tools in our Event Genius platform. We have white-label pre-sale registration pages that can be configured to require a social share to register, our organisers can sell tickets direct from their fan pages and offer their customers discounts for social sharing.

However, it’s our Ambassador App which takes this to the next level. It’s is a paperless solution that makes it easy for reps, affiliates or anyone who signs up to share events and earn commission selling tickets via WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, SMS or Email.

AM: What are the biggest tours you are working on this year?

RH: We’ll be continuing our work with The Warehouse Project team in Manchester and be working on bigger events, like Parklife Festival, Wales Rally GB, Ibiza Rocks and Annie Mac Presents Lost & Found Festival in Malta.

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