Ticket platform EventsFrame enters the Web3 space with NFT tickets

When the pandemic disrupted the live events industry, the team at ticketing platform EventsFrame was looking for things to do, recalls Pavel Helstyn, the company’s head of business development. They were already holding regular brainstorming sessions about where the industry is headed and how they can best offer value, but those conversations turned into action and, as of this month, a new product.

EventsFrame now offers a blockchain-backed NFT ticketing solution, an early realization of an idea whose potential has been tossed around in a number of panels and talks over the past couple of years. While Candy Digital and Ticketmaster have created commemorative NFT tickets for MLB and NFL games, tokens are not yet the actual means of admission.

EventsFrame allows event organizers to create NFT tickets using original images or a template.

“The whole thing is a big turning point,” says Helstyn. “I think we can say that we are one of the first in the market, and perhaps the only one at this point, to have a solution that can be rapidly deployed at scale for event organizers.”

Among the 4,000 event promoters who have used EventsFrame’s original ticketing platform are TikTok, the United Nations and TEDx, and those businesses will continue to operate. But the Prague-based company now has a Web3 alternative.

“We want to improve the experience for people who go to the events, but we’re also looking at how you can monetize that improved experience,” he says.

Attendees who just want to use a ticket for its original purpose won’t see any difference, Helstyn adds, but those who are more tech-savvy can buy those tickets with crypto, store them in an ethereal wallet, or access exclusive content that event organizers pin to the non-fungible token, such as videos or memberships.

We want to improve the experience for people who go to the events, but we are also looking at how you can monetize the improved experience.

Teams, leagues, or other promoters may use NFT tickets to prevent scalping, earn royalties on secondary market sales, or monetize events. One such idea that is being developed is a digital merchandise store. Given the rise of the metaverse and other virtual experiences, Helstyn says event-specific clothing will have a home in Web3.

– It is a development process, and we are constantly finding new things we should work on. It is clear that there is some underlying technology, but for example one of the things we are working on right now – and that is the next step – is a merchandise store, which should be integrated into our platform, he says.

“You’re going to have the real sweater, which is going to cost something, and then you’re going to have the digital sweater, which is going to be maybe 30%, 50% less. But it’s still going to allow the person who goes to the arrangement to take something away something to keep something very sustainable, something that they can keep pretty much forever, and something that they can very easily resell down the road.”

A few early NFT ticket pilots have taken place, such as VeeCon, the event hosted by Gary Vaynerchuk last May at the Minnesota Vikings’ US Bank Stadium. ASM Global, which runs the venue, said 10,255 NFT tickets were sold. SeatGeek has discussed the development of NFT tickets, hiring blockchain chief Greg Warden as VP of engineering last year.

Outlining use cases at a SportTechie-hosted panel last December, SeatGeek’s product manager Eric Waller described a goal for organizers to get a “fully unadulterated view of the lifecycle of a ticket.” There are financial benefits as well as for understanding fan demographics – knowing who actually attends events has long vexed venues.

“There are certainly a lot of examples where there are resale transactions that happen outside of the realm of the ticketing system, and I think everyone is naturally very interested in getting some understanding of every resale that happens and potentially a royalty,” Waller said.