Blockchain technology has been one of the hottest buzzwords on the planet in recent years, and for good reason. It has already revolutionized the currency market, and creative upstart companies are finding more and more applications for the emerging technology in industries further afield.
There are blockchain video game markets like Robot Cache, which are revolutionising the concept of media ownership in the digital age. There are cryptocurrency market apps like Coinbase, sporting over ten million users. There are even organisations like Bitgive, who are leveraging the blockchain for more transparent and efficient donations to charity.
And now the blockchain is entering the events industry, as new start-up Aventus is seeking to revolutionise the way tickets are bought and sold using the blockchain.
The company was created by Annika Monari and Alan Vey, graduates from Imperial College London who were dissatisfied with the existing status quo in the industry. The pair graduated from Imperial with degrees in artificial intelligence and particle physics, and so have an understanding of the way revolutionary technology can be applied.
The live events space has numerous problems with ticket resale, scalping, and mass purchasing from bots. These are issues that blockchain can solve: Aventus assigns a unique identity to each ticket, which is checked against every computer in the network.
This means each ticket is encrypted and cannot be replicated or faked. It also means organisers can keep an accurate record of who owns each ticket, and resale prices can be capped to eliminate scalping.
Aventus is based on the Etherium blockchain, and when the company opened its Initial Coin Offering, they raised 60,000 ETH (equivalent to £24m), with 1,300 people investing in just seven minutes.
One business which is already planning on introducing blockchain tickets is Las Vegas-based entertainment venture Kind Heaven. This $90m project will be situated on the Vegas strip, and allow visitors to step into an interactive video installation which will combine holographic special effects, live actors and wearable technology.
The venture will be completed in 2019, and is projected to reach 1.5 million tickets by 2020. Kind Heaven have confirmed they will be making use of the Aventus Protocol for their ticketing process.
Fellow Aventus co-founder Alan Vey says: "Event organisers will see the value in it, because it will enable them to effectively and efficiently manage and promote their ticketed events with significantly enhanced control over the ticketing supply chain.
This increase in trust and transparency is what Aventus hopes will set them apart in the events & ticketing space. Only time will tell whether this new technology could be as disruptive to the events industry as it has been elsewhere.