Visitors of popular events suffer at the hands of resellers. They are a thorn in the side of many event organisers. Enthusiasts, who have been going to an event for years, end up becoming the victims; they aren’t able to buy tickets through the normal channels, so they have to pay a lot more to get them second-hand. To counter this, we’ve added a new feature to our system: Sealed Tickets. In the blog, you can read what Sealed Tickets are, how they work, and what other benefits they have.

[Important]
Sealed Tickets need to be requested and aren’t a standard feature.

Resellers, fraudsters, second-hand trade, ensure that not everyone has a fair chance of buying a ticket. To make it less fun for buyers, we’ve added a new feature to our system: Sealed Tickets.

Sealed Tickets a measure against shady resellers.

Sealed Tickets are a measure against buyers and are intended to make reselling unattractive. A visitor might come across the feature when he or she is buying tickets.

What are Sealed Tickets?

Sealed Tickets are tickets that become available for download shortly before an event starts. A visitor can buy tickets well in advance, but downloading them is impossible. The visitor will receive a notification via email as soon as the tickets are ready to be downloaded..

Because the tickets can only be downloaded shortly before the event, resellers have little time to resell tickets through the trade. Since this period is so short, the risk for resellers increases. There is less time to sell tickets second-hand, after all. Increasing the risk discourages people from buying up large numbers of tickets.

‘Sealed’ refers to a seal; like the ones you might use to seal secret documents. The seal guarantees visitors that the purchased tickets are original, unopened and valid.

Who is the Sealed Tickets feature for?

Sealed Tickets are intended as a feature for popular events where the demand for tickets is high. Popular events sell out quickly, but also attract opportunistic resellers, which makes sense. The demand is high, so there is much to be gained by buying tickets in bulk and reselling them at inflated prices. When the tickets are sold out, visitors are willing to pay (much) more to get their hands on a ticket.

Woodstock in Bloemendaal is one such popular event. Since the local municipality restricted Woodstock from organising more events, the existing editions have become even more popular. As a result, the number of resellers also increased - much to the organiser’s displeasure.

" A few hours after the regular sales, we saw that tickets were being offered at prices that were far too expensive." Koene Hijlkema, organizer Woodstock

Of course, that’s not what the organisers intended. Due to the second-hand trade, loyal visitors, who had been going to Woodstock for years, ended up missing the event. They needed to find a way to make sure their loyal visitors would be able to buy tickets again in the future, and they did. We were able to help them, and in fact, Woodstock is the first event to use Sealed Tickets!

"Sealed Tickets provides our loyal guests with a reliable system. Ticket sales become fair and transparent, and visitors don't have the idea that they’re competing against resellers." Koene Hijlkema, organizer Woodstock

"I lost my ticket(s)"

"I've lost my ticket(s), can you help?" It is a question that regularly comes up for our Customer Success Team. Sealed Tickets are the answer to this question. Due to the fact that a visitor can't download his ticket(s) right away, they won’t lose the ticket between a bunch of downloaded files. Instead, visitors receive an email with a notification that their tickets are available for download shortly before the event.

What if a visitor wants to resell his or her tickets?

A visitor can always resell his or her ticket(s) following the conditions set by TicketSwap. This can be done in one click by hitting the button in the confirmation email. This can be done before the tickets have become available for download and the new buyer will then receive the ticket once they are ‘unsealed’ before the event. The seller’s asking price for a ticket can't be more than 120% of the original ticket price. Suppose a visitor wants to sell an Early Bird ticket, the price of the Early Bird is still the benchmark, even if there are already more expensive tickets in the regular sale.

Second-hand tickets are exchanged using Secure Swap. Secure Swap ensures that the original ticket becomes invalid and the buyer receives a new ticket -including his or her data. By invalidating the original ticket, the buyer is guaranteed a valid ticket that can’t be sold to multiple people.