Promoting occasion tickets on-line in Kenya isn’t at all times easy. Many organisers nonetheless desire direct gross sales, fraud is widespread, and most ticketing platforms don’t supply a lot past processing funds. GiG, an occasion ticketing platform launched in 2018, was created to handle these challenges.

“We began GiG after realizing a variety of the ticketing options merely ended at offering tickets and left occasion organisers with a tough time dealing with the remainder of the attendee administration course of,” David Reed, co-founder and CEO of GiG, instructed TechCabal. “We constructed GiG to resolve this by serving to occasion organizers construct communities as an alternative of beginning the journey on the ticket buy.”

With instruments for messaging, polls, and viewers analytics, the platform permits organisers to construct communities round their occasions. As a substitute of treating ticket gross sales as a one-time transaction, organisers have interaction attendees earlier than, throughout, and after an occasion. 

“Our focus is totally on occasion organisers who want to construct a neighborhood of their attendees,” Reed added. 

Competing with rivals

Kenya already has ticketing platforms like TicketSasa and Eventbrite out there. So what makes GiG totally different?

“In contrast to different ticketing platforms, we deal with utilizing the info collected and volunteered by the attendees to construct interest-based profiles for them and hyperlink them with related occasions and different like-minded people, making occasions a extra social expertise,” Reed defined. 

GiG tracks attendee information to construct interest-based profiles, utilizing algorithms to foretell future occasions attendees may be desirous about. This enables organisers to ship focused occasion invites based mostly on particular person preferences and previous behaviour. 

Along with concert events, organisers may also record free occasions, conferences, and company gatherings.

​​Different ticketing platforms, equivalent to Eventbrite, supply ticketing for each leisure and company occasions, however their focus not often goes past registration and fundamental promotion. GiG claims it’s structured in a different way because it combines ticket gross sales with superior viewers engagement instruments, fraud prevention measures, and post-event analytics.

Attendees can work together via chat boards, photograph sharing, and dwell streams. Every occasion additionally comes with its cellular app, permitting organisers to assemble suggestions, view attendee information, and keep linked after the occasion ends. The aim is to make the occasion greater than only a one-off expertise.

“They do have choices for additional communication with company equivalent to surveys and texts post-event,” Dayvee Murebu, who used GiG twice to organise a sport night time with Kenyan tech publication Techweez, instructed TechCabal. 

How GiG makes cash

Reed admitted to TechCabal that income is inconsistent all year long. Some months are full of occasions, whereas others are gradual.

GiG’s packages vary from a free fundamental tier with ticketing—the platform costs 6% on ticket gross sales—SMS, and check-ins, to paid plans beginning at KES 8,700 ($67). Increased tiers add electronic mail and social media instruments, analytics, customized occasion apps, badge printing, and on-site assist.  An enterprise plan (from KES 27,000 or $208) affords full white labelling and prolonged technical assist.

In contrast to different ticketing platforms that rely solely on transaction charges, GiG lets organisers use its instruments between occasions for communication and viewers administration, although this isn’t obtainable on the free fundamental tier. 

The expertise behind the platform

The platform offers organisers full entry to ticketing and attendee information, with instruments to section customers based mostly on previous attendance and said pursuits. 

In line with Reed, a background algorithm checks for uncommon buy patterns by evaluating transactions in opposition to event-specific thresholds. These thresholds, which outline acceptable ticket portions per purchaser, are adjustable on request. 

The system makes use of real-time fee APIs for M-PESA and card transactions for fast reconciliation and fund entry. As soon as an occasion is marked as cancelled, refunds are processed straight via the organiser dashboard, and logs are maintained for traceability.

Stopping ticket fraud and scalping

Kenya is not any stranger to a number of high-profile ticket fraud circumstances, together with the current Kenya vs. Gabon soccer match, the place tickets had been hoarded and resold at inflated costs. An analogous subject happens throughout holidays, when demand for Madaraka Categorical tickets between Nairobi and Mombasa will increase, resulting in shortage. Some folks purchase tickets in bulk and resell them at larger costs to travellers who missed the official sale. The dearth of strict resale restrictions permits this to occur.

GiG employs a data-driven method to watch transactions, with particular mechanisms in place to detect and stop fraud based mostly on consumer behaviour and buy patterns. These embrace blocking or limiting ticket entry when the system detects buying patterns widespread with ticket fraud, in accordance with Reed. 

“The platform flags suspicious purchases with every occasion having a preset variety of purchases which are throughout the secure threshold of buy. This may be adjusted by the occasion organiser on request as properly,” Reed defined. 

Some ticketing platforms maintain buyer funds till after the occasion, which may result in disputes. GiG makes use of real-time reconciliation to course of transactions for speedy fund entry and to scale back potential disputes. “This reduces disputes. If a difficulty arises, we now have logs to resolve it shortly.”

Funds should not restricted to M-PESA, because the platform additionally helps card funds.

Development and funding plans

Most of GiG’s development has been pushed by referrals and word-of-mouth, with buyer acquisition prices stored low at $5 per organiser. The platform claims it has dealt with over 500 occasions, offered over 80,000 tickets, and processed over $200,000 in income, with the bulk coming from company purchasers.

The corporate has been bootstrapped however is now taking a look at elevating exterior funding to increase.

Kenya’s ticketing fraud drawback remains to be a problem, and plenty of organisers need higher viewers retention instruments. GiG believes that trendy occasion ticketing requires extra than simply ticket gross sales; it wants instruments for ongoing viewers engagement and post-event evaluation.