We spoke to Luca Ziche, senior sales manager at SECUTIX, and David Franklin, head of ticketing at Paléo Festival, about the technology behind TIXNGO and the successful roll-out of digital ticketing for the Switzerland-based event.
In July this year, Switzerland’s Paléo Festival announced it was offering digital ticketing for the first time after teaming up with TIXNGO, a SECUTIX solution.
Some 189,000 tickets were securely delivered for the summer festival through the new Paléo-branded ticket wallet, powered by TIXNGO. This included 129,000 day tickets and 10,000 six-day passes.
The solution helped to tackle fraud by delivering a unique, encrypted and fully traceable ticket that is verified, removing the risk of counterfeit tickets. Tickets are stored on the smartphone of the ticket-holder, who is also able to easily download, transfer, keep or assign a ticket to a guest.
The fan experience
The TIXNGO solution created a holistic fan experience with push notifications and ticket-holders being placed at the forefront of the festival’s planning, with questionnaires to collect a range of ideas and plans from attendees to give them a personalised festival experience.
Mobile tickets also enabled Paléo Festival to become increasingly data-led, with deeper insights into the behaviour of its visitors and possible future customers. Digitization further helped festival organisers to connect better with the audience through data collection and communication within the wallet.
David Franklin, head of ticketing at Paléo Festival, said: “We have worked hard in the last two years to create the best comeback after the pandemic.
“The partnership with TIXNGO fits our plan on many different levels as it helps us to reduce our impact on the environment, makes our festival more secure, and connects us even closer with the Paléo family. This is an important step to future-proofing the festival.”
Benefits of going digital
“It’s often impossible for fans to tell if tickets sold are fake or not if they don’t purchase through the official channels,” said Ziche. “This causes misery for fans and damages the reputation of the event organiser.
“TIXNGO digital tickets can’t be replicated thanks to ticket activation, block screenshotting and video recording that makes the digital ticket more secure and easy to identify its authenticity.”
The simplicity of a digital ticket is also a benefit for ticket-buyers, who can store their tickets within the TIXNGO Secure Mobile Ticket Wallet on their mobile devices. Ticket-holders are also able to transfer tickets easily to friends or family in the case of being unable to attend. Festival or event organisers are able to monitor in real time how many times a ticket was transferred and who is the final ticket-holder.
How it works
The digital fan journey begins at the point of purchase, where the ticket-buyer must provide a mobile phone number. This number is used to verify the buyer’s identity when the tickets are made available in the mobile app.
The buyer needs to provide an identity document such as a driving license, passport or national ID card in order to purchase a ticket. Ticket-holders need to have the app on their mobile phones to be able to access the tickets and to quickly transfer tickets within the app, using email addresses.
Tickets are available in the application but they are not activated until the organiser decides to do so, usually one or two hours before the event.
The successful battle against fraud
TIXNGO leverages the encryption and security of blockchain technology. This creates a unique, encrypted and fully traceable ticket that is verified and so removes the risk of counterfeit tickets.
The application shows a dynamic QR code that is unique and cannot be used as a screenshot or replicated for fraudulent purposes.
AI (artificial intelligence) and machine learning are used to analyse the ticketing data, trace all ticket transfers in real-time, while also detecting any suspicious behaviour that could be fraudulent.
A successful roll-out
Paléo Festival ran in July following a three-year absence due to pandemic-related restrictions. There were performances from international artists such as Sting, Kiss and Rag n Bone Man.
The switch to a mobile ticketing solution also assisted with the festival organiser’s goal of being more environmentally friendly. Organisers are hoping to reduce the festival’s carbon footprint by 25% in time for the event’s 50th anniversary in 2028.
SECUTIX was a sponsor of TheTicketingBusiness Forum, the world’s No.1 B2B ticketing business meeting, earlier this year. You can register your interest in attending next year’s event, which will take place April 19-20 in Manchester, here.