How UTIX is Reshaping the Live Event Experience

In our latest segment of "Behind the Startup," we chat with Maxwell Mayhew, co-founder of UTIX, to uncover the magic behind the revolutionary concept of NFT ticketing and its promise to bring transparency, security, and control back to event organizers and attendees alike.

UTIX's Pioneering Approach to E-Ticketing with Blockchain

Ishan Pandey: Hi Maxwell, welcome to our series “Behind the Startup.” Please tell us about yourself and the story behind UTIX?

Maxwell Mayhew: Hey! I am one of the co-founders of UTIX, an online e-ticketing platform powered by the blockchain. Our story started a number of years ago; having worked in the e-ticketing industry previously, and then working at the time on blockchain validation methods, I was asked by the founder of a large music festival in Miami if there were any options available to help their ticket scalping and fraud problems. Having worked extensively with smart contracts, I recognised there were options that could be implemented with both the use of IoT for ticket tracking and verification, alongside implementing smart contract functionality to enable controls for event organizers that weren’t available with conventional e-ticketing softwares.

Ishan Pandey: Please tell us a little bit about the UTIX platform and what advantages does UTIX offer event organizers over its competitors like Ticketmaster and Eventbrite.

Maxwell Mayhew: The UTIX e-ticketing platform works as any other e-ticketing solution would, with the caveat that we have embedded web3 solutions to persistent issues that have plagued the market for decades. Our aim has always been to provide the benefits of the blockchain, without the complexities most users face. Our customer journey has been designed specifically with event organizer and consumer functionality at the forefront, and we’ve done all we can to not overburden the solution with blockchain features, but implement them where they intuitively make sense.

Whilst Ticketmaster and Eventbrite offer standardized solutions to the needs of EO’s and consumers, UTIX goes above and beyond, providing controls users typically don’t have, including a secondary market control (through the use of smart contracts), ticket fraud prevention methods (checking tx hash of tickets sent and their corresponding NFT codes to ensure they are in fact, legitimate tickets etc.) and loyalty incentives. Our aim is to ensure the negative externalities that are present within the industry are eroded entirely.

Ishan Pandey: Can you explain the concept of the UTIX Loyalty Token and how it benefits users and event organizers?

Maxwell Mayhew: More and more businesses are turning to loyalty reward systems to foster continuous engagement with consumers, cultivate long-lasting relationships, and stimulate more usage of their platform. Broadly, loyalty reward programs can be split into two categories.

The first type seeks to keep consumer spending within the business's purview by offering discounts on their products through the accumulation of loyalty points. This form is commonly adopted by airlines and retailers. In this category, UTIX intends to peg the discount of its Loyalty Token to its own profit margin. The cost of these discounts will be covered by UTIX. The value of the discount will be periodically reassessed and adjusted based on what UTIX can reasonably afford to provide.

The second category centers on establishing partnerships with different brands, expanding reward benefits beyond a single company. UTIX's loyalty program development will initially concentrate on this single-brand system, prompting users to use their points on items found on the UTIX Platform. However, as our product and market grow, we plan to form collaborations with merchandising and entertainment firms to enhance our reward offerings.

Ishan Pandey: How does UTIX use blockchain technology to improve the e-ticketing process? What are the key advantages of using blockchain in this context?

Maxwell Mayhew: At UTIX, we aspire to eradicate the market inefficiencies that currently saturate the ticketing industry. Blockchain technology is a remarkably innovative solution that offers unprecedented monitoring, tracking, and control capabilities. Our goal is to merge traditional Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) infrastructure with distinct blockchain attributes. We aim to rival the leading oligopolistic e-ticketing competitors by offering a secure, transparent platform to event organizers and customers. Our platform ensures a bot-free environment, guards against secondary market price inflation, and provides a fair platform for ticket resale.

A significant advantage of adopting the Ethereum blockchain lies in the use of smart contracts. These can help manage aspects of the e-ticketing infrastructure that have previously posed problems, thereby enabling better control. One such issue has been the secondary market. Now, event organizers can set a maximum resale value, enabling users to sell their tickets exclusively through the platform, and only at a price determined by the event organizer. We emphasize that this is a choice controlled by the organizer. If they prefer to allow tickets to be sold freely at any price, that option is available.

To handle these additional factors, we're employing smart contracts that permit the Ticket NFT to be redistributed only at a price set by the organizer when creating their event. Tickets are transferrable solely through the application or website. While we acknowledge that no system is entirely foolproof and there may be attempts to exploit loopholes for fan extortion, our objective is to make such actions as challenging as physically possible.

Ishan Pandey: What role does smart contract technology play in the ticketing process, and how does it prevent ticket scalping and fraud?

Maxwell Mayhew: Users and event organizers have the opportunity to purchase or sell tickets through immutable cryptographic signatures stored on a blockchain. This eliminates the need for centralized servers, reduces dependence on expensive third parties, and mitigates the adverse effects often associated with an unregulated free market. By committing ticket purchases and their associated NFT tickets to the blockchain, it allows us to assign wallets automatically to users so a UTIX purchaser can feel confident the ticket in their wallet is legitimate. By combining front-end functionality and web3 dev, users will be able to check if any ticket in their account is a legitimate ticket. Our aim is to ensure all ticket sales stay ‘on the platform’, we are bringing the fight to scalpers and fraudsters. Additionally, due to the purchase of tickets being an agreement on the blockchain between an EO and a customer, the EO can ensure they collect a royalty on any secondary market sales and control the pricing of on-platform sales on the secondary market.

Ishan Pandey: How can platforms handle scalability and transaction processing on the blockchain, especially during peak event ticket sales periods?

Maxwell Mayhew: Alongside committing transactions to the blockchain, we run a conventional database that will store the information the way any traditional e-ticketing provider would; so if gas fees are exceptionally high or the network is congested, we can run a call function to obtain the required information when necessary. We commit transactions to the blockchain during periods of low cost and congestion. The blockchain is the primary information source, but by running a conventional DB alongside, it ensures a low latency customer experience.

Ishan Pandey: How can the implementation of Two-Factor Authentication and Timed Entry address the persistent challenges faced by event tickets, offering potential solutions to prevent issues such as fraudulent ticket sales and skyrocketing secondary market prices?

Maxwell Mayhew: The UTIX app will have a tab highlighting the tickets each user has available. Upon entry to the event, a QR code ticket will become available. This code only allows access to the second QR code that will facilitate entry, the first is simply a verification procedure to show that the individual on the app is the true owner of the ticket. This can stop the practice of users taking a screenshot of their QR-coded ticket, sending it to the secondary buyer and then charging a discretionary, at times excessive, fee for the ticket. Our development versions of iOS/Android scanners have been extremely fast, and we feel strongly that the need to scan two QR codes will not add any substantial time to the event entry process. Statistics show that ninety-one percent (91%) of people in the world own a mobile telephone of some kind, and eighty-three percent (83%) of people own smartphones. We, therefore, feel as though the application itself will be a primary means of access.

A second method we have tested and will offer as an option to event organizers is the choice to have the QR code withheld until a certain amount of time before the event itself. The purpose of this is to deter ticket touts from waiting outside events, printing QR codes and selling the tickets in an unregulated manner for prices that far exceed the original face value. Combined with QR code 2FA, we feel this could be extremely powerful in minimizing the risks associated with the secondary market to consumers.

However, this remains a choice for event organizers; should they wish to allow secondary pricing and the free market mechanism to operate entirely, they have that option. The event organizer will have the choice to only allow the QR code to be viewed 20/30/45/60 minutes before the event itself, giving the secondary market only a very small window in which to operate. Although it still provides a very small window for touts to operate, it largely acts as a deterrent. Touts could ultimately end up losing money on tickets they have purchased but are unable to sell. For us, it is all about ensuring there are sufficient deterrents in place.

Ishan Pandey: What challenges did UTIX face in convincing event organizers to adopt blockchain-based ticketing, and how did they overcome these challenges?

Maxwell Mayhew: I think the adoption of any new technology has challenges; individuals typically adopt a legacy culture thought process, there are costs associated with training staff to use new tech, and typically large EO’s have a tremendous amount of red tape to navigate. For us, it was about ensuring the migration was flawless, they saw systems in place they were used to and the customer journey was designed in line with their requirements.

Ishan Pandey: In what ways can e-ticketing platforms ensure the security and authenticity of tickets? Are Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) an ideal solution to combat fraudulent event ticket sales?

Maxwell Mayhew: Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) present an intriguing potential solution to battle counterfeit event ticket sales, due to several unique characteristics:

• Uniqueness and Verification: Each NFT is inherently unique and impossible to duplicate. This characteristic can correspond to a particular ticket, facilitating easy confirmation of the ticket's legitimacy.

  
  

• Traceability of Ownership: Built on blockchain technology, NFTs allow for a public ledger documenting every transaction. This provides a comprehensive history of a ticket, from its inception to its latest owner, making it exceedingly difficult for counterfeiters to infiltrate the market with fake tickets.

  
  

• Customizability: NFTs can incorporate smart contracts, enabling event organizers to implement specific rules, such as capping the maximum resale price of a ticket to combat ticket scalping.

  
  

• Interoperability: NFTs can be traded, purchased, and sold on any platform compatible with the ERC-721 standard (for Ethereum), providing a broad marketplace for tickets.

Ishan Pandey: Lastly, can you provide insights into UTIX's long-term vision for the future of e-ticketing and its impact on the live event industry as a whole?

Maxwell Mayhew: Our goal at UTIX has always been to create an events ecosystem. A place where an EO can manage every single detail of their event, down to analytics, marketing, emails. A CRM, HR system and ERP all rolled into one. We’re a way away from it, but that’s our ‘north star’, as it were. I may be lambasted for saying this but, I don’t feel as though the world is yet ready to move to an entirely web3-based solution; I have hope, but it is important to focus on the present and immediate solutions we can offer.

For too long events systems have been designed to benefit themselves, and the event organizers, with very little focus on the consumer. Whilst I understand without events, you have no customers, I feel it imperative to support the underserved consumer and do what we can to enhance their event buying experience. Ultimately, by creating a wide audience of consumers who have benefited from using UTIX and supporting us, we know the event organizers will follow.

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