Christopher BarrettAustralian secondary ticketing operation Tixel has launched in the UK, with key hires and a local client list already including Boardmasters (pictured), NASS and Bournemouth 7’s.
Tixel consists of a marketplace that enables people no longer able to attend an event to re-sell tickets at a maximum of 10% above face value. It has been active in the Asia Pacific since 2018.
The founding members of the UK team are Tixel head of UK & Europe Matt Kaplan, an ex-PwC consultant who specialised in digital innovation, and recent hire Chris Williams in a business development role. Williams was previously Songkick where he worked on partnerships. Both will be London-based.
Anyone can list a ticket for resale on Tixel and after an automatic verification to ensure the ticket is real, it is either offered to a fan registered on the Tixel waitlist, or the seller can share a secure link on the event’s social media pages to let other fans know they have legitimate tickets for sale.
Tixel CEO Zac Leigh said the service was designed to offer a safe and legal alternative to ticket touts and commercial resellers who devise “conniving strategies” to inflate re-sale prices: “They flood primary on-sales, making it incredibly difficult to compete for tickets and fans are left with the only option of paying four or five times the original price as these tickets appear en masse on open market resale sites, sometimes within seconds of a sellout. By adopting an ethical resale approach, we effectively snuff out the ability for touts to easily list and sell their tickets. Capping prices and cancelling fake tickets takes away their oxygen, whilst still allowing the fair trade of tickets between fans.”