GiG needs to show one-time eventgoers into lasting communities

Promoting occasion tickets on-line in Kenya isn’t at all times clean. Many organisers nonetheless want 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 deal with these challenges.

“We began GiG after realizing plenty 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, informed TechCabal. “We constructed GiG to resolve this by serving to occasion organizers construct communities as a substitute 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 an alternative 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 information 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 is likely to be keen on. This permits organisers to ship focused occasion invites based mostly on particular person preferences and previous behaviour. 

Along with live shows, organisers may record free occasions, conferences, and company gatherings.

​​Different ticketing platforms, akin to Eventbrite, supply ticketing for each leisure and company occasions, however their focus hardly ever goes past registration and primary promotion. GiG claims it’s structured in another 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, picture sharing, and dwell streams. Every occasion additionally comes with its cell app, permitting organisers to assemble suggestions, view attendee information, and keep linked after the occasion ends. The objective is to make the occasion greater than only a one-off expertise.

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

How GiG makes cash

Reed admitted to TechCabal that income is inconsistent all year long. Some months are filled with occasions, whereas others are sluggish.

GiG’s packages vary from a free primary 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 e-mail and social media instruments, analytics, customized occasion apps, badge printing, and on-site help.  An enterprise plan (from KES 27,000 or $208) presents 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 primary tier. 

The know-how behind the platform

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

In keeping with Reed, a background algorithm checks for uncommon buy patterns by evaluating transactions towards 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 instantly 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. The same difficulty 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 greater 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 observe transactions, with particular mechanisms in place to detect and forestall fraud based mostly on consumer behaviour and buy patterns. These embody blocking or limiting ticket entry when the system detects buying patterns widespread with ticket fraud, in line with Reed. 

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

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

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

Progress and funding plans

Most of GiG’s progress 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 shoppers.

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

Kenya’s ticketing fraud downside 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.