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Oxynade by SecuTix launches sports ticketing solution

Oxynade by SecuTix, the SaaS ticketing solution, has announced a new fully digital sports ticketing platform specifically for mid-sized clubs.

The new sports solution on Oxynade’s platform is designed to serve sports organisations that might not be able to implement a dedicated ticketing service or who currently only have an online ticket registration form for collection.

The new sport-specific solution follows the success of Oxynade’s work with sports clubs, including German football club Viktoria Berlin and the Latvian professional basketball team VEF Riga.

The Oxynade platform features a new season card sales system, which will soon have an online renewal feature, allowing smaller clubs to handle their own season cards. It also has a new web point-of-sales system to ease sales on match days.

Other recent developments include a membership option to register fans and grant privileges and also allow them to transfer seats to friends or business partners. By converting sales to online channels, Oxynade by SecuTix enables clubs to collect much more fan data, essential to marketing processes and customer service.

IQ caught up with Hans Nissens, northern Europe operations lead for SecuTix, to find out more about the new online, mobile sports platform, which is designed to help mid-sized clubs manage tickets and fan engagement…


IQ: What made you decide to launch a solution specifically for sports clubs?
HN: There are several reasons why SecuTix has jumped into this market. The Covid period has made a shift to digitalisation for all sports clubs, imposed by the local government as a condition to stay open or reopen. The clubs have to register who is in their venue and where they are seated. For this, they need a good ticketing solution.

But most of the existing ticketing technologies and platforms are way too complex and too expensive for mid-size sports clubs, especially when they want to take control over their own sales (in terms of process, collecting fan data and payments). Besides some local initiatives, there are no real 100% self-service platforms in the market to give mid-size sports clubs an easy-to-use full ticketing and season card management system (including renewals).

Following the the earlier acquisition of Oxynade, SecuTix now had the possibility to create such a self-service platform on top of the existing Oxynade platform.

Is the future wholly digital, or is there still a space for paper tickets?
Undoubtedly, there is a shift towards digital tickets. Oxynade supports plain PDF tickets, PKPass mobile formats and (soon) the TIXnGO mobile wallet (a secure mobile wallet solution within the Elca/SecuTix family, but which can also be easily integrated with other external ticketing platforms).

During the analysis in preparation for this new product, we interviewed many mid-size sports clubs all over Europe. One of the main reasons why mid-size sports clubs are opting for our solution is to have less, or even no, sales at the door anymore. So it’s certainly their intention to move as much as possible ticketing towards digital.

“Most of the existing ticketing technologies and platforms are way too complex and too expensive for mid-sized sports clubs”

How are you gearing up for the return of live events, and when do you see the this happening?
We are ready for them to return. Steadily we see some activity with our customers; the hope is slowly returning.

We all hope for a vibrant summer, but we can assume it will take us until late summer/autumn before bigger things can happen. I wish it could be different.

What else has  Oxynade by SecuTix been working on during lockdown? For example, do you have any other new Covid-secure technology?

The year 2020 was quite a busy year in terms of product development for Oxynade. Besides the new sports clubs project, the Oxynade platform is already widely used by marketplaces and distributors. Because of Covid, the Oxynade platform has developed further its museum possibilities with advanced time slot features.

But we launched also a full web POS (a point-of-sales system to sell – ironically – easier at the door), we have integrated PeakProtect (our in-house queuing and peak monitoring system), adopted a new range of PDA scanners for access control, upgraded our self-service seat plan creator and so on.

With all these improvements and extensions we have made our position in the market as self-service B2B ticketing system even stronger.

Anything else we should know?
We are still looking for partners who want to distribute our mid-size sports club product in their specific market. When interested, they can contact Oxynade through our web form.

 


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Oxynade by Secutix offers free service until April 2021

Belgium-based e-ticketing provider Oxynade by SecuTix has announced that all new clients can use its platform for free until April 2021.

The decision to waive charges for ten months comes in response to the ongoing coronavirus crisis.

There are a limited number of places and interested parties should apply through the Oxynade website before the end of June.

Selected applicants must agree to a multi-year contract with Oxynade by SecuTix and in return, there will be no monthly licensing costs and no other ticket fees charged until after April 2021.

“Paying nothing until next year will allow clients to benefit right now from cutting-edge ticketing technology adapted to meet today’s challenges”

“Paying nothing until next year will allow clients to benefit right now from cutting-edge ticketing technology adapted to meet today’s challenges,” comments Hans Nissens, managing director of Oxynade by SecuTix.

“In just the last few weeks alone, we’ve introduced a time-slot entry feature and added chessboard seating management. But ticketing will be heavily impacted for a long time, and we will work with new clients to build a more sustainable future for their ticketing business.”

Current Oxynade clients will also be assisted with a customised support package.

E-ticketing as a service (eTaas) provider Oxynade was acquired by Swiss-based ticketing solution specialist SecuTix in January.


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SecuTix acquires fellow ticketing company Oxynade

Swiss ticketing solution provider SecuTix has acquired Belgian white-label ticketing company Oxynade.

Lausanne-based SecuTix, which last year partnered with German live entertainment powerhouse Deutsche Entertainment AG (DEAG), offers enterprise-scale software as a service (SaaS) solutions for concerts, festivals, and sporting events. Its clients include Paléo Festival de Nyon, the Union of European Football Associations (Uefa), Stade de France and the orchestras of Lausanne, Romandy, Paris, Lyon and Reims.

The acquisition of Oxynade, a provider of eTicketing as a service (eTaaS) solutions, enables SecuTix to provide more ticketing services for small- and mid-sized events.

“I am delighted to welcome Oxynade to SecuTix’s portfolio,” says Frédéric Longatte, CEO of SecuTix.

“The combination of SecuTix 360° and the Oxynade eTaaS product provides a set of solutions to smaller and mid-size clients”

“The combination of SecuTix 360° and the Oxynade eTaaS product provides a compelling and innovative set of solutions to smaller and mid-size clients across multiple verticals. It also expands our existing geographical footprint to serve our northern European clients better.”

Hans Nissens, CEO and founder of Oxynade, adds: “We couldn’t be more pleased to be joining the SecuTix family. We believe that our eTaaS technology and self-service offering are highly complementary to SecuTix’s vision of establishing a new generation of ticketing solutions.

“There are significant opportunities for SecuTix and Oxynade to achieve exponential growth by answering the industry needs at all levels and throughout multiple verticals on a global scale.”

Oxynade, which appeared in the International Ticketing Yearbook’s list of 2019 ticketing pioneers, launched its inaugural eTaaS Summit in Germany in 2018, attracting 50 delegate from 14 countries.

 


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The innovators: 2019’s ticketing pioneers

Technology and ticketing go hand-in-hand and, in recent years, an increasing number of companies have developed innovative solutions to make the ticketing sector more secure and sophisticated for event organisers, venue operators and fans alike.

As part of the International Ticketing Yearbook 2019 (ITY), IQ talks to ticketing companies Oxynade, Tixserve, Protect Group, Activity Stream, Queue-it, Ticketline, Ticketplan, Gigantic, the Ticket Factory, Ticketmaster, Tickets.ie and FanDragon Technologies to gain a deeper insight into the most significant technological advances affecting the industry today.

 


Oxynade

The white-label ticketing partner offers an all-round system that includes a fully equipped back office, box office and specialised features covering a broad range of verticals, meaning ticketing companies don’t need to take on the cost and resources of setting up their own platform. The company’s eTicketing as a service (eTaaS) solution launched in 2017 and already has a global clientele.

Recently the Belgium-based company has invested heavily in improving its offer from an UI and UX perspective, with clear flows for ticket-buyers. It has also updated its API integration to enable clients to use their own Payment Service Provider (PSP). This means people can not only pay using their preferred PSP, but ticketers can offer bundles such as merch, food coupons or travel services, which can drive up revenues. Furthermore, the upgraded API offers ticket-buyers the opportunity to complete purchases using other forms of payment, such as gift vouchers, pre-charged cards or even ‘event currency’.

In September 2018, the firm launched its inaugural eTaaS Summit in Germany, which drew almost 50 delegates from 14 countries for networking and insightful panels. The event will take place again in April 2020, with a new approach. “We want to go really in-depth,” says company spokesperson Hannah Coekaerts. “We’re inviting international clients and top-notch speakers.”

The Belgium-based company has invested heavily in improving its offer from an UI and UX perspective, with clear flows for ticket-buyers

Tixserve

The B2B, Software-as-a-Service, white-label, ticket fulfilment company enables its clients to deliver secure digital tickets to their customers’ mobile phones.

Tixserve launched in the UK in 2017, and managing director Patrick Kirby says that its focus on solving problems for clients and doing trials with potential clients is now delivering strong growth for the company.

In April 2019, the company announced a partnership with UK entertainment retailer HMV to help with its diversification into live events. Tixserve worked with HMV to deliver signing sessions with US band Twenty One Pilots at six stores. The events took place during the UK leg of the band’s Bandito tour and were fully digitally ticketed. Passes were sold by HMV as part of a bundle with the band’s fifth album, Trench.

In the run-up to the events, touts were advertising yet-to-be-activated Tixserve tickets online for up to £200 – a mark-up of more than 1000% on the album/ticket bundle. When fans alerted HMV of these cases, organisers were able to disable all ticket transfer functionality, unless authorised, on a case-by-case basis, by using Tixserve’s technology.

In July 2019, Tixserve announced a multiyear agreement with the Rugby Football Union (RFU) for the provision of secure digital ticket delivery services for Twickenham Stadium, the home of England Rugby. The competitive tendering process involved extensive trials with full system testing at numerous events to validate the Tixserve digital ticket fulfilment solution, which included the ability to operate with the existing infrastructure at Twickenham Stadium provided by Ticketmaster and Fortress.

“Tixserve will be announcing a number of other high-profile client deals in the second half of 2019, in the music, theatre, and sports segments of the live events market”

Speaking after the deal, Kirby said: “Tixserve will be announcing a number of other high-profile client deals in the second half of 2019, in the music, theatre, and sports segments of the live events market. We are excited by the scale of opportunity of working with the RFU and the momentum of this success has already opened up business development opportunities for Tixserve not just in the UK and Ireland but in Europe, the USA and Asia.”

Market interest in digital ticketing has significantly increased over the last 12 months, to the extent that Tixserve is now handling a large volume of inbound enquiries from potential clients. Kirby says: “We are not in the business of selling ‘technology’ to clients but instead we focus on understanding the needs of potential clients and solving their business problems with a software platform that uses proven, high-performance and cost-effective enabling technologies.”

He also cautions against the hype associated with many start-up, technology- led companies setting out to ‘disrupt’ an industry such as the live event ticketing sector. “Tixserve’s mission is to add value to the live events industry by enabling its clients to gain business benefits from the adoption of digital ticketing including convenience for customers, security, authorised ticket exchange, lower costs, ‘know your customer’ data capture, and new digital commerce revenue streams that have the potential to transform the ticket into a profit centre.”

 

Protect Group

Protect Group provides innovative event cancellation protection and refund protection to all sizes and types of ticketing companies, platforms, events, venues, sports teams and more.

“We developed our solutions to not only provide the broadest and most comprehensive protection to our members and their ticket buyers, but also to generate new revenue streams to tackle rising costs and reduced margins for events,” says Ben Lenighan, head of commercial partnerships at Protect Group.

Protect Group first experienced success with Event Protect, their event cancellation protection, which was primarily for ticketing companies but also allowed organisers to reduce their financial risk and be assured their events were protected. This was due to increasing cancellation risks globally, as well as demand for a quicker and a more cost-effective insurance solution of this type.

Soon after, Refund Protect was created after the company saw the chance to create a more consumer-centric refund protection product for ticketing companies.

Ticketing companies integrate Event Protect and Refund Protect via a simple API, which allows sales transactions to be underwritten by Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty, Tokio Marine HCC and Swiss Re – three of the largest insurance providers.

“We developed our solutions to not only provide the broadest and most comprehensive protection to our members and their ticket buyers, but also to generate new revenue streams to tackle rising costs and reduced margins for events”

Protect Group says this means events and attendees have the best protection in place without admin work required from the organiser and/or ticketing company and with no upfront costs.

Since inception Protect Group says it has underwritten millions of transactions, handling the entire refund process for ticketing companies and events.

Lenighan continues, “The key is to refund attendees quickly and transparently, either if the event cancels or if the attendee themselves cannot attend the event due to unforeseen circumstances. We do this within seven days, with an average refund time globally of four days, to ensure that attendees are kept satisfied and negative social media impact is reduced.”

Based in Leeds, UK, Protect Group has members in over 25 different countries. It is opening international business hubs in North America, Latin America, Southeast Asia and Oceania as part of a global expansion resulting from an increase in demand.

 

Activity Stream

The aim of Activity Stream is to make data accessible and valuable to the layman, so people can understand important information relating to ticket sales without needing a data science qualification.

When it comes to analysing data, most organisations are left with two choices: working manually with reporting tools and making lists and reports in Excel, or (for the major organisations only) investing in building your own data warehouse combining data from multiple sources. But that’s a multiyear project, costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, and takes up key resources.

“We launched the company based on a middle way, a model of SaaS,” says Martin Gammeltoft. “We used AI, cluster analysis and weak-pattern recognition that you wouldn’t get by working in Excel, and built an AI model to predict ticket sales.

“Our AI is trained on multiple data sets rather than solely based on the one organisation’s it’s plugged into, so it’s able to help people straight away.

“It looks at things like whether some categories are moving faster than others, are you attracting lots of first-time buyers to specific events; it combines the ticket sales information and the digital side of things so you can look at the effect of campaigns. You can see ticket sales in real time but also see where they are coming from – whether it’s a Facebook campaign or mail-out or from one of your partners.”

“AI is like someone who has 40 years’ experience in the industry at 16 different venues – they can’t specifically email one person, but they apply their knowledge to their latest job”

The resulting easy-to-understand platform gives powerful insights that help improve marketing, planning, saves time and improves revenues, says Gammeltoft.

“The nature of AI is that you can train the model on data sets, and then transfer the learning to other organisations. So you never see a competitor’s data or use it, but the AI has learned from many sets. It’s like someone who has 40 years’ experience in the industry at 16 different venues – they can’t specifically email one person, but they apply their knowledge to their latest job. The AI learns from patterns but it’s not bringing specific consumers’ information or sales or events.

“It can tell you things like 92% of your Facebook sales are a particular demographic, so maybe you need to adjust that, or that a particular high-value customer hasn’t bought a ticket in 16 months but has suddenly come back.”

Gammeltoft, who has a background in economics, believes these AI-assisted insights will have a profound effect on the industry because they can identify things a human might not notice.

Clients include AXS, The Shubert Organization and London’s Barbican Centre.

 


Continue reading this feature in the digital edition of ITY 2019, or subscribe to the magazine here

Successful first year for eTaaS Summit

Oxynade’s recent eTaaS (eTicketing as a Service) Summit in Germany has been hailed as a success by the company’s CEO, Hans Nissens.

The Belgian white-label ticketing company hosted the eTaaS Summit on 25 and 26 September at the Phantasialand theme park in Cologne, with the goal of giving attendees “an inspirational experience and [to] let them meet international like-minded ticketing individuals”.

Fourteen nationalities were represented among the 45 attendees, who experienced an educational programme led by ticketing veterans Tim Chambers and Marcus Gabe, along with presentations by Oxynade clients Howler, Ticketingplatform and Ticketcounter and a preview of Oxynade’s revamped back-office platform.

“We’re proud to have had an exclusive group of ticketing specialists present”

The participants ended the two-day conference with an afternoon visit to Phantasialand.

“We’re proud to have had an exclusive group of ticketing specialists present,” comments Nissens. “Afterwards, we received tons of positive and enthusiastic feedback from our attendees. They said the mix between networking, customer cases and expert insights was very valuable. They all got to meet people in the business that they had never met before and felt that the different background and culture was enriching.

“So, we’re definitely thinking about a next edition.”

 


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Free tickets still available for Oxynade’s eTaaS Summit

On 25 and 26 of September 2018, Oxynade, a Belgian 100% white-label ticketing partner, is hosting Europe’s first eTaaS (eTicketing as a Service) Summit in the magical Phantasialand.

eTaaS stands for a 100% white-label solution within its core. It’s especially designed for ticketing agencies and distributors which need to customise their solution and make it a part of their own brand.

Attendees can join and get inspired by their line-up of nearly 10 international ticketing business specialists as guest speakers, with each of them giving them more insights into their field of expertise. To top it off, Oxynade will provide meals, an overnight stay and access to Phantasialand.

“It will be a great networking opportunity for all ticketing experts”

Hans Nissens, Oxynade CEO, explains: “The set-up of this summit is to inspire and create interaction between ticketing specialists. We’ll be offering a broad range of speakers with real-life expertise to share their best practices and used cases. It will be a great networking opportunity for all ticketing experts.”

If you would like to join, the only thing you need to do is go over to the Oxynade website, fill out the ‘free tickets’ form and chances are you can save 350€ and enjoy a fantastic couple of days full of free ticketing insights.

For more information, please contact Hannah Coekaerts (+32 495 52 30 45, [email protected]).

 


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Oxynade organises summit… in a theme park

Oxynade, the Belgian white-label ticketing platform, is hosting the first eTaaS (eTicketing as a Service) summit this September, in the Phantasialand theme park in Brühl, Germany.

The summit will take place over 25–26 September 2018, and will feature a line-up of ten international ticketing business specialists, as well as guest speakers. Oxynade also provides meals, accommodation and access to the theme park.

“The setup of this summit is to inspire and create interaction between ticketing specialists”

CEO of Oxynade, Hans Nissens, comments: “The setup of this summit is to inspire and create interaction between ticketing specialists. We’ll be offering a broad range of speakers with real-life expertise to share their best practices and used cases. It will be a great networking opportunity for all ticketing experts.”

If you would like to go to the summit, click here and fill out the ‘free tickets’ form.

 


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Oxynade rebrands after successful eTaaS launch

Oxynade, a 100% white-label ticketing partner, has undergone a real transformation. After the successful international launch of eTicketing as a Service (eTaaS), the need arose to rebrand the whole company’s look and feel.

Oxynade offers an all-round ticketing system that is based on the current top-notch technologies such as GraphQL, Node JS and React. Including a fully equipped back office, box office and specialised features, like a flow management system (FMS), the platform can cover the needs of a broad range of verticals. This allows their partners in the ticketing sector to grow their business and reach possibilities that were out of scope before.

Having a white-label solution within its core, where Oxynade customises its solution and makes it a part of their clients’ own brand, turned out to be a real hit. With new players like artists, music promoters and even tour operators getting involved in ticketing, white label is just the way to go.

Since its eTaaS solution was launched at the beginning of this year, Oxynade has already expanded its portfolio with ten new ticket agencies. The Netherlands, Germany, the Baltics and even South Africa are just a few of the countries the company has conquered.

“With all of our successes we’ve scored the last few months, we wanted them to be reflected in a new visual appearance”

New brand
The first thing to be noticed is the new logo mark and logo type (pictured). The logo mark is a typographical play on the combination of the first three letters of Oxynade: “Oxy”. In the logo type these first letters stand out as well, followed by a softer “nade”.

Something else that jumps out are the vibrant colours. Oxynade’s CEO Hans Nissens explains the need for these changes and the reasoning behind it.

“With all of our successes we’ve scored the last few months, we wanted them to be reflected in a new visual appearance of the logo, website and overall brand,” says Nissens. “We’ve chosen the dynamic and playful tones of the primary colours blue, green, yellow, red and black because we work in an energetic and vivid sector. In the IT business, the use of colour is often rather dark. We wanted to stand out where our solution stands out as well. We’ve chosen different colours instead of one. That stands for the diversity in our solution: an international white-label approach for different verticals.

“It’s not only the appearance that has been taken care of. We’re already working on completely redesigning the whole platform, taking into account the newest user experience knowledge. It is still a work in progress but the first versions that have been made are very promising. The main focus of this improvement is to increase the ease of use of our platform, since we have a lot of features.”

 


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e-ticketing platform Oxynade raises €1.8m

Oxynade, the Ghent-based developer of the eTaaS (eTicketing as a Service) online self-service ticketing platform, has secured €1.8 million in new funding from Newion Investments.

eTaaS offers a complete suite of back-office services, including payment processing, a helpdesk for promoters, call centre for customers, etc., to event organisers (shows, festivals, parties), venue owners, theatres, theme parks, arenas and more. All services are 100% white label, branded as the client’s own, and in multiple European languages and currencies. Oxynade is already active in eight countries, and with the investment and support from Newion will further expand internationally with the goal of market leadership.

With this next step in Oxynade’s development, previous investors Arkafund and Vinnof end their shareholding.

“We strongly believe in the team and are impressed by their strong combination of vision and execution”

Unique position
The core of the eTaaS offering is a hyper-flexible and scalable ticketing technology architecture which enables the white-label partner to cover all local needs and requirements of its client database, and even offers a wide range of up- and cross-sell tools.

As eTaaS uses a revenue-share model, there are no major set-up costs, allowing ticketing companies to have the most up-to-date software without any major upfront investment. Oxynade ticketing professionals are also on-hand 24/7, enabling the white-label partner to focus on its real strengths: sales, marketing and support of its client database.

“This is a 100% match with our strategy and will enable us to achieve the no1 position in the market even faster”

Patrick Polak, managing partner at Newion Investments, comments: “We strongly believe in the team at Oxynade and are impressed by their strong combination of vision and execution. With our knowledge of B2B software companies, we can help Oxynade grow towards international market leadership.”

“Newion Investments is the perfect partner for Oxynade to accelerate European growth,” adds Hans Nissens, the company’s founder and CEO. “We’re excited about Newion’s cooperation with its portfolio companies. This is a 100% match with the Oxynade strategy and will enable us to achieve the number-one position in the eTaaS market even faster.”

 


Oxynade (www.oxynade.com), based in Belgium, offers state-of-the-art online self-service ticketing for event organisers, venue owners, theatres, theme parks, nightclubs, sports teams and more.