Dutch blockchain ticketer GUTS Tickets has come up with a novel use case for its dynamic pricing solution: curing cancer.

In a blog post entitled Sell tickets — cure cancer (Or save the world in a different way), GUTS community manager Olivier Biggs posits that dynamically pricing tickets – the practice, common in the hospitality and travel sectors, of allowing prices to fluctuate based on market demand – could generate additional revenue for humanitarian projects, such as cancer research or “clean[ing] up the ocean”.

“Say that your tickets are normally priced at $50,” Biggs writes. “Using this dynamic system on (a selection of) your tickets, this will now become the minimum price and some tickets will now be bought for $60, others maybe even for $5,000. All of the intake above the $50 threshold will go to a charity of your choice, instead of going into the pockets of scalpers and frauds.

“This approach of dynamic pricing can be applied to all of the tickets up for sale, or to a certain section of the venue, or, if you prefer, to just a single seat in the front row.

“Your fans are fully aware about where their money is going if they choose to buy a dynamic ticket, along with what good their money is going to be doing.”

Several major ticket agencies are already experimenting with dynamic pricing for certain tickets – most prominently Ticketmaster with its Platinum passes, and more recently Ticket Pia in Japan.

“Dynamic pricing will ensure that the sweet spot where supply and demand meet is found”

Ticketmaster’s Platinum system was notably used for Taylor Swift’s Reputation stadium run – which recently became the highest-grossing concert tour in American history – as part of a broader ‘slow ticketing’ trend that places less of an emphasis on instant sell-outs and more on pricing tickets correctly.

While dynamic pricing is not without controversy – critics claim it amounts to gouging fans in the same way as touts, while some artists say they’re happy to leave ‘money on the table’ in order to keep ticket prices low – GUTS says donating the extra revenue to charity is the best of both worlds.

“Dynamic pricing will ensure that the sweet spot where supply and demand meet is found, and every seat in the house is filled,” continues Biggs.

“Instead of simply neutralising the inhumane threat of scalping, we turn it into a positive chain of events that helps others.”

Amsterdam-based GUTS held its first major onsale last September, selling 50,000 tickets on the blockchain for 36 shows by comedian Jochem Myjer.

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Some eager fans of Canadian singer-songwriter Shawn Mendes were left disappointed last week after they arrived at the Pittsburgh PPG Paints Arena only to find out the 6 August performance was actually scheduled for 2019.

As reported by Ticket News, fans took to Twitter to point out their mistake. Father of seven Bob Rice shared a picture of himself and his family outside the venue, saying: “We got tickets for the Shawn Mendes concert on August 6. However, getting here we realised it was for 2019.

“And we weren’t the only ones! We will be back next year!”

https://twitter.com/therealbobrice/status/1026601710750445570

Other fans who had travelled from further afield were more reluctant to see the humour in their mixup. “Sooooo [sic] @ShawnMendes I appreciate you selling your 2019 tour tickets this early, but my friends and I all just drove 6 hrs to Pittsburgh to the PPG Paints Arena to see you in concert, a YEAR in advance,” one fan tweeted.

The mixup is the consequence of Mendes using the increasingly popular “slow ticketing” method for selling seats for his upcoming 2019 concerts. In a bid to keep tickets out of the hands of touts and in the hands of real fans, ticketers are turning to slow ticketing as a means to stop tickets selling out in seconds and reappearing shortly after on secondary ticketing websites for extortionate prices.

“Sooooo [sic] @ShawnMendes I appreciate you selling your 2019 tour tickets this early, but my friends and I all just drove 6 hrs to Pittsburgh to the PPG Paints Arena to see you in concert, a YEAR in advance”

Slow ticketing sees more charged for tickets, in the hopes this will put touts off of buying them because of the smaller profit margins. By beginning onsales earlier, ticketers ensure there is ample time for tickets to still sell out.

For his 2019 self-titled tour, Mendes also used Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan scheme. Fans who are in the market to buy tickets give over their names, contact details and social media handles so that they can be verified as humans, not ticket bots. They’re then put on a list to buy tickets, which they “push” to the front of by buying “day-one” access, merch and music from the artist.

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