Arnout Schuijff, co-founder of payment service provider Adyen, is joining Amsterdam-based ticketing startup WeTicket as their first investor. WeTicket will use this investment as the catalyst to offer their ticketing service worldwide at low costs. This is good news for event organizers.
WeTicket has its roots in the event sector. Founders Jesse van der Pluijm and Nando Bennis had been organizing events themselves and noticed that high ticketing costs quickly became an issue. “Ticketing providers often earned more from our events than we did. ‘We can do this differently,’ we thought,” said Van der Pluijm.
“Ticketing providers often earned more from our events than we did. ‘We can do this differently differently,’ we thought”
Driven by their own ticketing experiences, Van der Pluijm and Bennis decided to develop an alternative. According to them, their goal is not profit maximization but to create an accessible and affordable platform that does not compromise on quality and features compared to expensive providers. “We have examples of organizers who have saved an entire year’s salary in costs by switching to our service!” Van der Pluijm continues.
“We have examples of organizers who have saved an entire year’s salary in costs by switching to our service!”
Arnout Schuijff’s investment in WeTicket is not entirely coincidental. With his new startup Tebi, he is making POS (point of sale) systems accessible and affordable just as WeTicket does with ticketing. Van der Pluijm: “Initially, we were not looking for an investor. We had planned to grow slowly on our own, however when we met Arnout, our visions aligned so well that a collaboration was a natural fit.”
Currently, more than 750 organizers are connected to WeTicket, which charges roughly one-third of what the competition does, at €0.18 per ticket. With the help of the €750,000 investment, the founders of WeTicket say they are ready to expand their services both domestically and internationally. Van der Pluijm: “We can maintain this groundbreaking low rate because we focus on scale, which, with an online platform like WeTicket, is essentially limitless. I believe we will even be able to lower our rates further in the long term.” Bennis: “With our small team, we are challenging the ticketing mafia and hope to counter the profiteering practices that, for example, have brought Ticketmaster under fire recently. Our mission is accomplished when the entire ticketing market feels compelled to adopt fair pricing, so that organizers, artists, and attendees are no longer victims of the prevailing culture of greed.”
