EQ Tickets, a startup aimed at combining the online ticket-buying experience with social networking, has quietly emerged to make discovering shows and other live events a more social activity. Additionally, the company promises to offer ticket prices that are lower than some of its competitors operating similar secondary ticket markets. Additionally, EQ Tickets plans to take over competitors such as Eventbrite and expand into new major ticket marketplaces to generate revenue.
Founded by brothers Aaron and Ryan Caradonna and hip-hop artist Matt Raposo (Rapta), the idea for EQ Tickets began with a personal interest in sports entertainment, Aaron explains. He recalls his childhood days when he and his younger brother would always arrive at the field hours early to get players' autographs. He then took the law school route instead of becoming a sports agent as planned, but during his legal career he has worked extensively at sports venues. Meanwhile, his older brother Ryan worked at JP Morgan and ended up working at a ticket sales company. These shared interests, combined with Ryan's understanding of the market and the margins necessary for success, led to the creation of EQ Tickets.
The brothers also teamed up with Raposo, a friend they met through the music industry, to bring a different perspective by understanding this business from the performer's side.
Image credits: EQ ticket
Initially, EQ Tickets focused on developing a secondary ticket marketplace similar to StubHub, Vivid Seats, SeatGeek, and others.
“We just turned down the same inventory deals as other large competitors and gave tickets a very fair and transparent markup,” Aaron explains. The selling point is that tickets on EQ are up to 20-30% cheaper than on competitor sites.
“So we got a lot of attention,” Aaron continues. “But that wasn't enough, because it was still highly transactional. We wanted to add a social layer to it. So we wanted to give people the ability to bookmark events and follow people. “We gave them the ability to do things like that,” he says.
Image credits: EQ ticket
Social networking features help fans of the same team, event, or music artist find each other and build connections. For example, if you're in town and want to go to a local hockey game, you can use EQ Tickets to find another fan who also doesn't want to go alone. In addition, the bookmark feature allows users to communicate their interest in upcoming events to others and stay in touch.
The final partnership will help transform the site into a one-stop shop for large-scale events with EQ Tickets' leading ticketing marketplace. This means you can not only buy tickets to the big game, but also tickets to fan tailgating events and after-parties.
The startup first launched its ticketing marketplace in August, initially with no additional fees. We have since moved on to small price increases and are now also rolling out a major ticketing platform.
Image credits: EQ ticket
Despite operating in secret until now, EQ Tickets has already recorded six figures in gross ticket sales, and early adopters are also taking advantage of follow and bookmarking features to participate in the social experience . Aaron himself has also used this platform to go to shows such as his U2 show at the Her Sphere in Las Vegas. He didn't use his EQ Tickets to connect with strangers, but rather with friends in other cities, but ultimately provides a friend suggestion algorithm to help users make connections. It's a schedule. However, you can now manually search for users and invite them to the platform.
“There are passionate fans of sports and entertainment. So I think people are going to find a lot of new friends. They're probably in chat rooms and now they're separated and they don't even know the other person exists.” Aaron points out.
The primary ticketing platform had not yet been announced as EQ Tickets was working directly with some clients to test the service. One night last week, the company made his $30,000 in ticket sales for one of his events. This was promising early revenue that prompted the founders to take the service public. Going forward, EQ Tickets will host ticket sales for several side events, concert tours, and movie premieres around SXSW. Customers can choose from his two revenue sharing models. Either 6.6% plus $1.79 per ticket or 10% plus $0.99 per ticket. Both are current rates from other competitors.
The company also allows customers to access their own customer data regarding ticket sales, as well as other information such as fans' phone numbers if they agree to be shared and answers to questions about what attendees want to see at the event. is promised.
The company touts a 30% repeat purchase rate, which speaks to its traction among early adopters.
EQ Tickets is currently available via web and mobile web, with plans to release a native mobile app later this year.
Our small team of 10 people (including consultants) is based in Los Angeles, but our developers and engineers are located in Denver and Boston. Aaron lives in Huntsville, Alabama.
The startup is backed by $2 million in seed funding from Sage Venture Partners, led by early Apple investor Fred Warren. This round closed in June last year.