NFT-powered startup aims to revolutionize events and ticketing industry

Scalping is a massive problem in the event ticketing industry. From touts and bots buying out events the second they go live to reselling tickets on the secondary market at exorbitant prices, both artists and fans are suffering from those taking advantage of the ticket markets for profit.

The problem is growing, and artists like Ed Sheeran have attempted to solve it to varying degrees of success. However, none of these solutions have worked, and an alternative is necessary to fix the scalping phenomenon. Fortunately for ticket holders of all sorts, one startup is offering a lifeline: SeatlabNFT.

NFT-powered security

SeatlabNFT has built a non-fungible token (NFT) powered event ticketing system for artists and event organizers to regain control of the secondary ticketing market and prevent counterfeiting. By utilizing blockchain technology and smart contracts, ticket issuers can mint NFT tickets and retain an unprecedented level of control over traceability, subsequent transfers and resales. Issuers can attach conditions and royalty splits to tickets which will open up a previously untapped revenue stream for artists and reduce the negative effect of scalping. 

When an NFT ticket is minted, artists and event organizers can set a royalty split. Royalty splits mean that whenever a ticket is resold on the secondary market, a fixed percentage of the resale value is automatically transferred to a specified wallet or multiple wallets if royalties are split between several parties. 

Providing utility

While control of the secondary market is great for artists and issuers, why should fans get involved? SeatlabNFT incentivizes fans with exclusive rewards and perks. 

Each ticket sold on SeatlabNFT is an NFT. NFT ticket holders can be rewarded and incentivized with airdrops of exclusive perks. These perks and collectibles can be attached to NFT tickets before the event and made available to holders after the event to entice fans to purchase upgraded tickets.

When somebody buys an NFT ticket, they’ll see if any collectibles are attached to it and how rare they are. For example, an exclusive 1 of 50 audio recordings of the live event could be airdropped to users, the same with images, videos, merch, programs and so on. Artists can choose to let fans know which collectibles they’ll receive, or they can surprise holders by revealing them after the event. 

Holding the SEAT utility token gives buyers access to a reduced fee structure when purchasing NFT tickets and can also be staked to earn rewards paid out from platform fees gathered from buyers. Fifty percent of all platform fees are paid out to stakers in the form of SEAT tokens. A tiered reward system ranks holders by number of SEAT staked; each tier gives them access to more valuable rewards such as VIP access, free tickets and meet-and-greets, which can be claimed instead of staking rewards paid out in SEAT.

Of course, these ideas are just the start. The team behind SeatlabNFT is made up of ticketing industry professionals with decades of experience.  The team already runs a highly successful Web2 ticketing platform called Seatedly. 

“We have over a decade of combined experience in the events industry running a successful ticketing platform called Seatedly, so we’re well aware of the issues it’s facing,” said Ryan Kenny, CEO of SeatlabNFT.

“Now is the time to further evolve the ticketing industry and use our development and ticketing software expertise to take advantage of blockchain technology and solve some of the most significant issues we see in ticketing today,” Kenny said.