Students fight ticket touts with new unique identity scheme

Two London students have set their sights on killing off touts and counterfeit tickets.

Annika Monari and Alan Vey, who met at Imperial College, have set up a start-up, Aventus, which gives tickets sold through its system a digital identity.

It ensures that tickets can only be resold on the platform and counterfeits cannot be created.

Organisers can also cap the resale price. Tickets are linked to the buyer via a picture of their face, credit card or other form of ID.

Ms Monari, 23, said: “If the guy standing outside the venue is trying to sell you a ticket from the Aventus platform, if you buy that ticket and try to use it you won’t be able to get in because its identity has not been changed.”

When tickets for popular concerts such as Adele at Wembley go on sale, touts often use bots to buy up hundreds of tickets in seconds so they can be resold on secondary websites at inflated prices. Counterfeit tickets are also sold on social media.

Aventus’s system is known as a blockchain, a database that is updated with every transaction and keeps a permanent, public record.

Mr Vey, 24, said: “The blockchain is really a fancy database with a set of rules you can put on it. But we’re looking to make the market a lot more fair and save true fans a lot of money.

“Face-value tickets for Adele at Wembley Stadium were sold out in seven minutes, and almost immediately £175 tickets showed up on a resale site for nearly £10,000.

“Those problems are eliminated by the blockchain because everything is public information. Buyers and sellers won’t need to trust each other because they’ve all agreed to the rules governed by the blockchain so there are no black-market deals.”

Ms Monari added: “Blockchain helps artists define how their tickets are sold, and on the secondary market it will prevent others taking advantage of fans.

“It helps eliminate fraud, fees are lower and less trust is required. Organisers can also cap the resale price so bots cannot inflate it.”

Ms Monari and Mr Vey hope to sign up festivals, venues, promoters and artists. They have raised what was the equivalent of £15 million in a cryptocurrency.

Blockchain technology will be showcased at the Blockchain Live event at The Brewery in Clerkenwell tomorrow.