I have been a thief. A burglar. An intruder. For over a decade, I’ve been part of a system that forces event organisers to surrender control and pushes fans into frustrating, broken purchasing experiences.

As ticketing suppliers, we have normalised behaviour that no other industry would tolerate. We’ve acted as gatekeepers, prioritising our own interests over those of the organisers and fans we claim to serve. It’s time to admit it, and more importantly, to fix it.

At TicketCo, we’ve been part of an ecosystem that turns organisers into hostages and loyal ticket buyers into collateral damage. The system our industry has built forces organisers to kick their ticket buyers off their own websites and drag them onto ours; onto a domain that’s ours, not theirs. It’s a disjointed, unbranded experience that no other business sector would dare impose on its customers.

It is a broken model that is holding the entire industry back.

The absurdity of the forced middleman
Can you imagine walking into a high-end restaurant, sitting down, and looking at the menu, only for the waiter to tell you that you must leave the building and walk to a middle man across the street just to place your order? This middle man also has other things to sell. He has his own interests. And those interests are not yours.

You would walk away. You would find another place to eat, and even more importantly, you will not come back… In fact there is a 15-30% chance you don’t.
That is exactly how we operate within the live events and ticketing industry. We spend endless hours marketing a festival, a gig, or an event. We build beautiful websites and craft engaging social media campaigns to draw fans in. Then, at the exact moment they are ready to commit, we kick them out the door.

Ticketing remains one of the last online shopping experiences where customers must leave you to complete their order. When fans are redirected to a third-party platform to finalise a purchase, the journey breaks.

How broken journeys destroy your bottom line
That break has a massive impact on your revenue. We often look at the live events industry in a vacuum, but we need to look at the wider e-commerce sector to understand the damage we are doing. The numbers tell a clear story:

First, 70% of online shopping carts are abandoned, according to Baymard Institute. Redirects, unexpected site changes, and friction are leading causes of this massive drop-off. Every time you send a fan to a separate ticketing domain, you lose a percentage of those buyers simply because the process feels disjointed or untrustworthy.

Second, speed matters more than you think. A mere 0.1-second delay results, according to Deloitte, in an 8% drop in conversion rates. When a fan clicks “Buy Tickets” and has to wait for a clunky third-party site to load, interest wanes. This surely applies to me, and I reckon it applies to whoever is reading this right now. Online, we are more impatient than ever.

Third, according to Salesforce, 88% of consumers say the experience a company provides is just as important as its products. If you run a premier festival or manage an iconic venue, your ticket-buying process is the very first touchpoint a fan has with your event. If that experience is frustrating, their perception of your brand suffers before they even walk through the gates.

Yet, as ticketing suppliers, we force this friction upon you.

The high cost of losing control
The damage goes far beyond abandoned carts. Organisers lose highly valuable data when the transaction happens on a third-party site. You lose the ability to track user behaviour smoothly, and you lose insights from those who dropped off right before purchasing.

Worse still, when a ticket buyer lands on a third-party site, they suddenly face a sales agent pushing competing events and merchandise. Imagine a fan trying to buy a ticket to your independent music festival, only to be bombarded with ads for a competing festival across town just before they check out. Or a hotel that conflicts with your hotel partner.

For venues, artists, and festival organisers, this means losing absolute control of the fan journey. It means missing out on vital revenue streams like direct merchandise sales or VIP upgrades. It even means losing the sale entirely to a competitor who happens to be advertising on the ticketing supplier’s checkout page.

As we approach the end of the decade, this feels incredibly outdated. It is completely unacceptable for an industry that prides itself on creating unforgettable experiences.

You have spent too much resources on your brand to kick people out the door and hope they come back.

The invisible supplier: A new path forward
Ticketing suppliers still have a massive amount to learn from other e-commerce sectors. We buy clothes, flights, and electronics through seamless, integrated checkouts. Live events should be no different. As things stand today, ticketing suppliers are simply not good enough. It is our customers, the event organisers, and their ticket buyers who pay the ultimate price.

So, how do we fix this?

The answer lies in stepping out of the spotlight. At TicketCo, we have built an open API layer that lets creators build their own fan journey directly on their own domain. We believe the organiser must own the brand, the data, and the relationship.

The ticketing provider should be completely invisible. Innovation is all about being invisible, crazy as it sounds.

Our industry can drive far more value by stepping back from the public eye. We need to withdraw from the spotlight and transform into headless backend suppliers. A headless approach means the complex ticketing engine runs quietly in the background, while you retain complete creative and operational control over the front-end website.

We must stop forcing organisers to send their audiences to a third-party branded shop just to complete a simple purchase. The checkout should happen on your domain, under your brand, without a single redirect.

It is time to demand better
It is time for event organisers to take back control. You need to own your data so you can understand your audience, market to them effectively, and build lasting loyalty. You need to keep the entire customer experience seamlessly integrated on your own platforms.

But this shift is only possible if we, the ticketing suppliers, are willing to set aside our self-interest. We must let go of our selfish behaviour and focus on building technology that elevates your brand, not ours. The era of the forced middleman must end.

So here is my challenge to everyone reading this.

If you are a ticketing company: build solutions that empower organisers rather than handcuffing them.

If you are a creator: demand better. Stop accepting clunky redirects and hijacked fan journeys as the standard way of doing business. Ask your suppliers how they plan to give you back control.

If you are a fan: you deserve better.

The technology exists to make ticketing invisible, seamless, and completely tailored to the event brand. Let us work together to finally end the era of the forced middleman and give live event audiences the flawless purchasing experience they actually deserve. They simply deserve the best fan journey in the world.

Please note: This is a promotional feature