Audience Republic, an Australian-developed online platform that helps event organisers increase ticket sales, has closed a $525,000 seed investment round and will use the funds to accelerate customer acquisition and for product development.
Founded by former concert and festival promoter Jared Kristensen and former chief technology officer of GoCatch, Jason MacLulich, Audience Republic raised the seed round from Artesian Capital, QUT Creative Enterprise Australia and several Australian angel investors.
The Sydney-based software-as-a-service company — formerly Ticket Squad — was launched in 2015 and event organisers pay to use the platform to create online campaigns that drive increased ticket sales to their existing ticketing providers, such as Ticketek, Ticketmaster or Eventbrite.
According to chief executive Kristensen, more than $2 million worth of ticket sales from “tens of thousands of event goers” have been delivered by Audience Republic to organisers to date, boosting ticket sales for festivals in Australia and New Zealand including Electric Gardens, Pitch Festival, Days Like This and Rhythm & Vines.
{loadposition peter}Kristensen says the platform has also been used on concerts for Sticky Fingers, Broods and Rufus and helped with ticket sales of conferences and special events.
“More than 85% of events don’t sell out,” says Kristensen. “And with the live events sector being worth $3 billion alone in Australia and $100 billion globally, that’s a huge opportunity for us. We’re very much focused on being a global business. This is demonstrated by our first customers being outside of Australia.”
Kristensen says in order to increase event ticket sales, Audience Republic’s campaigns leverage social media and rewards — such as access to exclusive tickets, discounts, and prizes — to “gamify the process of a ticket-buyer inviting friends to purchase tickets too”.
“The more friends a user refers that buy tickets, and the more social follows they complete, the more points the user gets and the better chance they have to get rewarded. Through the process, event organisers collect data, including their music tastes, so they can learn more about the people who buy tickets to their event. Platforms supported include Facebook and Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Spotify and SoundCloud.”
On average, Audience Republic claims it’s delivered a 76% uplift in pre-sale registrations for events, with 203% being its record – “achieved through the virility of social shares”.
“With data collected through Audience Republic, promoters will be able to meet the people behind their ticket sales,” says Kristensen.
“We deliver insights like their highest spending, most loyal, and most influential customers. And at a broader level, we provide insights around age, gender and location, as well as interests, preferences and music listening history.”
As a former promoter, Kristensen says a key insight he learned was that if people knew their friends were attending an event, they were 10 times more likely to buy a ticket. “And that’s the foundation our platform is built on: leveraging the power of small groups,” he concluded.