Events are becoming an increasingly popular way for people to entertain themselves and for businesses to market their offerings. From trade shows and conventions to sporting events and concerts, events offer businesses an excellent opportunity to showcase their offerings and interact with their audiences personally. According to a survey, 80% of marketers reported that live events are critical to their company’s success. The larger the event, greater is the marketing opportunity it provides due to the high volume of attendees. However, this abundance of visitors also becomes challenging for organizers to control and manage. To overcome such challenges, organizers are using blockchain-based event management solutions to improve various event-related activities.
The need for blockchain-based event management solutions
The potential of blockchain in the events industry presently remains largely unexplored. However, the incredible applications of blockchain in other industries have made the case for blockchain’s role in the events industry, enabling activities like:
Preventing ticket fraud
A major concern for event organizers when it comes to selling tickets for their events is ticket scalping and fraud. Popular events like soccer matches sell out quickly, and fans who are unable to get tickets in time become desperate for alternative sources to get tickets. Ticket scalpers buy tickets in advance and later sell the same to ticketless fans for exorbitant prices.
By using blockchain-based ticketing solutions, organizers can tokenize tickets and sell them on exclusive blockchain platforms. By doing so, they can always know and control who buys tickets from them. They can even allow second-hand ticket sales while ensuring that they are sold at the original prices, thereby eliminating the chances of predatory ticket scalping. Blockchain-based ticketing solutions to combat ticket scalping and fraud are already being used by organizers with great success.
Validating attendee identities
Visitor management becomes a hassle for events having a large volume of attendees. A major hurdle in visitor management is ensuring the security of the event by verifying the identities of people entering the event space. This challenge is compounded by the need to provide the visitors with a hassle-free and convenient event experience. Too much focus on security can lead to long identity verification processes, which can leave a bad taste in visitors’ mouths.
By using blockchain-based event management tools can enable quick identity verification at events by using virtual identity cards. These virtual identity cards can be used in conjunction with event passes to validate their credentials and eligibility to participate in the event.
Maximizing audience engagement
Events, as mentioned earlier, serve as great marketing platforms for businesses. However, to make enough marketing impact, ensuring high audience engagement levels is critical. Businesses are using blockchain to perform engagement-enhancing activities like distributing theme-based memorabilia and exclusive collectibles to fans. Leading global sporting teams like Real Madrid and Arsenal use blockchain-based platforms to connect with their fans and keep them engaged.
Blockchain-based event management tools have already passed the proof-of-concept stage and are seeing increased adoption, which is encouraging for companies to implement the technology to solve their problems. The key to implementing blockchain successfully for the events industry is by starting small, clearly defining the problem being solved and blockchain’s specific role in solving the stated problem.
