Wired Business | Wired.com: At the beginning of my first conversation with Ticketbud founder Paul Cross, he makes sure I’m clear on his ambivalence toward the capitalist system. His online ticketing startup is primarily concerned, like Cross himself, with social progress and events and organizations that advance this progress. Taking investment dollars and turning a profit are, he explains, just means to that end.
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As I scroll down this blog, I see maybe three or four articles every single week about how ticket prices are getting out of hand, and the fees that online and in-person sales middlemen charge are outrageous. This, on the other hand, is a bit more revolutionary in it's topic. TIcketbud is a fantastic idea, and mostly due to the fact that the founder isn't trying to make a giant profit. This guy just wants tickets for events to be sold at a reasonable cost to the people who buy them. This helps not only the people buying the tickets by providing a non-greedy alternative, but it assists the venues themselves by selling tickets to a greater range of people. I would like for this website to get more usage, but the founder would have to book more popular events for that usage to go up. If the Ticketbud founder was more willing to take popular concerts and broadway shows on his site, then it would basically be a public service to have these fee free tickets available.
This article begins, “At the beginning of my first conversation with Ticketbud founder Paul Cross, he makes sure I’m clear on his ambivalence toward the capitalist system”. I like Mr. Cross’s concepts but unfortunately what he is doing is exactly capitalism. Lowering overhead, fighting the establishment, cutting costs, reduced services, etc. I do appreciate his desire to help charitable organization BUT Wal-Mart also does a lot charitable contributions. Interesting that Wal-mart is often deemed the enemy but Paul here; using the same model, is the hero.
I think this article is interesting because it is taking something so variable like a ticket price and charging a flat fee. This is similar to a lot of discount sites: hotwire, groupon, and livingsocial. I think this idea is a good thing because it allows theatres to make money even a little bit to fill all the seats in the house. In industries like the hotel industry they don't actually make money unless they are above 70% occupancy the theatre business is a similar thing. You can't expect every show to sell out but if you can sell out at a discounted rate it is better than nothing.
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