Discount ticket platform Goldstar has chosen Eventbrite to be its ticket support provider.
Goldstar and Eventbrite have formed a partnership that will see Eventbrite embed its ticketing capabilities into Goldstar's platform.
"We thought it would be nice to put a ticketing system within the organizer toolset," said Goldstar founder and CEO Jim McCarthy. "Two-thirds of our organizers have homegrown or simple systems, and we wanted to provide something better for them."
Goldstar has more that 6,000 live entertainment event creators using its platform. It offers discounted tickets to its more than 10 million members.
Simple-to-use tools for the venue managers, ease of scanning at the door and nametag printers were all reasons McCarthy said the ticket system was perfect for Goldstar's users.
The integration will be done in bits and pieces. "It's already there in version 1.0," McCarthy said. "It will be increasingly embedded and increasingly seamless. We are self-serve to a high degree and we wanted a system where anybody could sign up on the spot and start using the features."
Event creators will also be able to take advantage of Eventbrite’s list of 50-plus distribution partners, including Google, Facebook and Instagram.
McCarthy said the contract called for shared revenue from new customers; Eventbrite also cuts a deal with the event organizers and promoters for the costs of using their ticketing system. The contract between Goldstar and Eventbrite is a "long-term contract for the foreseeable future.
"We reach so many organizers who use Goldstar to market their shows, and the event creators are potentially Eventbrite customers," McCarthy said. "By putting the Eventbrite tools inside the Goldstar toolset it makes them more attractive to become Eventbrite users. There's really no other place they can go to find a market like that."
Eventbrite did not make a representative available to VenuesNow for comment but the company did say in a statement that "Eventbrite creators (will) benefit from adding events to Goldstar’s inventory."
"This isn't about a preferential system for Eventbrite because we still integrate with all the other ticketing systems," McCarthy said. "This deal was struck with the many thousand event organizers who don't have a great system in place in mind— but there's no pushing anyone into anything."
Before the Eventbrite embed, Goldstar would have suggested one of the many ticket companies the company works with or sent the organizer a list of names for will-call.
"Many of our people already come with a ticket system," he said. "Eventbrite will be available for people who want to upgrade or expand and having it in our toolbox just makes the whole process a whole lot easier. The last thing you want is to have to go to a million different places to track down your data."