I saw something about selfie tickets but had no idea what that meant. Do you take a selfie on your phone and then it's part of an e-ticket? Do they print tickets with your face on it? Is there a web backend? What does the mobile app do, specifically? I feel like there's not enough to-the-point descriptive copy.
I navigated back to the homepage and kind of got a better idea of what was going on:
"Create an event page and start selling tickets in minutes."
Okay, makes sense.
"Run event-day like a pro with a full mobile box office"
What's a mobile box office? Is it an app that lets me scan tickets with QR codes? Is there communication between mobile devices to validate tickets using NFC or something?
Please take this as constructive criticism. Good luck with your product! :)
The front page and the intro video make it sound like it's yet another photo sharing app for taking selfies.
Unless an organizer makes this mandatory for all attendees, it's more than likely that only a minority of attendees will actually take a selfie of themselves for their ticket. And if say, 20% of attendees took a selfie and 80% did not, how does this solve the "scanning problem" for organizers?
But a key part of this is many of our events don't scan the tickets (doesn't feel right for them), so this allows them to do something better than collecting paper tickets or finding a name on a list, and it's fun for the attendees who chose to use it.
Traveling from Luxembourg to Brussels by train I made an arrangement for a room via AirBnB. It being the first time, they asked me for ID, and Credit Card information. I provided that. By the time I got off the train I received a response from AirBnB that my reservation had been canceled due to the fact that I hadn't provided a photo of myself for AirBnb. I believe the reason was because they wanted to know that I was a "real person", but the exact phrasing escapes me. This was not the case since I provided a photo of my driver's license as my ID. As a result I had to scramble to find a room in one of the most expensive cities in the world for this at the last moment (which was expensive).
I strongly disagree with the idea that "your face" should be integrated with a purchase. I strongly agree that your identity which includes but should not be limited to a subset of "your face" should.
If you are proceeding down this path I recommend having a user select a photo, rather than taking a self portrait.
Good Luck.
How this much different than the clubs that attempt to scan driver's licenses?
At least there is a fall back to a pure barcode.
Maybe your point was that you won't use this particular product? Are you the person who also posts negative reviews on Yelp for restaurants you've never been to because you don't like that style of food?
I cannot take a decent photo in most cases, but I had the opportunity to have a photo session with someone who normally works with models and celebrities and it made a huge difference. What I took away from the experience was that wearing makeup, standing in painful positions, and having someone yelling "hot!" "Ooh" "saucy!" and "yeah, like that, again!" makes for better photos, not just a fun Saturday night.
Obviously you don't want your face associated with a political events or ideology events. But also and more surprisingly to tech events, specially crypto, physics and nuclear stuff. Some people get denied US tourist visa based only on that.
You are adding biometric data to this so you can't say it's not me or type fake information. It's a similar issue with the Iphone Fingerprint ID. If you are making illegal calls, you can't say it's not me because 20 secondes before the call you unlock your cell with your own finger.
If you're simply trying to sell tickets online (i.e. process a credit card and hand out a barcode) there are plenty of solutions for that, as you suggest. Ticketing platforms are built around the transaction and they do a good job of it (we were in this group too). However, there is a much larger population of people out there (whether they are creating events yet or not) that are trying to build and grow a community around something they're doing. The best way to build connections with someone? In person.
That's the type of event we're building for. One that's used to grow a community. And for that purpose, scanning barcodes sucks. It's un-human at the worst time, when you're trying to build human connections.
Hope that gives some background for our thought process behind telling the story the way we have.
Since you brought up the subject, though, happiness is equanimity. It is the freedom from distress that agitation and unmet desire and unwanted pain causes. And that has absolutely nothing, nothing whatsoever, to do with your product.
Build stuff, get excited about it, try to sell it. That's good and right when you're in business. But don't overstep your bounds and start preaching.
FWIW, the biggest problem in ticketing is Ticketmaster's de facto monopoly - if you want to get people excited about ticketing, tell them that you have a plan to compete with Ticketmaster and won't be charging $15/ticket "service fees". (I mean, come on, $15/ticket? That might be acceptable if the tickets were calligraphy on parchment.)
Then the show the photo they just took to the bouncer to get in?
I think the reaction from people at these events will be 'this app is dumb' after seeing someone take a photo then show it to the bouncer when the look exactly the same in real life!
I mean, wouldn't you feel silly if you had bought and paid for a ticket to an event then had to take a photo of yourself standing in line in order to get in?
[Edit: my constructive criticism here is what are you going to do about the users who will take the photo at the last second?]
Definitely a fun concept.
This is as secure as a printed piece of paper that simply says, You're welcome to John's BBQ. Confirmation number A2M1.
Anyone could print off that paper, or make up a random confirmation number, and they can do the same with the selfie ticket. Unless it's scanned, there's no security. It's fine for your $5 bake sale event, or backyard party for your neighbors. It's just a way to customize your ticket with a personal photo. The person checking the ticket isn't going to care if you match this photo, they'll just glance at the screen to see if it has the event name and looks somewhat official.
