Democratising Access to Event Financing

One of the single largest challenges for an ambitious event organiser or budding artist is the ability to raise capital for their event in order to pay for venue and booking deposits that occur many months before tickets go on sale to the general public.

This cash flow gap is at the crux of why ticketing monopolies are able to concentrate their control across the entire event vertical, eventually owning venues, becoming their own promoter agencies and being the financiers with the power to make or break the success of an event.

For many years, ticketeers have stepped into the role as maker or breaker of an events success as they’re the first parties to touch revenue when tickets are sold, so can best gauge the success or failure of an event before it happens.

As such, event organisers are forced into financing from these monopolies whom weaponise their balance sheet and in return, demand strict terms and control on ticket sales from the organiser.

This results in far higher fees, less data sharing and a lock in period for event organisers often in the multi-year range, effectively signing their soul away to a ticketeer before their event has even taken place.

Ultimately this leads to a restricted events industry, where ticketing processes can remain slow, opaque and extortive for ticket buyers, organisers and artists.

What if there was a different, democratic way of financing?

Well, with the blockchain there is.

Enter DeFi Event Financing

By creating and bundling tickets onchain as NFTs, it becomes possible to utilise ticketing inventory as collateral in DeFi applications and as such, raise funds for an event onchain.

Thanks to the inherent nature of global liquidity onchain, this means any DeFi user can step into being a crowdfunder for an events success and in the process earn interest upon the success of the event when tickets are sold to attendees.

For an organiser, this means full control over their ticketing which leads to greater freedom and creativity in bring the best event ideas to life backed by a democratic funding process and the will of the people.

The Event Financing Hub

With the OPEN Ticketing Ecosystem we’re the first to bring this to life through our Event Financing Hub which allows organisers to apply to setup an event pool and begin raising capital onchain.

OPEN’s ticketing integrators survey the opportunity and sense check the feasibility of the event and then provide a detailed breakdown of the event including term dates for the event, costs required and the interest that will be paid upon successful sale of tickets.

When an event is added to the hub, anyone can contribute stablecoins to the event’s pool, which will be used by the organiser off-chain to pay for deposits and booking fees. When tickets are sold to the general public, by enforcing the underlying smart contract rules, the first revenue from sales flows back to the financing pool, providing back the initial capital and the interest stated for the event (typically ranging between 5-10%).

By bringing event financing onchain, we have the ability to break the moat of centralised ticketeers and free event organisers and artists from taking loans that sign their event freedom away.

The liquidity available onchain is unparalleled compared to a single companies balance sheet and as such, we believe onchain financing will become the largest source of event capital in the world, with the best rates to make a lasting change that sways even the largest organisers and artists away from centralised monopolies once their existing contracts come to an end.

The future is incredibly bright for DeFi event financing and at OPEN we’re leading the charge in bringing the future of the ticketing industry to light.