Almost every day, there is a concert, show, or festival happening somewhere in Uganda. The majority of the partygoers mention access to tickets as a major pain point for attending these shows.
For others, it is fraud involved in ticket printing. Many at a time you go to an event only to be told that you are carrying a fake ticket!
Dickson Kawooya cannot forget the day he was bounced at a concert in Kololo for allegedly carrying a fake ticket.
“I had bought the ‘fake ticket’ at one of the outlets just outside the concert venue. I found a hard time explaining myself to people manning the entrance. I was just bounced and I went home very disappointed” Kawooya recalls this unfortunate incident.
However, several companies have come up to use technology to address the ticketing issue. Among such companies is EasyTicket Uganda.
“I am happy with these digital platforms such as Easy Tickets Uganda. You just go to their website and pay using your mobile money account. You later receive your ticket inscribed with a code on your email,” Kawooya says.
“For instance, on my email, the password is secure and there’s no chance of duplicating it. When you reach an event, you just display your online ticket and they scan the unique code.”
According to Hillary Aguma, the Tech and Field Supervisor at EasyTicket LTD, they started this ticket solution company about ten years ago and use the brand name Quicket, which is a franchise from South Africa.
Aguma notes that they work with event organisers to make ticket purchasing and entrance management easy.
“We create a link for the event organizer. We set up the event online with an updated banner and send them the link that is shared with their clients and organizers,” he says.
“If you are a partygoer, you tap the link and scroll down to give you the brief of the event you want to attend and some added information about the organizer. You later go to the tickets menu and search the various categories. On our platform, you can buy more than two tickets at once. You fill in your surname and email.”
“Our tickets are end-to-end to our clients. The information the client has placed in while purchasing a ticket will be captured and their ticket will go straight to their email. We don’t want to face issues where a client was sent a ticket to WhatsApp and on D-day, their WhatsApp number was with someone else,” he says.
On top of that, Aguma notes that they do physical barcode tickets with unique security features, hence overcoming the issue of duplicating tickets.
“These tickets are scanned on the day of the event. We give our client a generated report on how many people checked in on the concert,” he says, noting that payments can be made using both mobile money and card payments using a third-party payment processor – Flutterwave; an African FinTech unicorn.
“We have worked on about 200 events with over 21,000 clients purchasing tickets off our platform. We have worked with event organizers mainly in music, sports, festivals, and conference among others,” he says, naming the likes of KCCA football club, House of DJs for Blankets and Wine, Talent Africa, and Gwanga Mujje for Biggie Events among other clients.
One of the challenges Aguma highlights are scenarios where clients decide to request a refund even when the event has ended.
“Some clients fail to go to the event and then they go to social media and start blasting us to refund them!” Aguma says.
He is, however, grateful to the organisers of the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative for providing a platform where FinTechs, regulators, and end-users can meet and try to understand each other.
Easy Ticket is the 26th participant in Season Four of 40 Days 40 FinTechs, an initiative aimed at creating awareness about emerging FinTechs in the East African Region and how they are changing lives for the people at the bottom of the pyramid.
This initiative is run by HiPipo in partnership with the Level One Project, Mojaloop Foundation, INFITX, Cyberplc Academy, Ideation Corner, and Crosslake Technologies with generous support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Life-changing stories from more than 100 FinTechs have been highlighted by this initiative in the past three years.
