New competition on the local ticketing scene has come with the launch of Quicket, an online site that allows customers to buy tickets for various events at competitive prices. New competition on the local ticketing scene has come with the launch of Quicket, an online site that allows customers to buy tickets for various events at competitive prices.
New competition on the local ticketing scene has come with the launch of Quicket, an online site that allows customers to buy tickets for various events at competitive prices.
Started by four friends, Quicket boasts several unique features, including allowing event organisers to share event information on Facebook.
“Those signing up to Quicket can opt to create a new account, or sign in with their Facebook credentials,” said developer Michael Kennedy. “The latter makes it easy to share events on the social networking website.”
Kennedy’s co-developers are James Tagg, sales and marketing manager James Hedley and designer Tim Church.
Hedley said their initial idea was to find a way to allow friends, who were booking weekends away together, to pay separately.
But things took a different route, and the result was Quicket.
“We’re focusing on events to start with. But eventually we want to be a pure group-payment system,” Hedley said.
Discussing the Facebook sign-up option, he said the advantage was that once the event was over, organisers were left with a detailed list of those who attended.
Detailed pricing also makes it easier to plan future events.
But the four friends said the biggest advantage of Quicket would be the prices they would offer customers.
Quicket takes a 4.9 percent commission on each ticket, and charges R2.90 per transaction – no matter how many tickets are bought.
“If you look at the competition, that’s roughly half of the going rate,” Hedley said, adding that they had made as much as R65 000 during the first two weeks of this month.
“At the rate it’s going, Quicket is going to get big quickly,” he predicted.
They were, however, focusing on bigger events, because that was the easiest way to spread the name of their new company.
“We are showing that we can handle large events.”
They hope to bring down the current substantial merchant fees they are being charged by banks “once we’re processing larger volumes”.
Computicket could not be contacted for comment at the time of going to press. - Weekend Argus