TicketForEvent – Russian electronic ticketing startup with global ambitions

Russia’s electronic ticketing market is currently considered to be just in its initial stage of development. Industry watchers say that even in Moscow, the country’s most sophisticated market for any live event, electronic tickets currently account for just around 5% of total ticket sales. On the other hand, the niche market always offers brilliant opportunities for newcomers.

TicketForEvent is a startup company which provides event attendees with electronic tickets/badges. The service has been created for different types of events, like exhibitions, conferences, forums, workshops, seminars, and even sporting events. Though it’s quite young, the company has already received the Grand Prix Award "Clouds" during Russian Internet Week 2013, and has been placed in Russia’s Top-50 startups rating. Last year its profit reached $4.7 million.

Its CEO, Stanislav Birov, says that the Russian customer is just starting to recognize the ticketing service, but adds that the market here is becoming more mature every month.

“I can say that compared to 2-3 years ago, we have a huge demand, but when compared to international markets we have a very low demand and low understanding of the service and how it can help organizers to do shows more efficiently,” Stanislav Birov said.

TicketForEvent is currently operating in Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, Argentina and Mexico. It has its central office in London, and it does have global ambitions. The key challenge is dealing with the extremely tough competition.

“I can name hundreds of similar services with different pricing models and strategies but solving similar task. But to be honest we do not face really strong international players in the CIS market – they can’t provide what we can do here locally,” Stanislav Birov said.

Statistics show that Russia is now one of the world’s hottest e-commerce markets, and with most experts stating that never have developments in IT and digital media delivered newcomers and market challengers at such a rapid pace, any startup with a brilliant idea has all the chances to cash in and come out on top.

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