Ticket-sales gig heads across Tasman
Moving to Wellington has boosted business for a group of young entrepreneurs, who are now expanding into Australia.
Abbe Hyde, Jacob Manning and Tin Htoo Aung formed SuchCrowd in Dunedin in 2015 with the aim of changing the face of live entertainment touring.
In its opening investment round, the business raised more than $150,000, which was used to employ additional staff.
The fast-growing startup lets musicians and artists ‘‘de-risk’’ events and shows around New Zealand, by using crowdfunding to secure their audience before planning their tours.
The company is proving to be just the ticket for emerging performing artists, and the owners are launching it in Melbourne today.
SuchCrowd was looking at opening for business in all of Australia but was targeting Melbourne first and looking for channel partners, such as festivals.
Wellington was often called a mini-Melbourne because both cities were renowned for being artistic, innovative and eventsorientated, Hyde said.
‘‘It made sense for SuchCrowd to enter Australia through the Victorian capital. Melbourne has more emerging performers than the whole of New Zealand, so collectively it makes sense to go there first.’’
Their business inverts the traditional model of live performance planning by getting potential event-goers pledging to buy tickets first. When a set number of pledges makes an event viable, the tickets are issued and paid for, and the event proceeds.
Hyde, who is chief executive, said the business relocated to Wellington after taking part in a Creative HQ Lightning Lab accelerator last year.
Creative HQ is a unit of the Wellington Regional Economic Development Agency dedicated to increasing the number of high growth businesses through incubation and accelerator programmes.
‘‘Coming to Wellington was easily the best move we could have done,’’ Hyde said.
‘‘Wellington is definitely one of the biggest, most connected and creative places for our customers. Moving here has been absolutely critical in allowing us to enter a big growth spurt.’’
The business model eliminated the current situation – where an emerging creative performer shoulders substantial financial risk to put on an event.
‘‘If it flops then everybody involved in putting on the event
‘‘Melbourne has more emerging performers than the whole of New Zealand.’’ SuchCrowd chief executive Abbe Hyde
suffers – from the performer right through to commercial sponsors who risk their funding and reputation.
‘‘Our product enables performing artists to offer their events nationally and internationally and lets fans have a voice in the ones they want to see.’’
SuchCrowd also provides promotional support through userled marketing to help sell tickets.
‘‘We have a network of influencers who pledge to buy tickets first and then use social media to push their friends and acquaintances to come along.’’
The model has proved so successful, the business boasts an 81 per cent success rate in getting events staged.
Creative HQ chief executive Stefan Korn said SuchCrowd used the strengths of the accelerator in making their
‘‘They have had great success networking with our investor and mentor networks, developing connections to future capital. Our Creative HQ alumni have also provided it with advice and support.
The business relocating to Wellington showed motivation and ambition during the process of going global, he said. first foray internationally.