TicketSwap Thursday - Pt 1: Christoph Radjeh, TicketSwap (DACH Lead)

Welcome to Part 1 of this short series of podcasts brought to you by TicketSwap, the safest and fairest way to buy and sell tickets online.

In this episode, we explore the world of live events and ticketing with Christoph Radjeh, TicketSwap's regional lead for Germany, Switzerland, and Austria.
Our conversation examines how the ticketing landscape, and resale in particular, has dramatically evolved, from risky exchanges on Facebook or tense chats outside venues to becoming an every day, established, often-used part of the live events ecosystem.

Christoph explains how TicketSwap was founded as a direct response to witnessed ticket fraud and says why resale has become an increasingly important part of helping fans buy and sell tickets safely whenever circumstances and demand change.

We explore some of the unique characteristics of the German market, where attitudes towards ticketing and resale often differ from those in other countries. Despite the industry's move towards digital solutions, many German fans still prefer physical paper tickets, seeing them not only as proof of entry but as keepsakes and lasting memories of live experiences. This preference has influenced how ticketing providers, like TicketSwap, operate in the region.

A key part of the discussion focuses on TicketSwap's partnership with Die Toten Hosen, one of Germany's most iconic bands. The collaboration combines official resale with technology that allows fans holding physical tickets to resell physical versions of them safely while protecting buyers from fraud and invalid tickets. Christoph explains why initiatives like this are helping to bring greater transparency and trust to the secondary market.

We also discuss the responsibilities of artists, promoters and ticketing companies in creating a fairer marketplace, the challenges of balancing commercial realities with fan expectations, and how new technologies could be utilized to reduce fraud and improve the ticket-buying experience in the years ahead.

There are unique insights regarding TicketSwap's recent research into changing audience behaviour across Europe, via the Inside The Future of Live Events report they commissioned, revealing how Gen Z customers especially, but not exclusively, are reshaping expectations around flexibility, community and live experiences.

Whether you're an event organiser, artist, industry professional or dedicated event-goer, this episode offers an inside look at the forces shaping the future of ticketing.

Get the "Inside The Future Of Live Events - Backstage With Gen Z"  report: https://www.ticketswap.com/magazine/article/ade-report

TicketSwap Germany Partner Page: https://partners.ticketswap.com/de

TicketSwap Global Homepage: https://www.ticketswap.com

About TicketSwap: https://www.ticketswap.com/content/about-us

On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ticketswap

On TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ticketswap

On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ticketswap

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TicketSwap

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Transcript

TicketSwap Thursday, Pt 1: Christoph Radjeh, TicketSwap (DACH Lead)

[00:00:00] Podcast Series Intro

Paul: Hello and welcome to this short series of podcasts, mainly talking about the event space and the ticketing of events. This series is brought to you by TicketSwap, the safest and fairest way to buy and sell tickets online. We're going to be talking to an event organiser. We're going to be talking to an event goer about their place and their role in this whole ecosystem.

We're also going to be talking to the lead of TicketSwap in the German speaking territories to find out a little bit more about the impact the platform is having on the resale market. So that's what we're talking about. Let's get on with it.

[00:00:47] Meet Christoph Radjeh

Paul: Here we are with a wonderful guest. We're with Christophe Radjeh, who's the Lead of the region for the German Austrian, Swiss speaking territory for TicketSwap.

Christoph: Right. 

Paul: The man himself. Nice to meet you. How are you doing? 

Christoph: Nice to meet you. I'm good. 

[00:01:01] What Do Events Mean To You?

Paul: We're going to start by asking you something a little bit personal, a little bit, maybe existential, profound. Crikey. Give any answer you like really. But I just wanted to start by asking you; what do events mean to you? 

Christoph: Yeah, that's a nice opening question. Well, it's two sided, I would say, because I really found my love for events, particularly electronic music events when I was studying in the Netherlands, in Groningen. And I was really impressed by looking at the size of the city with 200,000 people there, what kind of production level they had. I really thought, wow, this is more complex, more diverse than just going to a random club. And I really got to love electronic music events. But also then - from the organiser perspective, I wrote my bachelor thesis in a club then there about sustainable club culture. And that really opened my eyes also from a more economical perspective or from a professional perspective. And since then, I'm very passionate about the industry and how events work and how many different variables it actually has. You need more than just a stage and music and you can really tweak it here and there with the details to make the atmosphere more interesting. Yeah, so, I would say it means a lot. 

Paul: And did you say you studied in Groningen? 

Christoph: I did. 

Paul: yeah. I love it. Great city! Great music city. 

Christoph: It's crazy comparing the size and what is happening there. I think it is not rational, like so many creative people, so much culture. And not only electronic music, they also have this beautiful showcase festival, Eurosonic.

Paul: yeah, I go every year. 

Christoph: Yeah, exactly. And you can discover nice bands and they have really cool venues as well. So really it was very inspiring to be there. Yeah. 

[00:02:50] Tell Us About TicketSwap 

Paul: Tell us a little bit about TicketSwap then please. 

Christoph: Yeah, so TicketSwap was founded 13 years ago in the Netherlands. I think also really from the perspective of the founders that back in the days, one of them got scammed on Facebook. They wanted to go to a festival, I don't know which festival it was, I'm not quite sure, but there was this typical situation that you buy a ticket on Facebook from a random user and a ticket is purchased in presale once with the original ticket, and then it is distributed around unregulated channels a couple of times. And then the first person at the entrance gets in with the original barcode, but you have 10 others in the line that are not getting in. So, from this frustration and from this problem, I would say, they really thought; we need to regulate the market a bit better. And yeah, 13 years later it developed into the biggest resale platform in Europe, really centralising supply and demand for fans where safe and fair ticket resale can happen. 

[00:03:49] Your Role in the Company

Paul: And what about your role in the company then? 

Christoph: Yeah, I started five years ago. I was working beforehand, already in the industry. I worked for Ticketmaster in Berlin, but I knew TicketSwap were from my study times back in the days, and I just remembered how easy and nice it was to buy tickets there. So when they came up with the offer that they're now expanding also to the German speaking countries, I was hooked from the beginning and I could really start building relationships with organisers, event organisers. So it's really about the B2B part and that's basically what me and my team are, we are three now, account management, but also sales for B2B organisers in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

[00:04:26] How Ticketing Works

Paul: Wonderful. Let's talk a little bit about how ticketing works, if we can. You seem like the guy to talk to about this. Let's see. For people who are not in the industry, then. In a basic level, how does an event ticket usually go between the ticket seller or the artist, or the venue and the fan - the person who ends up with the ticket?

Christoph: I think there are different tiers to it. I think the biggest one is still the personal connection. If a good friend of mine tells me, I've been to this amazing festival last year in Portugal or in Italy and you should really go, I think it would really fit your style. Yeah, then, sold. It's like a personal connection and the person knows me. So I think the word of mouth is very, very big. But then with technology come also other things in place. For instance, discovery or streaming services where it gets more and more important that algorithms really check what have you bought beforehand. So another thing that is similar to what you have attended beforehand, you could go there as well. I think those parts get more and more, but for me personally, there will never be an algorithm that can be the friend who tells me, Hey, let's go there together. Because then you have also the personal connection with it.

[00:05:39] Resale Market Today

Paul: Right. And what about when it comes to the resale market? What would you say is the current status of the ticketing market and the event world? Now we're after the pandemic towards this “new normal”, resale is a thing that's developed enormously. I go way back to where resale was, basically, a hard man in a leather jacket that you'd have to try and find outside a venue, but it's got really sophisticated since then.

Christoph: Yeah, it really changed. To answer the first question broadly, I think the whole market or the whole industry gets a bit more complex. The needs of fans increase. They get a bit more strict and a bit more picky, what they're doing, and this also is shown in ticket sales. We really see that certain events that used to sell out in a minute struggle to sell out because of different fan behaviour. So it is also the task of their services, such as the ticketing companies and the resale companies and the marketing companies to really help them to find the right person out there. And then it can still happen that events really sell out. That's the status and that's definitely something that we talk a lot about internally and in the industry: how can we help organisers to sell their tickets? In terms of resale, it's very interesting to see the change, when I started five years ago. At least in Germany, I had the feeling it was not such a big topic. You had the big players talking about it, of course, but it's so nice and so refreshing to see also smaller players really understanding the need of it and that it's not just like having a leather jacket person in front of the… like, it is still a dodgy topic sometimes, but with everything we are doing, we just want to help to make it a bit more transparent.

Paul: Yeah, I think secondary selling or reselling is really very much part of the ticket selling ecosystem now, right? 

Christoph: Yeah, exactly. And there you have some players in the ticketing business, they really also have their own solution. They try to make the ecosystem closed. It really depends on, of course, your strategy and also on the events we are talking about. Both definitely have their existing right. I would say it really depends on the situation. For us, at TicketSwap, of course, we are a resale platform, right? But our mission and our goal is really to have inventory available for fans. For a fan, maybe it's not even that relevant if you are talking about a primary or a secondary ticket, right? They want to go to the show and if a ticket is available, they're happy. So for us, we are perceived as a resale platform, but we are also working with ticketing providers together to bring also their primary inventory on our platform. Those are still their tickets, right? They are in the front end at TicketSwap, but everything else is facilitated by the ticketing company.

[00:08:42] Transparency And Fees

Paul: Some of the big primary ticket sellers, they're now starting their own secondary platforms and on face value, that sounds like a good thing. That means that companies like TicketSwap have had an impact, made them realise that the secondary market is something that needs to be well catered for.

Christoph: Yeah. 

Paul: The downside is that once they have control of both parts of that it’s likely to get confusing and lack in transparency again. 

Christoph: Absolutely. I have the opinion that when you are selling a primary ticket and you are also facilitating resale in the same company, you can basically charge twice. I get it from an economical perspective because obviously if you are offering a certain service, that is resale, with it also comes more customer support. You really need to facilitate that. So, the basic idea of charging again for a resale ticket, I think it is fair, but how are they doing it right? Are the fees reasonable and are they transparently shown in the process of buying the ticket? So I think if you do it, then you need to be transparent on what you are doing. So giving at least the fan a chance to understand where is the money going. 

[00:09:56] Why Price Caps Matter

Paul: Yeah. One of the very obvious but very major key points of TicketSwap is that you have the price cap on the resale value. 

Christoph: Yeah. 

Paul: What makes this approach the right one?

Christoph: We are talking about an experience, right? Like you're going to a concert, it takes two hours and then you go home and you have the memory still with you. But I think an experience should not be like a speculative asset. We are not talking about an old timer car from the past that is now worth $2 million or whatever, or a Pokemon card that you put somewhere and then you speculate on it. It is an experience and for me it shouldn't be connected to supply and demand how much that ticket costs. So I think it's very important fans do not pay overpriced things for an experience. 

Paul: We still will perhaps always have that free market element, right? 

Christoph: Mm-hmm. 

Paul: Because there are still people who……. I just read today, some man in England who sold his house, so he can go to the World Cup in the USA. But that's what he wanted to do. So as long as someone's going to pay the price people are asking, it's going to exist, isn't it? 

Christoph: Yeah. 

[00:11:04] Who Polices Resale

Paul: How is this, kind of, policed or monitored by the industry? Is that possible to even make sure that this doesn't get even further out of hand? 

Christoph: Absolutely. Yeah. I think technology is already in place to facilitate fair and safe resale. It really depends on the mindset of the organisers. The organisers are responsible for what is happening with the tickets for their events. Of course, you have regulations also in certain countries in place, and also they're talking in Germany about an official price cap on the secondary market. Those regulations are definitely amazing, and it's great that politics is looking at this very important topic, but in the end, it is the technology that can make it 100% safe, and the responsibility lays with the artists, but also with the organisers of those events. 

[00:11:53] Stakeholders And Pricing

Paul: How do you bring that all together to make sure it works? Because there are, in any concert, any event, there's a lot of stakeholders. You know, there's the promoter or the organiser, there's the artist and the artist representatives, there's the venue, there's the ticket companies. Everyone has to make their profit. Is this a misconception by the ticket buyer that they don't understand fully what goes into putting on events and the different players involved? And do you think if they were more educated about where the split is in the ticket price, they'd be more willing to pay the prices being asked?

Christoph: Yeah, I think so. There are so many stakeholders and well, as you said, even if you have like a global tour from certain artists, you have the leading promoter and then it splits up into local promoters and everybody wants to have a share. And then in the end, there's only this big amount of money that the fan needs to pay. And it's quite funny because a lot of people think that the ticketer, the ticketing company, is in charge of making that price. But no, I think artist fees push the prices quite high and as long as artists have the free will to push their fees astronomically high, there will always be price increases.

Paul: We've seen a couple of examples. The Cure, for example, a couple of years ago, they made a very big deal about keeping their ticket prices very low and as “fee-less” as they could make it. And it caused a big story, didn't it? I guess what it proves is that it can be done. You said there's already the technology to make the industry more transparent anyway. People are choosing not to use it perhaps?

Christoph: Yeah. 

Paul: So artists are choosing not to activate these “fee-less” situations, whether that's realistic or not, or whether you have to be a band like The Cure to be able to insist on something like that... 

Christoph: I love the example of the Cure. It really shows that they're still human.

Paul: Yeah. Right. But they're an example of an old band that have always been about their fan base and the community and their fans. And that's a really good example of how connected they are to their own audience. 

Christoph: Right. 

[00:14:00] Artists And Fan Fairness

Paul: Is that something that you would like to see more from artists in general? That they get a lot more involved, a lot earlier with knowing where their tickets are, where they're available and how their fans can get them and benefit from them. 

Christoph: Yeah, absolutely. And I think there, also, resale is a big role because if an event is sold out, it becomes very emotional for the fans because they cannot get a ticket and then they have to pay those high prices. So yeah, I understand the money part of it, but I also would love to see that artists care about those fans because it's such an emotional topic, right? And I think a lot of people also don't think a hundred percent clear when it comes to this and they spend too much money on those things. Yeah. 

Paul: You, you hit on a very interesting point there that it's almost like people get punished if they buy the ticket too late. 

Christoph: Indeed. 

Paul: And it's like that's been normalised that you're going to be punished for not buying your ticket soon enough. And I guess the resale platforms could help late buyers or people who can't make their mind up till later, the chance to buy something that's quite affordable and reasonable and they're happy with rather than feel like they've got to sell their house. 

Christoph: Absolutely. 

Paul: Yeah. 

Christoph: Yeah. 

[00:15:11] TicketSwap Fans And Organisers

Paul: So is that a very big part of how TicketSwap thinks about its own customers?

Christoph: We are founded from a B2C perspective. We wanted to help fans. However, I think we are developing more and more into a B2B2C company. So the organiser is equally important and that makes the whole thing sometimes also a bit difficult because you have totally different perspectives. The fan needs are sometimes not equal to the organiser needs, but we need them both on board in order to satisfy the whole situation. So yeah, my part is definitely more related to B2B and we really try to listen to organisers as well. What do they need? 

Paul: Yeah, of course. 

Christoph: Yeah. 

[00:15:54] Partnering With TicketSwap

Paul: What's the criteria for becoming a partner with TicketSwap? Do you go actively looking for partnerships or are you approached all the time? 

Christoph: It goes both ways. The more TicketSwap is known in the industry - and it's not a super big industry, everybody knows each other - so that's also quite nice over the years that more and more B2B awareness exists. So it goes both ways. I think for us it has different angles. Of course, once an event is sold out, resale becomes very important because then supply is not equal to demand and the prices go up and you also don't want a no-show rate as an organiser, even though it's sold out and you are not bringing everyone in - 10% you're missing at the bar or at the wardrobe and the venue is not a hundred percent full. So, this is the very classical approach when it makes a lot of sense for organisers. But as I said, the markets are changing a lot and uh, events are not that sold out anymore. And even if it's not sold out, you still have people who cannot go there. So it's also important to help them and facilitate resale even though it's not sold out.

[00:16:58] Dynamic Ticketing Debate

Paul: As part of this process of trying to keep control over ticket prices and make them affordable for people. 

Christoph: Mm-hmm. 

Paul: One of the biggest stories in ticketing for a couple of years now is the dynamic ticketing model. What's your thoughts about that? 

Christoph: It is a hot topic. I would say It has different angles. For instance, when Taylor Swift, I think went on tour, there were certain countries, like in the US, I believe, where it was more accepted that tickets go for 3K per ticket and it was just like, “yeah, that's capitalism. That's just how the world works”. And then as an opposite to it, like in Germany, I think there was critics about the whole topic. So it's difficult to say what is right or what is wrong. From a money-making perspective, obviously it makes a lot of sense to do it. And I can also understand when artists say, yeah, my value is just higher and that's what comes out of it. But from a fan perspective, obviously if I would be in a situation, I would also not like it. I think with Oasis it also happened and I think it was not even communicated beforehand. And obviously the ticketing companies make it very smart. They give the artist the right to activate it or not, so the artist will also receive the blame for it. So in that sense, I think how they did it was quite smart. But I could say it's not fair to do it, but why is it then okay to do it with flight tickets for instance? What is the difference between this experience or that experience? So for this, I think it really needs more regulations because otherwise it's really “Wild West”. Yeah, 

Paul: Wild West? 

[00:18:35] TicketSwap’s Gen Z Report Insights

Paul: I want to ask you about this report, that TicketSwap were involved with. We have a couple on the desk here. 

Christoph: Mm-hmm. 

Paul: Beautiful. 

Christoph: Yeah, kudos to our marketing team for putting that together. It's also available online. It's also quite interesting, of course, for organisers to read through, but also if you are a fan and want to know more on fan behaviour, 

Paul: it's called Inside the Future of Live Events - Backstage with Gen Z.

Christoph: Yeah. 

Paul: You kind of focus on Gen Z, but it's not just about Gen Z’s ticket buying. It's showing the changes in behaviour, ticket buying, and also the demands of people. But what can you say about what this report is and why it is? 

Christoph: Yeah. I'm not going to go into the very big details because it's a lot of data. Obviously on TicketSwap, we have 21 million users worldwide, so there's so much data and opinion and interesting insights on it. So we tried to make a sample of 8,000 users across Europe and really ask them about what is important for them when they are going to events. And it makes also sense like the industry is changing, but also the people that are attending those events are changing and their interests or their behaviour is so different from how it was 20 years ago. So organisers need to listen to the fans in order to stay hot or in order to sell tickets. So lineups are still very important, but there's way more to it than just having a lineup. You really need to understand the people that are going there. A lot of Gen Z people are going to the events and they have different opinions. They value other things. Community is becoming super important. And, transparency, flexibility - I think that is a very interesting point to look at because if you have the mindset that you can get rid of the ticket also later, your behaviour buying in pre-sale is increasing. So you are more likely to buy a ticket. I think a really interesting example is I talked to one of our colleagues here in Germany who's really connected to the club culture and to clubs because clubs are also struggling with ticket sales in Germany, and he literally proved what is also in the report, in a sense, that the times where you would just book an artist to a club night and you have a full house, those are over. You really need to think a bit more in detail and you have to work on the community feeling. You have to be more creative with the stage design, with the whole experience. Secret bookings are super hot. It creates this wow moment and that also makes, what I said in the beginning for me, the whole industry so interesting because you can tweak so many different things in order to make this such a crazy good experience. It's not just booking an artist and listening to the music. It's so much more complex. So if you are more interested in the data, you can download it on our website. 

Paul: It is fascinating. It explodes a few myths as well. It talks about how older people think Gen Z don't have the attention span for things and actually it's proved that they're just more selective over what they want. Nothing to do with not having the attention. 

Christoph: Or also this myth that everyone is on TikTok. 

Paul: Yeah. 

Christoph: It highly depends in which culture or even in which country you are living in. So, yeah, a lot of people with stereotypes about Gen Z will really like reading it. 

Paul: Yeah, it's very useful. It must be kind of essential information for a company like yours in how you develop your offerings and how you adapt to what the market wants. 

Christoph: One of our parts also when it comes to the value proposition for partners is obviously not only resale, but it's also reaching the right fans for your events. Marketing and data is becoming more and more important, as I said, in times where events are not sold out in order to increase your fan base.

[00:22:23] Germany Market Differences

Paul: The report is a cross-border report. 

Christoph: Mm-hmm. 

Paul: Eight countries, I think? And TicketSwap is a multinational operation now, right, it’s in many, many countries. You are responsible for the progress it makes in the German speaking territory - Germany, Austria, Switzerland. 

Christoph: Yeah. 

Paul: How, though, does a market like Germany perhaps differ from - maybe even from some of the info that you have in the report? Because Germany is a specific, big market. It doesn't really have a cultural centre. It's got several media centres. Every major city has its own little ecosystem of promoters and festival organisers and record labels. So how are you finding the job in Germany, how it differs probably from most other territories?

Christoph: I think it's, it's a very easy example, but it says so much also about the German culture - is the amount of paper tickets that are still being sold in Germany. And the funny thing is, when I started five years ago, we thought, yeah, it's a thing, but it gets less. It's actually not true. It gets more and more people. And Germany is sometimes a bit behind with digitalization, but it is also culture. People prefer a hard copy ticket over a PDF ticket. They can clip it on their fridge. It's a memory. They also don't forget that this comes up in six months if they have it all the time in front of them. We are working now together with Die Toten Hosen exclusively as a partner. We are facilitating their tour this year and next year and here we are also able to sell hard copy tickets, which is quite a big thing for a fully digitalized company, but you need to adapt to the local needs. Yeah. 

Paul:  And perfect for the audience of an artist like Die Toten Hosen. It absolutely works.

Christoph: You can take a photo of the hard copy ticket and then we have a technical integration with their ticketing system. We check the barcode, if it is valid, the barcode over the API integration, a ticket can be uploaded and, once someone is interested in buying them, you get a fully digital ticket from that database and the old barcode is invalidated.

Paul: This is clever. I like this because quite often, I'd say, older generations, they see what's happening with highly developed technology and it's frightening. It can make you feel kind of cut off from it. An idea as simple as this brings that generation of older ticket buyers - who have their own demands - they want the paper ticket - it involves them. I think this will open them up to using technology even more, right? 

Christoph: I love that you're saying this because I can now quote our director, Oscar Kreik, because he really said, with this integration, with this project, we are really building bridges between generations. Because you really involve them and you make boomers super fans and really, I think once they use it, they like it. Not everyone will return to TicketSwap after that. Obviously we have a lot of people that will use it now for the show, but even if a few people come back also from that generation, I think it is really a win. Win, win, win.

[00:25:28] Die Toten Hosen Resale Partnership

Paul: Yeah. Well, I've just proved his point, but tell us a little bit more if you can, about the Die Toten Hosen situation. How did it come about? It's a big deal. 

Christoph: It is a very big deal and we are very, very happy about it and this really shows that now the big players really looking at resale and having this direct connection also to the band is also very pure because you really know that they take care or they were thinking about this and it is really like a proof of concept, how it really came up well. I think they noticed that a lot of unregulated sales are happening and they really wanted to make it more transparent and fair and really to protect the fans because this is really the state of the art example, why resale is important. If you have like a sold out show with so many thousands of tickets, there's so much unregulated sales on the unregulated platforms. So it is really the responsibility of them also to take care of this and they did. 

Paul: Yeah, I think artists find it difficult to talk about ticketing at the moment. You know, there's so much negativity around how everything is overpriced. I think they take a back step sometimes. So having artists of that reputation step up and say, “This is how we want our tickets to be available. This is a statement we're making”, that must help other artists decide to follow that path, right? 

Christoph: It would be amazing. I think we are on a really good way when I look at where we were five years ago and where we are now, but the market and the whole thing is so big, so it will take more time. But you are absolutely right. This can open more doors and it just is really in line with also efforts from the industry to also make politics more aware of it. There are rumours about that some regulations will at a certain point come. So it all really comes together. Like there's more awareness from everyone involved and yeah, together this can go in a very good direction and I would say we are on the way to that.

Paul: You mentioned regulation. Germany is well known for putting regulation on top of regulation, so hopefully that simplifies it rather than complicates it. 

Christoph: Yeah. 

[00:27:39] Tech To Reduce Fraud

Paul: But what other kind of myths can you explode about the German market or what other trends or developments have you seen that you think are important towards you being able to develop the business here?

Christoph: Technology, I would say. Very interesting, working first in a German company and then going to a Dutch company. How Amsterdam, for instance, works with technology and how digital the country and the city is. And I think there is so much room to improve when bringing that technology that is being developed to the German market. Such as delayed fulfilment - that means basically that you are buying a ticket now for an event that is in six months, but the barcode is not facilitated. You only get a confirmation email, thank you for purchasing the ticket and we will release the barcode two days before the event. And where is no barcode, you cannot sell anything. So, it really, really minimises the fraud. However, you can still, in the meantime, until the barcode is released, you can still resell the ticket on TicketSwap, for instance. We have technical integrations with our ticketing partners where even though the barcode is not there, you are able to get rid of it if you want to. Yeah, and this minimises the risks. It would make organisers life so much more easy if I'm allowed to say that, if this would be more known here. So this is also a mission that me and my team really have to really educating the organisers there that it can make their lives easier when they have this technology in place. Yeah. 

[00:29:08] Future Of Ticketing

Paul: You said a bit earlier that in some aspects it's a little bit like the Wild West, but what about once things have settled? How do you think, or hope, they'll settle down eventually in five to 10 years time? How do you picture the scenario to be when it comes to events and ticketing? 

Christoph: Yeah, as long as fans are able to visit the event or as long as they're able to get rid of the ticket if they don't want to go, I think that would already be an ideal scenario, but it involves so many stakeholders. I believe that the barcode situation will change. Barcode or, like, QR codes is an old technical thing and you hear those crazy stories that you are walking physically to the stadium and then all of a sudden, like, it appears in your wallet. I think even more of that kind of stuff, that the entrance is only possible when you are physically there or if you are face is scanned or this kind of cyber future stuff.

Paul: So there'll be literally personalised tickets. 

Christoph: Yeah, exactly. Curious how that then will work with resale. How are you going to resell your ticket if it's completely stuck to your DNA? 

Paul: Sounds like a great future. I wonder if we'll all have jet packs and fly around by then. 

Christoph: Oh my God, yeah. 

[00:30:24] Wrap Up And Next Guests

Paul: Hopefully. It's been great that you've come in and talked to us. It's great to meet you and hear about what you're up to. I'm going also be talking to other people about this, you know, an event organiser from a lovely festival in Germany, and also someone who buys tickets for and goes to events regularly. It's going be great to get their points of view and hear their experiences and how they work with ticketing and with TicketSwap as well. But thanks ever so much for this information. I learned a lot. 

Christoph: Yeah, it was a pleasure. Thank you so much.