I bought a ticket. I paid money.
So why do I need to download an app, create an account, verify my email, remember yet another password, and hand over my data just to walk through a door?
Event tech has turned something beautifully simple (showing a ticket) into a growth hack for investors and a headache for everyone else.
Welcome to the Matrix (Now Download Our App)
Here's the modern ticketing flow: download the app, verify your email, create a password, enable notifications, allow location access, find your ticket buried in a menu, wait for it to load, scan at the door.
Remember when you just... showed up?
This circus doesn't exist because it's better. It exists because platforms are chasing app downloads and "engagement metrics" that look pretty in pitch decks. Are we running events or onboarding users into a data extraction programme?
The KPI Lie
These platforms aren't optimising for your experience. They're optimising for vanity metrics that keep investors happy and users miserable. Every forced download is another number they can wave at their board. Every push notification is "engagement." Every data point is leverage.
You're not the customer. You're the product being packaged.
The Truth No One in Event Tech Wants to Admit
Event apps don't exist for your convenience. They exist for data extraction.
Here's what they're actually taking: location data, browsing history, contact access, push permissions, your habits, your preferences, your network.
You didn't buy a ticket. You bought your way into their database.
And the worst part? They've convinced everyone this is normal. That needing a separate app for every gig, festival, or conference is just "how things are done now." It's not. It's a con dressed up as innovation.
This isn't about privacy paranoia. It's about time, storage, and basic bloody respect.
Simplicity Isn't Retro (It's Radical)
Here's a wild idea: what if ticketing just... worked?
Buy ticket. Get link. Tap. Enter. Done.
No app. No login. No password you'll forget by the time the event rolls around. Just a link that works in your browser, your email, your messages. Anywhere.
This isn't revolutionary technology. It's common sense that got bulldozed by platforms obsessed with "building an ecosystem" when all anyone wanted was a ticket.
If your event app needs an instruction manual, you've already failed UX 101.
Your Phone Shouldn't Pay Rent to Someone Else's Business Model
Let's talk about what's actually happening to your phone.
That festival app you downloaded in June? Still there in November, taking up space. That conference app from last year? Yep, still lurking. That one-time exhibition thing? Also squatting.
Your storage is paying rent for business models that stopped serving you the second you walked through the door.
Meanwhile, a simple link works everywhere. Web. Email. QR code. No clutter. No confusion. No digital hoarding of apps you'll never open again.
The Organiser Tax (Or: How Platforms Steal Your Business)
Now let's flip this round, because users aren't the only ones getting mugged.
Traditional ticketing platforms are running the ultimate bait and switch on organisers. You pay for ads to drive traffic. They get the clicks. You build hype around your event. They build their brand. You bring the audience. They harvest the data.
Your marketing isn't building your business. It's building theirs.
Then there's the SEO heist. Every ticket sold through their platform is traffic that never touches your site. Every checkout page is a branded experience that isn't yours. Every customer interaction is data you'll never own.
If your marketing builds someone else's business, you're not a partner. You're an unpaid intern.
The Real Cost (Spoiler: It's Not Just 10%)
Let's do the maths, shall we?
10% platform fee on a £50,000 event = £5,000 gone. Just... gone.
But that's not even the full picture. What about the traffic you drove to their checkout? The SEO juice that fed their domain instead of yours? The remarketing data you could've used to build your audience for next time?
Platforms don't just take your money. They take your leverage, your momentum, your ability to grow independently.
You're not using a platform. You're financing it.
What Users Actually Want (Hint: They Always Wanted This)
Simplicity. Speed. Clarity.
No one woke up and thought, "You know what my life needs? Another app for a thing I'm doing once."
They asked for access. That's it. A way to get in that doesn't require a digital assault course.
A browser link does that. It works. It's cached offline. It's universally compatible. It doesn't ask for permissions it has no business requesting.
Remember when the internet just worked? We're bringing that back.
The New Standard: Common Sense, Repackaged
This isn't disruption. It's a reset.
We're not inventing new technology. We're reviving the radical notion that ticketing should be easy for the person buying the ticket and profitable for the person selling it.
Here's what that looks like:
Keep 97.5% of your revenue. Not 90%. Not 85%. Nearly all of it.
Own your audience and SEO. The checkout stays on your site. The traffic is yours. The data is yours.
Zero downloads, zero friction. A link. That's it. No app stores, no onboarding, no excuses.
We handle compliance and payouts. You get simplicity without the liability headache.
This is what happens when you build for users instead of investors.
Make It Easy or Make It Elsewhere
If your ticketing system requires an app, a login, or a password reset, you're not innovating. You're punishing your audience.
Simplicity wins. It always did.
The era of bloated platforms treating events like data farms is over. The organisers who get this early will own their audience, keep their money, and actually sleep at night.
The rest will keep paying rent to someone else's business model.
Make it easy, or make it elsewhere.
Stop Making Me Download Your Bloody App (and Other Ticketing Crimes)