Blog: A reflection on our partnership philosophy

The events industry, at its core, is a performance. Not just on stage, but behind the scenes. And like any great performance, it's never a solo act. It's a messy, complex dance of a hundred moving parts.

No single memorable concert or festival happens because one company just "sold" something. It happens because people build things together.

This forces us to think like co-creators rather than vendor and client. A software company can't just deliver a working ticketing system - we need to understand how it fits into the larger experience.

This is why we don't really see ourselves as having "customers" in the traditional sense. We have collaborators. Partners we build things with, not for.

Real partnerships are built like trust accounts. Every small interaction either makes a deposit or withdrawal.

When you solve a problem quickly, that's a deposit. When you understand a business well enough to anticipate issues, that's a deposit. When you're available when they need you, even for something small, that's a deposit.

We recently hit the headlines for selling out Metallica shows in Budapest for over 200,000 fans with our Hungarian partner funcode.hu.

Now that wasn’t an overnight success. We had been working with our Hungarian partner for years. This success was built on years of events, gradual growth, learning each other's systems.

By the time the Metallica shows came around, we weren't figuring out how to work together under pressure - we already knew.

When your customers trust you enough to bet their biggest moments on your technology, you've built something that can't be easily copied or disrupted. Because trust, unlike features, takes time.

That kind of high-pressure moment proves a partnership is real, not just something you claim in marketing copy.

Ultimately, in this industry, there's nowhere to hide. Either your technology works flawlessly, or you become the story - the company that ruined the concert for thousands of angry fans.

If any one piece fails, everyone fails together. There's no pointing fingers afterward about whose "fault" it was.

The fans don't care that the payment processor was down, or that the venue's WiFi couldn't handle the load. They just know the experience, and they won't be back.

We get this right by thinking more like craftsmen than salespeople. We’re willing to grow slowly with customers, learning their business intimately.

We know that the Metallica moment - the moment when everything is on the line - is inevitable. And when it comes, we want to be the person they call, not the vendor they blame.

We made a conscious decision some time ago to align our own success directly with that of our partners. We believe the healthiest partnerships are those where everyone is rowing in the same direction.

For us, this became a shared North Star metric: the total number of tickets sold through our platform.

Most companies optimize for recurring revenue regardless of customers' outcomes. The incentives are perfectly misaligned: they get paid whether you succeed or fail.

Real partnership is uncomfortable for software companies because it ties their fate to yours.

It means they can't disappear after the contract is signed, because their success depends on your success.

The best partnerships we’ve seen actually look more like joint ventures. Both parties have skin in the game. Success is shared, but so is risk.

This creates powerful incentives for both sides to actually solve problems rather than just go through the motions. Our model is designed to thrive on active, ambitious partnerships, not passive ones.

It also means we can't just build features that look good in demos; we build things that actually move the needle for your business.

This is unlike most companies, which build a product, polish it until it looks impressive in demos, then spend all their energy convincing customers that this is exactly what they need.

This is where the idea of "partnering" often goes wrong. Many vendors claim to be partners, but what they really mean is "we'll sell you our thing, and you'll use it."

The problem isn't that the software is bad - it's often quite good. The problem is that "good enough" for most people is terrible for the customers who matter most.

The really ambitious projects, the ones that stand out, are never built by following a rigid plan handed down from on high.

They're built by people with a unique vision, who need the right materials and tools to bring that vision to life.

This creates a fascinating technical challenge that most software companies completely misunderstand.

Consider hospitality packages. These aren't your typical ticket offerings. When someone is spending thousands on a ticket, the digital experience matters enormously.

We learned this working with Ten Lifestyle Group, a luxury concierge.

When their ultra-high-net-worth clients want to purchase exclusive tickets, they can’t just redirect them; they need to maintain the seamless experience their clients expect.

Most ticketing companies would respond with "here's our white-label solution" and show them a template with customizable colors and logos.

But that's not really customization - that's just putting your brand sticker on someone else's experience. The moment a client gets redirected to a page that feels different, the luxury experience breaks.

This is the difference between selling a solution and selling building blocks.

A solution says "here's how we think you should do this." Building blocks say "here's what's possible - now show us something we've never seen before."

The counterintuitive thing is that building blocks are actually much harder to sell than solutions.

Solutions look impressive in demos. You can show screenshots and walk through workflows.

Building blocks look boring. They're just APIs and documentation. The magic only becomes visible when someone builds something with them.

This is why most software companies gravitate toward solutions. They're easier to demonstrate, easier to price, and easier to replicate across customers.

But they're also a ceiling on what's possible. When you sell solutions, you're betting that you know better than your customers what they need.

The best platforms feel almost invisible. When someone builds something amazing on top of them, you barely notice the platform at all. That's the point.

The platform succeeded by making its customers successful in a way that felt completely native to their business.

This invisibility is actually a feature, not a bug. When a luxury concierge service can offer seamless ticket purchasing without any sign that there's a third-party platform involved, both companies win.

Most companies can't resist the urge to make their platform visible. They want credit for the customer's success.

But the best platform companies understand that being invisible is the highest form of praise. It means you've become infrastructure.

In this industry, most sales processes start with a demo. The prospect books a meeting, the salesperson fires up their screen share, and for the next 30 minutes they click through their product showing off features.

This approach treats software like a finished product that customers either want or don't want. But the best business relationships don't start with showing - they start with listening.

Every great partnership we’ve built begins not with a demo, but with a conversation.

Before we talk about features, we invest time getting to know our new partners. Their organisations, their staff, their biggest challenges, and their day-to-day operational workflows.

Understanding the unique pressures their team is under and the specific goals they’re chasing is the essential first step.

This initial deep-dive ensures that from day one, our relationship is collaborative and tailored, not just transactional.

Beginning to understand rather than presenting tends to build different kinds of relationships.

Instead of trying to convince customers that our existing product is perfect, we’re genuinely curious about whether it's even the right starting point.

This curiosity leads to more interesting conversations.

When Forestry England was planning their Forest Live concert series, the discussion wasn't about ticketing features.

It was about the unique challenges of selling tickets for outdoor venues where weather matters, where parking is limited, where the audience includes families with kids who might need different accommodations.

These operational details don't show up in standard product demos because they're specific to each customer. But they're often the details that determine whether a product actually works in practice or just works in presentations.

The best partnerships we've seen evolve from these initial conversations into ongoing dialogues.

We don’t disappear after the contract is signed, and the customer doesn't stop sharing information about what's working and what isn't. Both sides understand that the business relationship will change as needs evolve.

Our perspective is that the events industry thrives on true collaboration, not transactional, client-vendor relationships.

We believe the most critical experiences are born from partnerships where technology providers are as invested in the outcome as the organiser themselves.

This is our commitment: to foster dynamic partnerships built on aligned goals, mutual respect, and a deep understanding of each other’s business. It’s an approach that we feel leads to far greater successes than either party achieves on their own.

If this way of working resonates with you - if you’re looking for a partnership as committed to your growth as we are - then we’d love to start a conversation. Let’s explore what we can build together.