South African-based blockchain protocol Tari expects to be leveraged by Big Neon, a new company developing a blockchain-enabled platform to modernise the ticketing industry. Big Neon plans to use the Tari digital assets protocol to manage the issuance and resale of tickets through its platform to help promoters maximise revenue.
Tari, an open-source blockchain protocol, started development earlier this year by a consortium co-founded by maverick South African blockchain and cryptocurrency expert Riccardo “fluffypony” Spagni. Tari is being built to manage the issuance and transferring of digital assets, like tickets, loyalty points, in-game items, and crypto-native assets like CryptoKitties.
Big Neon is the brainchild of US-based technology and ticketing industry pioneer Dan Teree, who was President of TicketWeb, the first company in the world to sell event tickets online, and an executive at Ticketmaster. Most notably, Teree co-founded Ticketfly, which was sold to Pandora Media for $450m.
Teree described why it was time to build a new ticketing company: “Over the last five years, ticketing companies have been more interested in getting bigger than getting better. Big Neon aims to modernise ticketing by delivering the most powerful mobile tools and digitising the entire ticketing process,” he said.
“I think live entertainment ticketing and blockchain technology like the Tari digital assets protocol are on an inevitable collision course. With blockchain-based management of digital assets such as tickets, event promoters will finally be able to recapture revenues that are currently lost to the secondary market. From my vantage, it’s the biggest innovation in the ticketing industry since the first ticket was sold online,” he said.
A defining characteristic of Big Neon is that its entire platform will be open-source. Ticketing companies all over the world will be able to leverage Big Neon’s codebase to modernise their ticketing platforms. Developers and entrepreneurs who are working on digital assets projects related to in-game items, digital collectibles, loyalty points and more will be able to use libraries, patterns and other code from the Big Neon codebase to speed development.
“Big Neon is still very much in development, and we welcome contributors who are passionate about building the future of event ticketing and digital assets to collaborate with us,” said Teree.
Tari’s Spagni said Big Neon’s use of the Tari protocol underscores his view that it – and blockchain – had the ability to deliver value to modern businesses.
“It’s inspiring to be involved in the development of a digital assets-focused blockchain protocol that supports the needs of real businesses like Big Neon,” said Spagni. “By allowing digital asset issuers to create rulesets around their digital assets, the Tari protocol will empower them to make the best decisions that benefit all parties involved.”
