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Apply HN: QueueIn – Peer to Peer Ticket Marketplace for Music Fans

13 points by kevshin2 11y ago

queueIn ( queuein.co ) is a peer to peer ticket marketplace for music fans, provides buyers the opportunity to find tickets to sold-out events at a reasonable price, and allow sellers to make the same amount of profit or more without having to mark up the price. www.queuein.co

buss 11y ago
How is this better than craigslist or stubhub? What are you going to do that they aren't/won't/can't? How will you get users?
- jeanwu719 11y ago
  It's better than Craigslist because we use Facebook to verify users' social identity, filtering fake accounts and scammers unlike Craigslist is anonymous and full of scams. Stubhub is taking a 30% to 40% cut from both sellers and buyers, queueIn's sellers can get the same amount of money or more back while buyers pay a lot less than they would have on Stubhub. Currently, we acquire most of our users from social media such as Facebook, and also Craigslist.
  - buss 11y ago
    Tapping in to the users' social network is definitely a great way to cut down on scams.
moolave 11y ago
definitely breaking down incumbent high-fee ticket seller platforms
aacook 11y ago
I dig it. StubHub and others don't seem to be innovating much and appear to be designed for scalpers instead of fans. Doing user acquisition for this product would be fun. Given tickets are inherently event based and each band (hopefully) has passionate fans, it feels like you could run some good experiments here. I've purchased and sold tickets for some of my favorite bands through band-specific forums. I've purchased 7-8 times and sold once or twice. I've never had anything go wrong, but there's some anxiety leading up to the actual meet-up to exchange. This one time, I was selling an extra pair of tickets I got stuck on the Boston T and was 20 minutes late to meeting up with a guy. He insisted I should sell him the tickets for half the price because of the 20-minute delay (we will still 3 hours before the event!) and was pretty rude about it. I ended up giving him $50 off but didn't feel good about it at all. If I could've, I would've left him a bad review somewhere. Maybe he would've left me a bad review, too, but I think the world would be better if there were reviews about these exchanges. If you go to any big, sold-out show hours before you'll see guys walking around asking "Got tickets?" which is apparently scalper-speak for selling tickets. I've purchased from a scalper once or twice and remember being pretty worried while waiting in line, wondering if my ticket would be real. I've heard horror stories of scalper tickets being fake. I've gone to at least 5 shows where myself or others with me ended up having extra tickets. It's a huge pain selling the tickets last-minute. Actually it's a huge pain even if it's not last minute because you have to figure out a time to meet up with the person. (I guess this is why some people like selling on StubHub.) It'd be really neat if there were some way to just communicate with everyone in the parking lot (aside from the scalpers) about the tickets I have. Because this doesn't exist and I'm too lazy to walk around the parking lot for hours trying to sell $100-200 in tickets, we usually end up walking up to random people, asking if they have lawn seats, and then offering them upgraded seats for free. There's been a few times where we've had a hard time just finding someone to give the tickets away to.
- jeanwu719 11y ago
  Yes, this is exactly what the problem is and what current music fans are constant experiencing when they have to deal with their tickets. What Stubhub and such don't realize is more and more regular fans are becoming ticket sellers, they are not necessarily brokers or scalpers, and there are times that people just try to get their money back and don't know where to go to. We create a win-win for both sellers and buyers!

13 points by kevshin2 11y ago

buss 11y ago

How is this better than craigslist or stubhub? What are you going to do that they aren't/won't/can't? How will you get users?

jeanwu719 11y ago
It's better than Craigslist because we use Facebook to verify users' social identity, filtering fake accounts and scammers unlike Craigslist is anonymous and full of scams. Stubhub is taking a 30% to 40% cut from both sellers and buyers, queueIn's sellers can get the same amount of money or more back while buyers pay a lot less than they would have on Stubhub. Currently, we acquire most of our users from social media such as Facebook, and also Craigslist.
- buss 11y ago
  Tapping in to the users' social network is definitely a great way to cut down on scams.

moolave 11y ago

definitely breaking down incumbent high-fee ticket seller platforms

aacook 11y ago

I dig it. StubHub and others don't seem to be innovating much and appear to be designed for scalpers instead of fans. Doing user acquisition for this product would be fun. Given tickets are inherently event based and each band (hopefully) has passionate fans, it feels like you could run some good experiments here. I've purchased and sold tickets for some of my favorite bands through band-specific forums. I've purchased 7-8 times and sold once or twice. I've never had anything go wrong, but there's some anxiety leading up to the actual meet-up to exchange. This one time, I was selling an extra pair of tickets I got stuck on the Boston T and was 20 minutes late to meeting up with a guy. He insisted I should sell him the tickets for half the price because of the 20-minute delay (we will still 3 hours before the event!) and was pretty rude about it. I ended up giving him $50 off but didn't feel good about it at all. If I could've, I would've left him a bad review somewhere. Maybe he would've left me a bad review, too, but I think the world would be better if there were reviews about these exchanges. If you go to any big, sold-out show hours before you'll see guys walking around asking "Got tickets?" which is apparently scalper-speak for selling tickets. I've purchased from a scalper once or twice and remember being pretty worried while waiting in line, wondering if my ticket would be real. I've heard horror stories of scalper tickets being fake. I've gone to at least 5 shows where myself or others with me ended up having extra tickets. It's a huge pain selling the tickets last-minute. Actually it's a huge pain even if it's not last minute because you have to figure out a time to meet up with the person. (I guess this is why some people like selling on StubHub.) It'd be really neat if there were some way to just communicate with everyone in the parking lot (aside from the scalpers) about the tickets I have. Because this doesn't exist and I'm too lazy to walk around the parking lot for hours trying to sell $100-200 in tickets, we usually end up walking up to random people, asking if they have lawn seats, and then offering them upgraded seats for free. There's been a few times where we've had a hard time just finding someone to give the tickets away to.

jeanwu719 11y ago
Yes, this is exactly what the problem is and what current music fans are constant experiencing when they have to deal with their tickets. What Stubhub and such don't realize is more and more regular fans are becoming ticket sellers, they are not necessarily brokers or scalpers, and there are times that people just try to get their money back and don't know where to go to. We create a win-win for both sellers and buyers!