Like other tech developers in April 2020, Authoriti’s team raced to develop technology that would be beneficial to musicians when live shows were rendered impossible due to the COVID-19 pandemic. What started as a “Permission Code®” transaction platform has evolved with the times to meet the needs of musicians.
“We don’t come from the event space, or even the music industry, but our team has a deep love for artists and live music,” says Lou Steinberg, Chairman of Authoriti. “Many musicians we know are suffering because they need live gigs to eat. Big artists have access to fancy systems that handle online tickets, but many are just live-streaming on platforms like Facebook without getting paid. Once we realized we could tweak our existing tech to let them sell tickets to livestreams, there was no question that we had to do it. Musicians are hurting and we want to help. We aren’t charging local artists for this, it’s our way of giving back to people who bring us joy.”
The Authoriti team hopes it can empower musicians at this time to have control and organization of their audiences.
“If we don’t help artists through this crisis, there won’t be artists left to help when it ends. Artists have fans who would pay a little, like passing the bucket at an event. They can send tickets to their fans who Venmo them a few bucks, or send to a small group for invitation-only livestreams and ask for donations. The only thing stopping that today is they can’t only admit invited people when anyone can share a livestream link. Our “smart” tickets replace the link and every attendee gets their own code (which only works once),” says Steinberg.
The interface is sleeker and easier to manage than what most artists have been utilizing: a flashing graphic that invites the audience to donate to Venmo or PayPal via Facebook Live, something that can become quite distracting when paired with a visual performance.
The tech company also hopes that musicians have an eye on the post-pandemic future when live music makes its long-awaited comeback. Those who have been skeptical of ticketing services also stand to benefit from all that Authoriti has to offer.
“Our smart tickets will work at the door as well as online, and can be scanned and verified. Our tickets can contain the identity of the ticket owner, meaning a venue can scan the ticket and a bar code on your license to make sure it’s legit and was assigned to you. That matters because as artists become successful, ticket brokers buy up seats and charge fans inflated prices which the artist and venue never get. We can eliminate the entire scalper market and make sure the money goes to artists instead of scalpers.”
To learn more, visit their event access landing page here.
