
Alf.io: open-source ticket reservation system - robbya
http://alf.io
======
dredmorbius
That landing page needs a brief description of what this actually _does_ , and
links to more detailed technical docs -- features, requirements, use cases,
etc.

Knowing that it's all fluffy happy Open Source is Nice to Know, but shouldn't
be the First And Most Significant Selling Point.

Post based on one of my popular early HN comments:

"Please Forward to Marketing: How to present your products to customers (or
would-be customers)"

[https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/27d5xr/please_...](https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/27d5xr/please_forward_to_marketing_how_to_present_your/)

~~~
cbellone
Lead dev here, thanks for the feedback. The new website is WIP, it will
contain more info and a comprehensive user doc. Preview:
[https://alfio.netlify.com/](https://alfio.netlify.com/) Any feedback would be
highly appreciated.

~~~
thelittleone
Interesting project.

The site alfio.netflify.com needs some responsive breakpoints set for mobile
as some of the text section widths > 100% on mobile.

Let me know if you need some help :)

~~~
cbellone
that would be fantastic! We do need all the help we can get.

The website is generated using hugo, you can find the code along with some
basic instructions here: [https://github.com/alfio-
event/alf.io/tree/master/website](https://github.com/alfio-
event/alf.io/tree/master/website)

looking forward to your PR :)

~~~
thelittleone
By the way I noticed the demo page says to enter an email address and
password. I assume that means any email and password should work. But it fails
with an unknown user error.

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weinzierl
If you are interested in this because you are organizing a conference you
might like _frab_ [1]. It is a free and open source conference management
system that is primarily used by the Chaos Computer Club for Chaos
Communication Congress and other conferences.

[1] [https://github.com/frab/frab/wiki](https://github.com/frab/frab/wiki)

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sprain
I am in the event ticketing business. It currently feels like a new provider
appears every other day as the entry bar is very low. The tricky parts start
when you realize how diverse event organizers‘ needs actually are.

Nonetheless, as a result there are many user-friendly alternatives to the few
big names available nowadays. But it‘s a slow moving market and it will take
some more time for them to win the trust of large organizers. I am sure,
though, the change _will_ come.

~~~
imglorp
If the big names weren't so predatory, invasive, and abusive maybe there would
be less pressure to avoid them?

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Zaskoda
If you want to make a dent in the ticket market, come up with a solution that
Burning Man will adopt. Their system almost never performs correctly. Every
year something new goes wrong and thousands of people take to online forums to
complain about bugs such as being kicked out of queues or not having their
preregistration links work at all. If someone can earn BM's business, then
they'll likely get a ton of business from their regional network of smaller
events.

~~~
the-dude
Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded.

------
cyborgx7
Alternatively, this is what ccc has been using for their events, like the
congress, for a while now.

[https://github.com/pretix/pretix](https://github.com/pretix/pretix)

~~~
nsomaru
The enterprise pricing is way out of reach for the African market

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bvandewalle
Hopefully someone "disrupts" the events and ticketing industry. Buying a
ticket to anything has been hell lately. Terrible UX and 10/20$ of added
random fees (Ticketmaster, Live nation, etc ...).

I sadly bet that this is more a business issue than a technical issue.

~~~
Multiplayer
You'd want to take a deep dive on how arena entertainment works. Here's the
headline:

Live Music is a loss leader for alcohol sales.

95% of the gate goes to the acts, and some of the alcohol depending on whether
you are jimmy buffet or not.

Like 3rd party insurance, no one is really in a position to care about the
ticket experience or expense.

The artist cares about getting the right venues and the right tour routing.

The venue cares about getting the right artists with the right age groups.

And thanks to vertical integration a company that owns the largest ticket
service, manages acts, manages tours and owns festivals, nightclubs AND arena
venues... well, ticketing is doing just fine.

There's no one really to leverage a new solutions. source: friend was former
ceo of tickets.com

~~~
bvandewalle
Thanks for the good overview. It's exactly what I thought: a mix and match of
different incentives that makes it pretty much impossible to change the
current system.

------
atomize
Followed the link expecting to see an open source support ticket solution. I
quickly remembered that there are other types of tickets...

------
conception
The try it now asks for an email and password with no way to know what to put
in there or sign up for anything.

~~~
scarejunba
I believe it accepts anything. I used test@example.com with example.

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lub
relevant: [https://pretix.eu/about/en/](https://pretix.eu/about/en/) , which
is used e.g. by the 36C3

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ghego1
I like the concept and it looks like an interesting project, however still
AngularJS + Bower for the frontend? You could probably benefit a lot from
switching to Angular > 8, I have done it for several projects and it's totally
worth it. If you need help let me know.

~~~
syjer
Hi,

You are right about angular. We already have done 50% of the work, as we have
the "customer" facing part done in angular 8 ([https://github.com/alfio-
event/alf.io-public-frontend](https://github.com/alfio-event/alf.io-public-
frontend)).

In the next release (M3) we will convert the "admin" part too (we are
targeting a new frontend built with angular material) :)

~~~
ghego1
Awesome! Didn't notice the client frontend, great job!

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lucasverra
Congrats on show ! Why should i use this instead of free eventbrite ?

~~~
cbellone
if you're happy with their terms&conditions and privacy policy, and you don't
need to print badges on-site, then there's no reason to change. Otherwise, we
offer you an alternative :)

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Mathnerd314
PostgreSQL database with 25k Java/Spring codebase locked into Stripe APIs.

I guess it will fit some people's use cases, but my impression of Java is that
refactoring anything, like changing from Stripe to some other payment
provider, will take months.

~~~
lol768
It supports PayPal: [https://github.com/alfio-
event/alf.io/blob/master/src/main/j...](https://github.com/alfio-
event/alf.io/blob/master/src/main/java/alfio/manager/payment/PayPalManager.java)

And Revolut's business API: [https://github.com/alfio-
event/alf.io/blob/master/src/main/j...](https://github.com/alfio-
event/alf.io/blob/master/src/main/java/alfio/manager/payment/RevolutBankTransferManager.java)

So adding new payment methods can't be that difficult

~~~
Mathnerd314
Paypal took from May 12 to July 28 ([https://github.com/alfio-
event/alf.io/issues/77](https://github.com/alfio-event/alf.io/issues/77)), and
Revolut took from March 18 to April 8 ([https://github.com/alfio-
event/alf.io/pull/622](https://github.com/alfio-event/alf.io/pull/622)). Maybe
"a few weeks" is a better estimate for the difficulty, but it's certainly not
a weekend project.

~~~
syjer
Hi, one of the devs here. I would like to clarify that this project has been
developed as a side-project, it's not (at least, during that timeframe) our
main work.

So don't take the time to develop a feature as a 100% full time work :)

