

Ask HN: Rate my Start-up webticketing.net - matclayton

I've been slowly working on http://www.webticketing.net in between projects for the past 6 months. And its now at the point I'm ready to get feedback and open up the site.<p>We launched our first event today, a charity hack event for paypal.<p>http://www.webticketing.net/charityhack/<p>The idea is a simple cheap ticketing solution, with a low flat rate fee.<p>Any and all feedback would be greatly appreciated.
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ErrantX
Simple, effective and well executed! nice one (I actually can think of uses
for this!!)

I especially like your time chooser method - that is really natural (though
susceptable to shock/shake). The rest of the sign up form seemed a little
oddly laid out (with the right column)

When you create an event it doesnt take you to the "invite people" page but to
the admin overview, which then takes several clicks to get to the event page
possibly directing to the events page might be better (with obvious links to
the overview/management)?

Also the next step is obviously promoting an event and it is not clear how to
do this. Some sort of popup when your redirected to the event page after setup
that says "look here are some options --->" might help.

Have you got any plans for printable tickets? Or for the ability of the admin
to reserve tickets themselves (say if they sell over the phone or via another
medium but still allowing them to track "sales" in one place). Any plans to
create a "template" event for reuse (if you hold weekly events say).

What about the email tickets - is it possible to add the ability to customise
them? (for example I know some guys who would, if using you, like the ID
number printed super large for easy checking).

What about ticket id's? Is it possible to customise these or at least track
them in the CSV file you provide - so that they can be checked?

I understand some of that might not apply for your target market - just
throwing random thoughts out there. All in all I think its really cool!

Any use?

(whats your revenue model like and what are your target audience? Do you think
you can get enough events to make it profitable (actually I can see it working
for club events organisers (we host some sites for them so I know the market
in our area is like) as a ticker mechanism. <\-- if you dont want to answer
s'cool, just interested)

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matclayton
Thanks really great feedback, much appreciated.

1\. The Time Picker isn't mine, its a open source JQuery Plugin
<http://haineault.com/media/jquery/ui-timepickr/page/>

2\. We are working on the Invite Friends/Promote code still, which is why
there is a kink in the workflow at the moment, by the time its done, it will
all make much more sense.

3\. Printable Tickets are planned, actually investigating using moo.com api or
something similar, but won't be doing these in the near future.

4\. Reserved Tickets are due out next

5\. Templates, in due course.

6\. No plans to customize the Email at the moment, but we are certainly
considering a white label solution which would allow this.

7\. Ticket id's aren't customisable, but adding them to the CSV would make a
lot of sense, will certainly do that.

I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't think we could make this profitable, hope
that is enough of an answer :)

Thanks for the great feedback much to ponder, and will certainly adjust the
feature list accordingly.

Mat

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ErrantX
wicked stuff (and thanks for the link to the JQuery plugin).

One comment I would have is that I would look into the white label approach a
bit more. There could be a niche for brandable ticket sales sites - you know
like if you run a club night a way to brand the whole interface with their
theme and so forth.

We host a few club nights websites and I know something like that would
interest them (because current solutions are a bit steep in upfornt cost,
installation and maintenance).

~~~
matclayton
Not going to say too much more on here, but watch this space :)

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johns
I started clicking on the giant green + to start creating an event and it
wasn't clickable. You should link that to your sign up page.

~~~
matclayton
Thanks, we have had this comment a few times now, time to make the big boxes
clickable :)

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NEPatriot
I would recommend a simple video highlighting the simple sign up process.
1-2-3 really prove to people that it takes minutes focusing on the number of
steps involved and that the screens are not very long (not much scrolling).

Then I would focus on the ease of creating an event. Again hopefully 1-2-3.

The same or another video would contain the end user experience of buying tix
for your event. So before signing up for anything you have a full blown view
of what signing up will be like, setting up an event, and what your event
goers will be experiencing.

Great idea. Best of luck.

~~~
matclayton
Thanks, much appreciated. Looks like a screencast is in order, truth is from
<http://www.webticketing.net> it takes 1 click to register (on the front
page), then one click to create event. From there on, it will all go live the
instance you click the confirmation email.

We really should demo how easy this is though.

Mat

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amirmc
I've actually gone through this process and it was amazingly quick to get
create an event (I thought I'd got something wrong). A lot better than
eventbrite. However, a screencast would be great.

~~~
matclayton
Thanks for taking the time to go through the process. It's our main goal, to
make the whole process as quick as possible. Which is why we didn't bother
with a screencast, but seems we need one! Thanks for the tips, will put one
together next week.

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keeptrying
You guys are going up against the big daddys in this space:
<http://www.eventbrite.com/>

I did some research into this space. There are acutally tons of companies in
this space which IMHO is a good thing for you. I would try to focus on one
niche to get revenue coming in.

~~~
matclayton
Our initial niches are university and nightclub events, hence the wacky
colors, but we do aim to tackle eventbrite.com and the more mainstreams events
eventually.

Mat

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smiler
Your transaction fee of 50p per ticket in the UK is far too high for
University events. A lot of them would be £5-£10, so somewhere between 10% -
5% commission plus there are then withdrawal fees from PP for the money.

Eventbrite charge a flat 3% on the ticket price if you use their payment
processing. What advantage do you offer over eventbrite?

~~~
staunch
If you are selling tickets to your event, the Eventbrite fee is $0.99 + 2.5%
per ticket sold. (max fee $9.95)

<http://www.eventbrite.com/t/eventbrite-invoice>

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jah
clickable link: <http://www.webticketing.net>

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paypaldevuk
great app using new Beta PayPalX API's and has allowed us to put together a
hack weekend and site in a few days.

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noelevans
Great design and good, fast registration.

~~~
matclayton
Glad you like it, had some feedback suggesting the create event isn't obvious
enough as a sign-up on the front page, so may change the wording.

Mat

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rawson
All very good so far... Only a couple of things: I found the UI when creating
the event to be slightly muddled, my eye followed down the page and i
completely forgot about the right hand side panels. I feel the user feedback
on errors could be more noticeable - maybe put it at the top of the page as
well as above the field it is referring to. A smooth looking site none the
less...

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ghostz00
I would need to see screenshots, demo, or video; before I would sign up. Other
than that I like the design.

~~~
matclayton
There is a quick video interview here

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GhAicc3iCE>

Need to do a screen cast and put it on the frontpage still though, hadn't
thought of that :)

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foobar2k
Looks really slick, great idea too.

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guruslan
cool, i like the design and the idea as well very much needed

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icey
I don't know if it's too late to mention this; but this posting has all the
same fake user reviews like matclayton's other post did.

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natts
Great start, though provide alternative payment options if possible - that way
you don't scare anyone off.

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_pius
I haven't done anything with it yet, but I do want to say it's a really great
looking design.

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redorb
why have a image like this?
<http://s.wtimg.com/site_media/images/payment_options.png>

at 128k its heavier than some whole web pages. (any ideas?)

~~~
matclayton
Ouch thanks, that image isn't even used in this version of the site, its from
an old build, which is why it is still a high res version. Have removed it
from the next CSS revision to go out. Will have a check around for anymore
excess images, Thanks.

Mat

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rokhayakebe
I would definitely change the name. It sounds more like a job ticketing. EDIT:
And you can also add a link to an event on the front or a stream of events
being created.

~~~
ErrantX
as someone who has been searching for a decent name/domain relating to tickets
and ticketing (not for these kind of tickets) I can tell you it's tough!

Webticketing is an awesome catch even with the slight confusion!

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boundlessdreamz
webticketing is ok, but it is still a .net domain.

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danw
Would love a link to an event .ical file, like eventbrite etc do.

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matclayton
Already provide these, when you signup to an event the iCal file is include in
the email, an should auto add to your calender.

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danw
Awesome, adding it in the email is a lovely touch.

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joshuamarch
Great app - not a fan of paypal though!

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pclark
blargh paypal.

just kidding, thats a really good landing page.

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clistctrl
The convenient part of event brite for me is their extensive API, do you have
anything like that planned?

~~~
matclayton
Of course, just take time and we don't want to open it up until we are
confident the design is robust.

