Making ticketing and registration better with our new features

In 2019 we’ve worked hard to bring you the best of what we think event management can be. It’s more than ticketing and registration – we thought of new concepts to make your event and venue really stand out.

We focused on three specific areas:

  1. cashless payments for events and venues
  2. prepacked perks and benefits
  3. making ticketing, registration and access control more accessible

I’ll start with number three and in the following days continue with prepacked perks and benefits and ending with cashless payments for events and venues.

Making ticketing and registration accessible to anyone

We noticed that a lot of what we offer is great for mid-sized to large events but to smaller ones it might be a bit too expensive, especially if they’re designing boutique, designer events. In these cases our current business model, where we charge a certain percentage of ticket sales is not really working, as that percentage, however small, might be to much.

At Oveit, we’re working towards a more open model where anyone can set up their own event economy. To make this possible we need to get you started, even when you can’t pay our ticketing software fees. So we made it free for small(er) events.

Small is beautiful: the free software plan for small events

After careful consideration we decided that we could offer our basic plan (ticketing and registration) for events under 300 visitors, for free. Yes, you can now get free event software for all your events under 300 attendees. This includes both paid and free events. This is our way of supporting you and our passionate community of event planners for their startup events. Just like you, we’re builders and entrepreneurs and we’re here to help you.

So what do you get with the free plan for event management?

Let’s have a look at the main features you’re getting with the free plan:

  • ticketing and registration: create multiple types of tickets, set different pricing points and start selling them instantly;
  • direct payments in your account: connect your PayPal or Stripe account and get payments directly into your account, no waiting time required;
  • registration forms: create registration forms for your attendees and buyers, extending the data you collect from your visitors;
  • seated / non-seated: easily create seating maps or just allow for general access for your events
  • customize follow up messages: add a personal touch to the follow up emails, after your visitors buy the tickets;
  • discount vouchers: an easy way to create special promotions for your visitors;
  • embed registration on your website: we think your registration, for your event, should be happening on your website, without competing events distracting your customers. It’s really easy to set up too: just copy and paste a short embed code;
  • get your team on board: easily create sub-accounts for your colleagues, whether they are checkin staff, event marketers or any other type of staff;
  • scanning apps for Android and iOS: the tickets are sent to your visitors by email and they can bring them with them either in printed form or digitally. Use our free apps to scan your visitors in fast and securely.

If this sounds interesting to you – check out an extended list of features for the free event app and signup now. If you registered sometimes in the past and your plan is not yet free – login to your account and go to the Pricing plan section. There you can choose the Starter account, free for up to 300 visitors.

Now I have to be open: there’s some great features that are not included in the free plan, like cashless payments or prepacked perks. Larger events (those with more than 300 visitors) also start paying after they’ve crossed the threshold. But we think this is a great start in helping you get your event off the ground.

Invite only tickets

We noticed there is a need for invite-only tickets, for all sorts of events, ranging from corporate, to conferences, to festivals.

The invitation only ticket can be easily set up in the ticket categories section by choosing “Private invitation” and entering an invite code:

Choose private invitation, enter the invite code and publish.

When your visitors will see the embedded registration widget, they can enter the invitation code in the checkout process, as seen below:

Invite only tickets claiming

Timezone settings

As Oveit has grown to be a tool used by event planners all over the world we felt the need to make it a bit more local.

At first we’ve integrated several languages (we started with English and added German, French, Spanish, Nederlands ).

But that didn’t seem to be enough. One thing that was really necessary was a time zone setting. By default, when you register now your timezone is set automatically, together with date/time display settings. You can change them in your account settings later on.

However, we know you might organize events all over the world and now there is a setting for each event to have its own date-time option, according to where it’s happening.

One more thing – what happens when you need to register visitors at the entrance?

Box office ticket sales and registration

We have been receiving requests from our users about how they could reliably register visitors at the entrance. For a long time this feature posed challenges on how can it be used reliably.

Good news – we think we cracked it. You can now use Oveit for registrations at the entrance or issuing tickets on the fly in in the box office.

We are still testing it with some of our most loyal customers so if you don’t have it – shoot us a message or contact us via live chat and we’ll make sure you can use it too.

So here’s how you start selling tickets at the entrance:

  • Press the + button right next to the ticket counter
  • Choose the type of ticket you want to generate
  • [ Optional ] enter the visitor details
  • [ Optional ] enter registration form details, if any
  • Generate & print ticket

That’s pretty much it in terms of ticketing and registration. We hope it makes your life easier and your events better. We’ll soon show you more details on the features we’ve been working on, especially in the prepacked perks and benefits area, as well as cashless payments.

November 27, 2019 Business events, Event management, Event tech 1 comment

IBTM 2019: What did we showcase in Barcelona ?

Last week Oveit attended IBTM 2019 in Barcelona as one of the leading Tech Watch Award shortlisted startups. IBTM is the largest business and travel meetings event in the world, where professionals meet to discuss the future trends of the event industry.

We’ve had a blast. It was an overwhelming event and the good people at Reed Exhibitions do a great job at running it and making it the global center of business and travel meetings.

Cashless payments for event professionals and the travel industry at IBTM 2019

In the past two years Oveit has been steadily evolving from events registration and access control to cashless payments, audience engagement and prepacked benefits. We’ve basically moved from an event registration tool to one which event planners can use to create an event economy. This is what we presented at IBTM 2019.

Cashless payments on mobile - Oveit

What we noticed was that a lot of the revenue and the experience around an event is outside of the planers’ traditionally accessible channels. For festivals, as an example, most of the revenue is generated not in ticket sales but in the economy developed around the festivals. Local vendors, bars, merchandising and more.

Our technology relies at heart on NFC contactless payment tokens (such as wristbands or cards) which visitors can top up and use to pay within the event venue. In the background, the event organizer manages the cashflow and distributes funds to vendors, usually retaining a certain management fee.

A new way to see the business of events and venues

With what is usually called “closed loop payments“, events and venues generate an extra stream of revenue but most important – they get access to relevant data.

With our technology event planners are able to plan their future events based on actual behavior data. They get an insight on what is popular and what is not, what is a key consumer driver and what are the most loyal visitors for their experiences.

This creates a virtuous cycle of better experiences, which generate more revenue and data and better options for the planner to improve on previous experiences.

Prepacked perks and benefits launched at IBTM 2019

At one point we’ve asked ourselves – what makes a ticket valuable? What do people care about when they’re buying a ticket. We asked the event visitors and the event planners. The answer is a bit of common sense: they are actually buying the experience that ticket entitles them to.

Cashless payments end user apps on mobile - Oveit

With this in mind we went on and developed our prepacked perks technology where one ticket can hold more than just the access to an event. It can hold access to specific sub-events, goods such as a t-shirt or a hamburger, services such as a cruise line or accommodations to the hotel.

With the prepacked perks, which can be stored on mobile devices, on RFID wristbands or even on biometric signatures, the experience can be vastly extended. Perks make the conventional limitations fade away for event planners and venues.

Facial biometrics access and payments

We’ve worked with some of the best experts in machine learning in computer vision to provide event planners a way to use biometrics in their event.

Facial biometrics for events and venues - Oveit
FacePay can hold digital balances and prepacked perks

By pairing facial features with access control rights, visitors can just
walk in, without a need to take out their ticket or unlock their smartphone. The scanning apps are loaded on smartphones, without a need to buy or rent hard to install equipment such as HD cameras or powerful computers.

At the same time they can use their face to pay for goods within the venue, just as they would when buying with a contactless card.

Edge Payments

Probably the most interesting technology we have presented at IBTM 2019 in Barcelona was edge payments .

Edge payments equipment. Edge computing for large events and venues.
Oveit’s Edge Payments box and interfaces.

So what are edge payments? For one – they are a hybrid between closed and open loop payments. A way for visitors to top up a digital balance in a closed loop economy and use it to pay for goods.

The second attribute and the most important one is that this technology allows operating payments even when the internet is down. This is usually due to massive numbers of visitors in one place, overloading the network or just plain old technology crashes. It’s great for large venues or conferences and especially festivals.

Oveit’s tech operates at the edge of the cloud, making sure that everything is operational even when all other systems have fallen.

It was a pleasure meeting all the people that stopped by our booth and the ones we visited at theirs, especially in the hospitality industry, where we see great opportunities for our technology to improve experiences.

Barcelona is an amazing city and IBTM fits right in, especially for event and
hospitality professionals. See y’all soon!


November 25, 2019 Event management, Event professionals, Event tech, Future No comments yet