Ticket2Me posts record-breaking 2020, appoints new CEO to succeed founder

Ticket2Me has successfully beaten the global downtrend affecting businesses brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic by posting an annual growth rate of over 109% for the 2018 to 2020 period. The Company returned to pre-pandemic business performance by the last quarter of 2020, driven by aggressive cost reduction efforts and an effective pivot into new technology services, including integrated online event ticketing with live or recorded video streaming.

Ticket2Me scored major wins in 2020. Aside from strengthening ties with partners including the pre-eminent Cultural Center of the Philippines, premier improvisational theatre school Third World Improv, and popular comedy group Comedy Manila, Ticket2Me also secured major partnerships with the country’s largest theater companies, Repertory Philippines and Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA), film production and distribution company TBA Studios, and leading Philippine media and entertainment conglomerate GMA Network. Last December, Ticket2Me partnered with GMA Network for Alden Richards’ tenth anniversary online concert, Alden’s Reality. This was the first virtual reality concert held in the Philippines and helped set the standard for commercially-viable online performances in the country.

Ticket2Me ramped up investments in its technology to continuously operate amidst the collapse of the live events industry in the country. According to founder Darwin Mariano, “Last year almost broke us but we fought back and won. Our survival strategy, informally called Project Cockroach, saw us deliberately incur higher service costs and erode profit margins to ensure that Ticket2Me’s proprietary technology remains the most agile and most secure among the country’s ticketing and video hosting platforms.”

Mariano adds: “The appointment of Julie Anne Bautista as the new Ticket2Me chief executive officer [CEO] effective March 2021 is proof of our company’s belief that it is customer-centric reinvention and relentless innovation that will keep us ahead of the game. Julie is smart, on top of her game, understands our business extremely well, and is respected and well-loved by the team; my partners [Chief Technology Officer James Mendoza and Chief Communications Officer Carlo Francia] and I could not have chosen a better successor.”

Bautista will concurrently serve as both CEO and head of business development. She joins a growing list of Filipina tech CEOs. Prior to joining Ticket2Me, Bautista worked at PETA for 14 years; she spent the last nine years as its marketing and public relations director.

“It’s both a challenging and exciting time for the business of Ticket2Me and for the online and offline events industry in the country. I am under no illusion that it will be easy but we have a fantastic team at Ticket2Me and Darwin prepared me well for the role. I am confident that Ticket2Me’s superior technology will allow us to keep leading the market not just against legacy ticketing companies but even against new entrants and copycats,” Bautista said.

2020 in review

Right before the start of the lockdowns, Ticket2Me facilitated convenient and secure donations intended to supply the country’s health frontliners with much needed personal protective equipment and other necessities. Many other organizations entrusted Ticket2Me with their own fundraising campaigns. As of end 2020, Ticket2Me has helped raise millions of pesos for various organizations and their respective beneficiaries.

Mariano also devised and quickly developed other means with which to diversify Ticket2Me’s technological products. Chief of these developments is Ticket2Me’s proprietary pay-gated video platform which allows producers, event organizers, and other content creators to make money from their intellectual property (IP) despite the restrictions on face-to-face gatherings. Ticket2Me’s online payment facility and its anti-piracy features combine to provide the safest, most convenient option for Filipinos both here and abroad.

To showcase the features of its new video player and to demonstrate multiple content monetization strategies for its clients, Ticket2Me also ventured into video production. Boys’ Lockdown, the critically acclaimed digital series, was released in October 2020 and launched the careers of its stars Ali King and Alec Kevin. To date, the show has garnered over 7.3 million views on YouTube worldwide. More shows are programmed for 2021, including Lockdown Lounge and Boys’ Lockdown Season 2.

Ticket2Me is the Philippines’ first and fastest growing and integrated event ticketing and video platform with more than 11,000 combined cash and online payment options throughout the country. Content creators, event organizers, and ticket buyers can access the platform via www.ticket2me.net through their web or mobile browsers.