For Peatix, future of ticketing will have some form of empowerment
NEW YORK–The future of event ticketing will have some kind of empowerment and engagement, according to Taku Harada, CEO and co-founder of Peatix who presented at last November 2 at the Japan NYC Startups at Pivotal Labs.
http://www.meetup.com/Japan-NYC-Startups/events/225879958/
Peatix is a mobile event and ticketing system that closed a $5 million Series B round led by Digital Garage last March. It has raised a total of $9 million. About 70 percent of its attendees find out about coming events through its mobile events solution which has no service fees.
Peatix is designed to let event organizers manage their events from a mobile device and it has done so in 80,000 events. Its innovative, mobile-centric solution for event management ranges from concerts to conferences.
Harada was born in the United States, but grew up in Japan. Having lived in both countries, Harada knows how important it is to target the global marketplace. Which is why he has offices in Japan where he started back in 2011, Singapore and New York with about 30 employees.
Harada admits that the ticketing world is “ridiculously competitive” with high maintenance and low margins, which is also why he thinks having authentic and distribution (methods) are important factors to succeed in the space.
Peatix is always rethinking event ticketing as it also makes event recommendations. It offers new events and communities, offers from sponsors, smoother entry to communicating with attendees and organizers.
Harada founded Peatix together with his former colleagues at Amazon, and has served as its CEO since its inception. Taku also held the position of representative director and CEO of YOOX Japan until August 2009.
Prior to YOOX, Harada held various positions at Amazon Japan, including head of its mobile and online marketing divisions. He also launched the iTunes Music Store in Japan while at Apple in 2005 and led its marketing team.
Harada began his career at Sony Music Entertainment’s international business affairs division in Japan. He holds a B.A. from Yale University.
