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When the band Oasis announced their reunion tour in early 2025, millions of fans rushed to secure tickets—only to have their dreams crushed by cancellations, inflated prices, and scams. Oasis fans lost an estimated £1.6 million ($2 million) to ticket scams in the first few weeks after tickets went on sale, according to recent reports. Meanwhile, a sophisticated cybercrime crew stole and resold hundreds of tickets to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour using stolen credit cards and automated bots.
These high-profile cases highlight a pervasive problem plaguing the $1.14 trillion live event industry: Ticket bots and scalpers are stealing the joy of live experiences from real fans.
Despite legislation in the U.S. and EU making ticket bots illegal, enforcement has remained nearly impossible. The problem has become so severe that bipartisan initiatives such as the TICKET Act recently passed unanimously through the U.S. House Committee, and even President Trump issued executive orders targeting ticket scalping.
Alan Gelfand, founder and CEO of IdBase, realized everyone in the industry was overlooking a simple answer to this complex problem.
“Everyone’s trying to solve the problem by detecting bots. It’s a losing battle. As tech gets more sophisticated, so do the bots,” Gelfand says. “We flipped the problem on its head and said, what if instead of trying to identify bots, we just verify that someone is human instead?”
By leveraging proven biometric identity verification technology (the same governments use), he built a team at IdBase to create a platform that promises not only to eliminate ticket bots but also to enhance security and improve the overall fan experience at live events.
IdBase’s technology, called authenTICKET™, creates a seamless verification process that it says confirms a ticket buyer’s identity through government ID scanning and biometric verification (either facial or voice recognition). Their approach is revolutionary because it works with all ticket formats—not just mobile tickets—and integrates directly with existing venue and ticketing infrastructures, which could lead to significant savings for the venues.
The true cost of ticket bots
The scale of the problem is staggering. According to industry data, up to 40% of ticket website traffic comes from bots, with some events seeing as much as 95% of their traffic from these automated programs.
Tickets for popular shows are frequently resold at 300% to 700% of face value, with some cases seeing markups as high as 7,000%. What originally cost $100 can suddenly cost fans thousands of dollars on secondary markets.
But this isn’t just about inflated prices. Venues lose valuable customer data and security control, artists perform to empty seats when scalped tickets don’t sell, and credit card and ticketing companies face massive fraud and chargeback costs. The industry as a whole loses significant revenue that could be reinvested in better experiences for fans.
Dr. Timothy Kay, IdBase’s CTO and a highly regarded technologist who built a precursor to Apple’s Siri, explains their technical approach: “We’re not storing actual biometric data—just secure templates that cannot be reverse-engineered. Our one-to-one matching process is significantly more secure and reliable than competitors who try to use biometrics as the ticket itself, which we believe is a very costly and risky approach.”
A different approach to solving the problem
IdBase stands apart from competitors in several key ways. While many companies focus solely on bot detection, IdBase has built an identity verification infrastructure that makes bot purchases impossible from the start.
“Identity Authorization Networks” like IdBase represent the future of digital transactions, creating secure ecosystems where identity can be verified once and used across multiple platforms, according to a recent market report by Liminal. This approach solves a fundamental issue in the ticketing ecosystem: establishing trust at the point of purchase.
“We’re not just another ticketing app,” says Kieron O’Shea, IdBase’s Chief Strategy Officer. “We’re the identity layer of the live event industry. Think of us as the Visa of ticketing—the company that built the payment network and gets a small piece of each transaction.”
The company has already completed successful technology pilots and is now partnered with Tickets.com, a subsidiary of Major League Baseball that facilitates more than 60 million ticket sales annually. They’re in discussions with multiple ticketing providers in North America and Europe for upcoming infrastructure experiments.
Their business model is straightforward: IdBase charges a 1% service fee (capped at $1 per ticket) on tickets sold through partner platforms. A small portion goes to biometrics partners, ticketing companies, and the venues themselves, with IdBase retaining 80% of the fee. With the global events market valued at more than $1.14 trillion, the total addressable market is enormous.
Benefits beyond bot prevention
While eliminating bots is their primary focus, IdBase’s technology provides additional benefits to the entire live event ecosystem.
For fans, the platform means no more frustration trying to buy tickets only to find events sold out in seconds because bots snatched up the tickets, the company says. It also reduces the risk of purchasing fraudulent tickets, which affects approximately 12% of ticket buyers.
For venues, the technology provides enhanced security by knowing exactly who is in the building, valuable customer data for improved experiences, and reduced staff costs through more efficient entry processes, the company says.
For artists and teams, IdBase says it ensures tickets get into the hands of real fans at the prices they intended, rather than seeing their fans gouged by scalpers on secondary markets.
Rob Williams, IdBase’s Chief Product Officer who previously served as CPO at AudienceView and Director of Technology at the NEC Group, emphasizes the company’s focus on user experience: “We’ve designed this to be completely frictionless. Fans have the option to check in via geofence proximity notifications on their phone before they even reach the gate, similar to how TSA PreCheck works at airports. This means no waiting in ID check lines.”
Looking to the future
As The Verge recently reported, the future of online ticketing is at a critical inflection point, with both regulators and consumers demanding change. Unlike many startups entering regulated industries, IdBase is uniquely positioned to benefit from increased regulation, as their technology enables compliance with existing and forthcoming anti-bot legislation.
IdBase is raising capital to rapidly scale up product development and meet growing demand. With an experienced leadership team that includes former executives from industries like sports, entertainment, finance, and technology, they’re well-positioned to be first to market with this proprietary technology, creating barriers for others to copy or follow.
Their advisory board includes high-profile industry veterans such as Greg Saretsky (former WestJet CEO), Robert DuPuy (former MLB president and COO), and William Jones (former head of legal at Goldman Sachs Intl.).
“We’re not just focusing on the technology,” Gelfand says. “We’re building a platform that aligns with existing and upcoming legislation. Laws like the BOTS Act in the U.S. have been difficult to enforce, and new proposals like the BOSS and SWIFT Act aim to address these limitations. As more countries such as the UK move towards nationally capping resale, the need for enforcement becomes even more critical. IdBase provides the technological infrastructure to make those laws actually work.”
By helping venues and ticketing companies adopt concepts like identity verification and secure check-in processes, Gelfand and IdBase are bringing the live event industry into a new era. Combining technological innovation with practical solutions, they’re paving the way for a fairer, more secure future for live events.
In ten years, IdBase aims to be more than just a technology company—they want to become the global identification backbone of the live event industry, fostering trust and connection universally. The opportunity to eliminate ticket bots completely from the industry and return billions in value to fans, artists, and venues is within reach.
If you’d like to be a part of the IdBase mission and learn more about their investment opportunity, visit their website to learn more: invest.idbase.com
Disclaimer: In making an investment decision, investors must rely on their own examination of the issuer and the terms of the offering, including the merits and risks involved. IdBase has filed a Form C with the Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with its offering, a copy of which may be obtained through their website: invest.idbase.com. This article is a paid promotion for IdBase’s Reg CF offering.
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