Latest / The Backdrop Podcast / Episode 18 - Cosmin Ivan, CEO of Platinumlist

Transcript

Episode 18 - Cosmin Ivan, CEO of Platinumlist · The Backdrop Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome back to the backdrop.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_03: Today we're talking about technology, innovation, and the changing world of live events.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_03: Joining me is Cosman Ivan, CEO of Platinum Lists, one of the Middle East leading ticketing and event discovery platforms.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_03: Under his leadership, Platinum List has expanded across seven GCC markets in 25 countries outside the GCC.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_03: He's established a network of over 3,500 partners and surpassed 4 million mobile app downloads.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_03: Cosman has also helped introduce innovations in secure mobile ticketing, dynamic QR codes, and fan-to-fan resale, changing how audiences access live experiences.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_03: But there's much more to the conversation than just ticketing.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_03: We'll explore the role of artificial intelligence, personalization, and how technology can make customer experiences more human.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_03: We'll also discuss Platinumless growth, the evolving expectations of audiences, and what the future holds for the live events industry.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_03: There's plenty to talk about, so let's get into it.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_03: How is everything going?
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_03: How's everything for you?
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Michael.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: Nice to be here.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: Everything is good.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's uh actually better than um I was expecting.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_02: So good.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I'm really glad you could come uh and join us today.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_03: Today is going to be a little bit different in terms of the conversation because this is uh this is a really cool success story, platinum list.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_03: And it's as old as uh my first day in in Dubai, which is really, really cool.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_03: Um it started 18 years ago, as you as we we discussed earlier.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_03: Um it was a ticketing platform, and and you came in at about 2014, 2015.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_03: It was like a VIP list, and then yeah, it just sort of organically grew into this, yeah, this beast, you know, and really, really incredible across the region.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_03: And uh and uh and growing further, right?
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_03: So you started off in Romania, you were ticketing in Romania, and then you were on the front line there.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_03: Then you took over this incredible company.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_03: And what is it about what you've done before?
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_03: Like how what what lessons do you do you still hold on to from those early days ticketing in Romania to now as the CEO of this massive ticketing organization?
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, um, the journey was uh interesting.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_02: Well, now that you are saying uh on looking back, it's like, oh, I did all of that.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_02: Uh uh, so I think uh the um the things that I keep from the back in the day when uh I was starting in ticketing and events and so on.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um I think is the real um like let's say uh on-ground experience.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's very important for what I'm doing right now because um, you know, when you're moving uh up and you have to uh drive a company, you need to look at the data, you need to see how the trends are and so on.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: So you become more like a helicopter view of the company, and your connection with um um everything that's happening on ground is diminishing.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: But I think when when you are there, when you have to take some decisions based on data and so on, the ground experience helps you uh understand the numbers and see the true color of the numbers.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_02: Because, for example, numbers can be deceiving if you just look at the paper and you don't understand the business.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_02: But then when you have the ground experience, you need how you know how people sitting in the queue, uh, how fast you need to scan in, how fast you need to sell the ticket, how fast uh customer support needs to answer.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_02: And you are the one that did all of that 10 years ago, 11 years ago, because we were four or five people in the office.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I remember uh our founder and me and three other colleagues, and um we had two lines of customer support, and the first line was ringing our founder was picking up to help customers, and the second line was ringing I was helping the customers, and then I was going on ground, scanning tickets, selling tickets.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: And when you do all of this uh yourself, um and and you understand how the customer thing, client things, how how to have an event online and how to get the event to sell at the day of the event until the day of the event, when when you grow into a senior law uh role, a leadership role, when you look at the numbers and you look at the I I call it health metrics of the company, those numbers make more sense.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_02: So if you ask me what I'm um what I keep uh as now as a CEO of the company, uh what what I was doing 10-15 years ago would be the deep understanding of of everything that's happening, as I would be there on ground.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_02: And that's very it it helps me a lot to to know exactly and also I love that the fact that um of course I'm going and checking uh the work of the teams, and I have some team members that uh they trying.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_02: I'm asking them even to try to see what they will tell me.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I know what happened.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but then I'm trying I'm asking, it's like what happened here, you know?
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, oh, it happened this and this.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_02: Are you sure?
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_02: Because I'm sure this happened, it's like, oh yeah, that's what happened.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, look, let's let's sit down together and I'm working on it.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so that I love that.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I love the fact that I see uh beyond the um beyond you know, beyond the words on the paper.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so that's well, that's teamwork, that's communication, that's yes, that's not allowing people to work in isolation, so everybody works with each other because uh my my three-year-old son learned today, uh uh teamwork makes the dream work.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_03: I he's this is his new favorite, yeah.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_03: It's his new favorite saying, though.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_03: So I have another one, and we do a high five with it.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: Is I have another one, like um um like individually, we are drops together.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_02: We are an ocean.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_03: That's what and oceans create currents and waves.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_03: Um so Platinum List, and I remember this.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_03: Platinum List it was like um sort of a VIP DJ Club guest list idea.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_03: You know, it started off with with an idea, but it it like so many business ideas everywhere in the world, but but you know, so many that we can cite here in in the UAE.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_03: It started off because of a need, you know, and and just sort of an idea that someone says, you know, this really is something that's sort of getting in the way.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_03: It's a hurdle.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_03: Let's create something to erase that hurdle and create this this guest list uh idea.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_03: Then it grew from there into this really strong, strong business over time and organically.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_03: And now it's it's sort of it's it's international and you've got 250 people worldwide.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_03: So at what point, because you were there when it uh in its in sort of nascent years, yeah.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_03: At what point did you say this is we're just not a ticketing group?
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_03: We're now a real business, like a real business with really influential partners, and we're registration, a cop, and all like this is a real solid business now.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_03: At what point did you realize that you guys became was there something that happened that you said this is big?
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_03: And during that time, is there something that could have gone wrong that didn't go wrong but could have gone wrong?
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, uh that's a good question and a funny one.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, um it started as a uh guest list, true.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um uh back in 2008, I think.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_02: It was this place called uh 360, Shumira 360.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_02: And uh back in the day, our founder was a DJ um with his friend, uh Mr.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_02: Mr.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_02: was his name.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it was the place to go in new E.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um and it became so famous that people were queuing outside.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_02: They literally were sitting in queue to go in, and people uh get disappointed, and so on.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: So our founder had this idea of hey, let's let's just make a pre-registration, like a guest list where people register and we pre-screen and and accept and let them in, and then they get a confirmation.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_02: So you literally will see our founder at the entry with the printed paper because picture in chi.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so there were no uh uh like a tablet where you like uh iPads or so.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_02: So he was printing the paper on a printer.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: That's cool.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: Our founder sitting down, checking your ID, crossing you out from the from the old school.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: There you're going, and then he was going and DJing on the stage.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so that was how it started, and then um um people started contacting uh Platinum list to uh list their event to promote it because people were interested to check Platinum.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_02: So it started like an uh uh platform to uh to list your event, to get uh marketing, to to send SMS.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Platinum's had that thing at some point with uh the photo gallery.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_02: So we had a photographer coming to the event for the photos, and then you were going on platinums to check the photo with you, yeah.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_02: Uh like the way clubs were doing.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um and then it it it it like it started having a snowball, and then you asked like what could go wrong.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there was a moment in in platinum's life we're supposed to shut down.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_02: We had money.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we had no money.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I think it was 200 something, 10, uh, 11.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the business was not going on anymore, and literally our founder this was deciding to close it because it was just coming out of the downturn, too.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he didn't have money to pay the next rent.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: And uh we have this organizer.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so literally he almost decided that I have no money for salaries, for the rent.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we will close.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and then this organizer uh called uh our founder said, Look, uh, I have this event, I need uh some marketing.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_02: I have 12,000 there, huh?
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_02: And literally our founder said, Bro, you called me right now.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_02: I was I was almost closing your um campaign, give us a few other months of uh rent and salaries, and that's how was the turning point that could go wrong in Platinum.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_02: It's amazing.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_02: So just an SMS campaign or whatever was there back in the day uh made Platinumist go ahead.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_02: And and then from that moment, we again we started uh uh doing things.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then um I think the turning point in Platinum was when uh the government here uh decided to um to uh have this centralized ticketing system where yeah as a ticketing system you have to connect to them, you have to have um uh certification from them, so they want to make sure uh we don't have frosters and so on.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_02: So we were the first one connecting to them, yeah.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_02: And um when we connected to them, being the first one connecting to them, uh I don't know why our competitor at that time they delayed it, and then the government said, halas, from now on, no uh you know, joking around, you need to be connected.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_02: So you're not connected, you can't sell tickets.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: So for a while we were the only one selling tickets, and that was I think the inflection point when a platinum list uh was proactive and it started being something else because I remember back in that day, in those days, um from um nightlife platform, yeah, uh we shifted to a family-oriented, sporting, um theatrical platform because everybody had to work with the ticketing system in Dubai, yeah, and we were the only one being connected, yeah.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: And also, we were the only one having our seating plan connected to their system.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: So with any other ticketing system, you couldn't select seats.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so that was.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: I remember I was like with the team just doing seating plans for everybody because they needed it.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_03: That's diversification, yeah.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_03: That does, I mean you tore the walls down, right?
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_03: It's not just ticketing.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_03: Now you're everything's because why why have a barrier if you don't need one?
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but I mean, back to your uh the founder, you know, like you know, ticking ticking off names and then going up and DJing, that's that's integrity though.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_03: That's that's and that's that's a that's work ethic.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_03: That's that's something that uh he's amazing.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh uh, we are really good friends, and um I think everything uh we did was with integrity so far, because otherwise you can't continue so many years without integrity.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_03: And and I think that when you got that little um that little bit of capital or that that that job before you're gonna, I think it was more than just capital and some funds.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it gave momentum.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_03: You know what, let's let's keep going.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_03: And because of that, the pedaling got faster and faster and faster.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_03: You guys are um so now you wouldn't say that you are you're selling tickets, you're selling feelings, you're selling experience, right?
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_03: So you have a feelings dashboard that is created uh from a lot of different components.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_03: What do you feel like what do you feel the sales dashboard is missing from the feelings dashboard?
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_03: Like what why is the feelings dashboard and the experience dashboard more important uh than this ticket sales dashboard and just the commercial side?
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, uh the I think the ticket sales um are the part that needs to make um the next um let's say uh breathable moment for the business.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_02: I will call it that way.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: Uh means that you need to sell tickets to to you know to have the funds, to have the audience, to have the sponsors to engage, to to show the crowd to your partners.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_02: But in the end, it comes to you you you build so you are doing this for the for the event attendees, yeah, who they want to go and consume the product you have, the concert, the and us in the business, um so for example, for me, almost uh 18, 19 years of of uh industry, when I go to an event, I just go full-on professional.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_02: Like my wife and we go to an event, I'm going because of her.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_02: But when I go when I'm going to an event, I already look at cues, I already look at scanning, I already look at everything that could go wrong.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, I will message um the organizer to tell him to fix this next time.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_02: My wife is enjoying it.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and um I'm enjoying it as well.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_02: But my half of the brain, uh like dolphins, half of the brain uh thinks about work, half of the concert.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so that being said, the tickets give you the capital to continue to have the second show, third show, fourth show, fifth show, and should be there.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: And you as a business should do that as a ticketing, but then those tickets need to be bought by somebody.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and so those people are that connect with your event and they go at the event and they don't see all of this back scene that we do, uh, scanning and so on.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_02: They just want to go in, see their favorite artist, and teleport themselves with the artist.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_02: That's the emotion, that's the feeling that we need to give it to the customers.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_02: And giving this feeling to the customer, there is a lot of work behind seamless access, seamless purchase uh process, seamless experience to open your ticket, and so on.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_02: And for me, if you ask me like what would this dashboard look like, is would you come next time to the event?
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_02: How did you feel?
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_02: Would you be interested to come next time?
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_02: So the retention of the of the customers, of the visitors, and we uh on our data shows that almost 2.5 2.5 percent of our audience um buys the fifth show on platinum list, five to six shows, so five to six concerts, two point five percent of our audience, which is huge.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_02: Like, if you think that most of there is people go for only almost one concert per year that they like, we have uh uh a chunk of it that goes five, six times even with our platform, and they really um uh they really call us and say, like, I'm a big uh platinumist fan, I bought this ticket.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and then the second thing would be would you refer this event to your friends?
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_02: Means you enjoyed it so much that you would bring a friend with you because you want to show your friend something good, yeah.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_02: Always like, bro, I bought this thing, I want to show it to you.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_02: Let's meet.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, um, so if you refer the event to somebody else or you refer through Platinumists uh to buy tickets, means for me as well that the emotion emotions dashboard is ticked.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: And and the third one is um the the feedback after.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_02: Like, how did you feel at the event?
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_02: What would you change?
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and and if there is positive feedback on that, means again they had a connection with the event.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I will actually looked at one of your podcasts.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um it was uh uh somebody who uh was in Expo.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_02: He worked in Expo and he worked with uh one of the festivals.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and he said that uh just because he reached an event and it was a mess with um with his parking and so on, yeah, event was amazing.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_02: But he he's he's already he was uh you know a bit uh sour about the experience.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um uh I can't remember who that was.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: I was it AJ?
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, AJ Armor.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_02: That's a very good point.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, the emotions is how do you attach to the event?
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_02: How would you recommend this to a friend?
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and what would you change?
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_02: And if you say nothing, everything was good, then that's good.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, I want to hear what I can change.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_02: I want uh very consistent feedback, but that would be the emotions.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_03: The experience is um, like you said, it's really important.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_03: No one remembers the the purchase.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_03: They're like, hey guys had a really good purchase.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_02: Do you want to try it out?
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_02: That's a good sign.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_02: If you don't remember the purchase, yeah, I mean it was seamless.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it means it it faded or faded outside of the experience part.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_03: But uh so one of the issues that that have always one of the issues that is always plagued ticketing is the scalper, right?
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_03: So that fan-to-fan resale, that engagement, and it jumps up and they try to take it down, they jump and it pops up again, and they find ways around, and it's really, really frustrating.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_03: And it's and it's really unfair.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_03: And it happens to some in concerts so often in America, I think in America and in and in in Europe and other places they have it's yeah, it's it's really, really, really bad.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_03: So how what is in in 2030 or 2035, what does a scalper safe ticket look like?
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, what is the perfect scenario to to eliminate this?
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_03: Do you guys are you coming up with any ideas that are gonna stop this?
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we uh uh we're working like we uh We did actually the extra mile here.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um we we are actually working with all cybersecurity uh offices of all countries around GCC at this point.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um and beside that, we developed the technology to fight that, which is um uh we have um dynamic uh QR code tickets.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um if you will go on the phone, you can't even screenshot it, you can't even record the screen, and it changes every two minutes, one minute, depends on the type of the event, even 15 seconds.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_02: And this ticket, you can't uh replicate it, you can't move it out from the ecosystem.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_02: It's an um encrypted ecosystem.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, it can be read only by our devices, and the QR code uh has an algorithm behind that uh whatever you try to put your on your uh copied PDF, it will not be um matched.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: Like even if it changes and you can't take a screenshot on your desktop or whatever, it will not be able to be replicated.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_02: And then we have um, you know, when people say scalpers, um they think is this ticket that is being sold to 10 people, 15 people, and actually uh right.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Now the scalpers are even smarter than before, and they are getting smarter every time.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's you know, like this movies with police and uh some uh uh drug lords, and they fight and they find new ways to cheat the system, and that police has to keep up.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_02: It's the same thing with scalpers.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_03: I remember when I was young and radar detectors came out.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, when I was I think it was in my like late teens, radar detectors came out, and then they came up with radar detector detectors, and then they started to get radar detector detector detectors, it just never ended, you know.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_02: Same thing now, like we're coming up with a way to fight them, they find another way, and yeah, and um uh and now you are dealing with because of AI and you know, Claude and you know, fable, they can copy everything.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so what I do, they go and copy our website entirely and they impersonate us platinum list.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_02: And so we have now a system which fights that, and we are with cybersecurity, and God bless us in this in this region.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_02: We are on fast dial with cybersecurity.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_02: Get this somewhere in Europe.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_02: You can't like you wanna uh reach somebody, send an email 30 days, we will reply to you.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_02: Here we are on fast dial.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_02: Like the moment we uh get um impersonator or a fake website, actually, that's the biggest problem right now because they replicate the event so well, and everything, every element, it it fools you that it's us or our competitors because they are doing for them as well.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and that you just buy it and you think it's the Genie website, and then they call us.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like, yeah, I didn't get my tickets.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_02: It's like where?
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_02: And then we check it.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_02: And then um we developed an AI brain as well that fights against this.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and if you ask me 2030, 2035, um it'll be a seamless experience where you can buy the ticket.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_02: And scalping usually happens when you restrict something, so you should be able to seamlessly resell your ticket, to not be tied with the timelines, with the deadlines, and so on, and to be able to do everything on your app.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_02: When you have the commodity for a customer to manage all of this, scalping disappears.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_02: Because people know by default that they have the option to I can't make it to the event, I can always put it back in the fan-to-fan circuit, yeah, and another fan can take it uh and enjoy, and I get my uh money back.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_03: Fair for everyone.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_02: If everybody knows that, they will not search some other place to do it.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_02: And and then people will know and it'll be directed.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_02: We are working on this, like we are doing these campaigns, we have resale.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we worked with the government here with uh Dubai Tourism.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh they uh we are able to activate ethical resale on tickets with the face value of the ticket, and some of the events has it, and the reaction is amazing.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_03: That's amazing, yeah.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_03: So you have um you have an app that has it is it's a very um uh very nice interface, and it works very, very well as it has to, and you're talking to a Dubai or a Doha or Riyadh or uh you know uh Muscat resident, and they're sitting there and they're looking at the app on a on a Saturday night, like a Saturday, like tonight.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_03: Looking at the app.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_03: What what does it say?
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_03: What does it say?
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_03: They're bored, they want something to do.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_03: What does it say?
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_03: What should it never say?
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_03: Uh-huh.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_03: What does it look like to them?
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_02: You have to you have to tell them what they want to hear.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because you can't just literally um work on an algorithmic to understand the character and the melanin.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_02: We move that direction, like before it was a bit uh um stiff.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_02: Like it was um, you know, the you know, web two zero, web three zero, whatever.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_02: We were in that stage at some point, yes.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, where um it was just that suggestions and top events that they were uh popular, yeah.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_02: But having the top events popular doesn't mean that if I access the app, it's for me.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_02: So what you need to do is to that uh customer you have, you need to understand what is his history with you, yeah.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_02: Like uh what did you guys do together?
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_02: Like means he went to an event with Platinumist app.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then based on his uh behavior, you have to somehow give him an advice.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, look, uh, this is what would you uh would be good for you.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, you did it before, and maybe now it's okay for you to go again.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_02: And and that sparks the interest of the person to go out for a nice uh hangout, uh, to go with friends or go for an emotional journey with their artist.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_02: And then we have uh the um because the psychology of um uh customers is to um first they look at the date and then at the price.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_02: So you should tell them what they can do tonight.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_02: So today, like yeah, because I often find myself doing that.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_03: If I if I have some friends, we're getting together, we want to find a place we know we want, you know, we want sushi or we want wings or we want to do uh, you know, we want some live entertainment, and I'm scouring through and I see you know the usual Dubai websites, you know, the ones we're that we all see regularly, and it says, oh, top 10 and this, yeah, and they'll all be in JBR or they'll all be in, you know, that sort of thing.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_03: But it this is, you know, it doesn't base it on anything that I enjoy exactly because it doesn't know, but the app, because the app is is is more personalized, it's able to find those uh that that entertainment for you and something for you to do.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but when you started with with platinum list and it grew, you said I don't know where that it was said, but you said uh it could be the region's next unicorn.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_03: What is the move that makes it that unicorn?
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_03: And what do you have to avoid to get there?
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, um so ticketing is a very vast field, it's a very vast domain.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_02: To to get there, you need to make sure you address yourself to the right markets and and to have the products to address yourself to the right markets, and the markets that they actually need you, and and they have the cap for you to be there.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um so one of the things is the expansion.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_02: So you need to expand and have more markets to be active and try to uh put the inventory together, and that gives you the leverage of many places that your customer can travel, be there with you, and and use you as a first option.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and second is um the verticality of the business.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_02: It should be diverse.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you you need to give to the client that you have, the organizer, the tools that they need to uh be in control of their ecosystem.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so you're doing ticketing, maybe it's not enough.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_02: And Platinum List is eight years ago was ticketing.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_02: Today it's a full ecosystem.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_02: Like, and even yesterday I was talking with a friend and he's like, man, I actually uh looked at what you are doing.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that friends, you are working there, and they don't.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_02: It's like just they keep in mind the company, but they never check what you're doing.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and one of my friends took time and he checked what I'm doing.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_02: He's like, Man, actually, you're not doing ticketing.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_02: You are doing more than that.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: You are doing this, this, this.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_02: So, yes, it's a full ecosystem.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, so when you go and you see you buy your ticket, you think platinum sells only tickets?
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, we are doing more than that.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_02: We are we are helping with the full ecosystem of the organizer from uh strategizing the marketing, from uh advising them how to go about it.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_02: We have 18 years of existence in the region, we know the trends, we know everything.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_02: So um, to get to a unicorn level, you need to understand what are these areas that um that your client needs to cover and how would you help him?
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's about how to help back because where are problems, there are entrepreneurs to solve the solution uh to come with the solution, and the solution is the business.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_02: So how they say go in a market where there are problems, that's where you'll make money, not where everything is sorted.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because where no problems, no business ideas that solve the gap analysis.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_02: Gap analysis.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_02: So with that, like with the expansion, with uh pushing uh the GCC content, which is very unique in the countries you are, um, and the right verticals that you analyze and see what will be coming up as a business, that's what will bring you to unicorn.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_02: And what I would not do is to listen to everything around us and do everything that everybody tells us to do.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_02: Because there is a fine line of doing the right things and the things that keeps your business in focus, and just go with every each trend comes to uh on top of your business.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_02: That's I think that's the biggest mistake to be distracted and not everything that is hyped or everything that's happening at a certain moment in it because every year there is a trend.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_02: Imagine your business to be steered every time to every trend.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_02: And where do you reach your destination B?
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_02: Not really, because always you you are distracted, you go to side roads, so you need to focus on your destination, you need to know exactly what is your business about, and be the best in it.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_02: And that's how uh it's the recipe of us becoming a unicorn.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_02: And I can't disclose it right now, but there are products coming up from Platinum List that are even three times bigger than what we are doing right now.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, not now, I will let you know when we can disclose.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but there are things that need to be done to become a unicorn because you know how this works is about your evaluation, your revenue by five, and then you need to have at least one billion dollar evaluation.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_02: So thinking about what to do right also and keep your mission.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_02: This is one thing uh for me uh sometimes when I go to sleep keeps me awake.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_02: Is how would you keep your identity like a pure identity that you help organizers, you um you are there to make their events successful and so on, but also have uh you know make money because um it's it's it's a fine line where you become a capitalist and you care about only about the money and profits, and there is that side where you genuinely want to make the industry successful, and it needs to be a part of your heart in that industry, but also put uh bread on the table for for the business to grow and become bigger.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_02: So that's also a fine line of you want to become a unicorn just because of the evaluation and the money and the profit, yeah, or you want to become a unicorn and keep your identity, what made you what you are today?
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, which you generally want to help the industry.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_03: We had that conversation a few times about uh I think it was Sean actually.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_03: Sean uh Philby, one of the questions was how do you how do you take what the company is known for and maintain that that true to the original path, the foundations, while still growing, while still growing and keep keep the your the same DNA that you had before and the spirit on business, yeah.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_02: The culture, everything keep the culture, but also make the billions, you know.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_03: How do you keep that?
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_03: That's important.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_03: Well, when we were talking, you know, we you mentioned the about how to how to find what other people aren't, well, or groups are not, you know, what they're not doing.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_03: It's a gap analysis and things like this.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_03: There's this um brilliant marketing.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I don't like saying the word guru, it's so overused, but this just marketing legends, Rory Sutherland, that I watch uh a lot of uh videos on.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_03: He's absolutely brilliant.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_03: He sort of unspools the most, the simplest concepts in what makes us buy, what makes us do things and go places, and and he and he makes it, he simplifies it for you, right?
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_03: You watch other yeah, so and he has this um I it's a pretty normal term in in in in business, I guess, in general, not just marketing, but um, you know, there's benchmarking, then there's then there's reverse benchmarking, which is finding out what somebody's not doing and what you know, and and filling that gap.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_03: So yes, um I think you guys are really, really good at that in and trying to find um how to make things even better and and and bridge the bridge those gaps because live entertainment is just it's it's internationally, it's uh it's always been big, it's always uh you know been been huge.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_03: But whether it's uh um conferences and summits and that sort of thing, or it's cop, yeah, or it's concerts, or it's festivals, live entertainment is is is internationally huge.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_03: But in the region, it's massive and it's always, always, always growing.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_03: So what do you feel is sort of underrated about the live enter like if for live entertainment in general, but what's underrated?
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_03: What do you think is the overhyped part, you can be honest?
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_03: Um and uh yeah, so what do you think about the about sort of you know where we're a little bit over the top and where we're not really compatible?
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, maybe the um um local um local talents.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, uh, because we need to understand that this region has um this local pool of talents that outside they are super famous, yeah.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um and when we have here something, um people are there's so much going on, and um but when they go out, people are crazy about it, you know?
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_02: And we have it as a commodity, okay?
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_02: And if and I think is it's the the thing, um, I think is just the fact that when you live with something and you grow up with something, you don't really pay attention too much to it.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_02: But then when you don't have it, you appreciate it more.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I think this local pool of talents is amazing here.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, they are amazing uh companies.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I have been respectful, the fridge.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, they are the biggest promoter, I think almost 30 years of promoting local talents, local acts, and so on.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_02: So that's a bit underrated.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_02: I would like Jimmy that we talked about.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_01: Jimmy Elga Harry was one of our guests.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I watch his podcast as well.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, I texted him.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, hey, you've been here.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think?
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: Go, they're a good.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: He's awesome.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_01: He's a very good guy.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um, he's very talented.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_02: I love him for sure.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_02: He's like a genius, you know.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_03: And Jimmy Elga Harry has a new album out.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_03: Just drop on Spotify if you get a chance.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_02: Just send me the link.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I will check it out.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so that's something uh underrated.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_02: And um maybe overrated is customers um uh maybe thinking uh how easy it is to go to an event and so on, and and they don't understand what's happening behind the scene.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_02: And uh yeah, for sure.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and um we uh they take things uh for granted.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_02: But that's the way we like it.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, and uh don't look behind the curtain, but just enjoy.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but the work behind and the and the strings that we pull as the industry are humongous, yeah, of course.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so that's what I would I would think.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_03: So um I wanted to ask you one more question, and that is, you know, we had, I think it was a couple of weeks ago, we had uh an incredible guy named uh Enrico Gallerini.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_03: And Enrico has a he's you know, he's created the whole registration experience into it.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_02: It's just uh Informa, yeah?
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_03: No, no.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_03: No, no, uh Enrico.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so Enrico was he he purchased info salons.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, he was and then yeah, yeah, he just sort of you know improved on it, and then he then he had a lot of things.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_03: He has a book as well.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_03: He does have a book, yeah, yeah.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_03: He's got an incredible book, yeah.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_03: In person for lunch with him, yeah, yeah.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_03: Oh yeah, Rico's he's amazing, and just what a nice guy.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_03: What a and just such a lovely uh personality, you know.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_03: And yeah, so and I think this is probably the episode where we've name checked more people than it is Sean and Enrico and A.J.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_03: Almer.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_03: And we so but I think um you know, well, we we talked with Enrico about how can we make the ticketing uh experience better?
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and now that you guys are you're really expanded into a lot more conferences and something like we mentioned, COP28.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we we in COP28 yeah we processed 1.2 million uh registrations.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_03: So how do you um how do you make that um how do you make it better for the ticket for the registration experience, ticketing technology, all of that?
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_03: How do you guys uh improve on that?
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_02: You know, uh when you hit you see something released and it's really cool feature that we released, you are like, oh, that's nice.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_02: But the work behind man is like unbelievable because you have so many feedback loops behind, like you have the feedback loop from a customer, you have the feedback loop from the client, you have we have almost uh 40 million active users right now.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, imagine feedback from all of these people and so many types of events and so on.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_02: But in essence, I think how you how you navigate all of these points of of friction and feedback, and also we have our internal feedback, what should be improved.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_02: So imagine you have maybe around uh three, five thousand um uh uh recommendations on how to do your things, yeah.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but then how do you actually do the right things?
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_02: So we just you just need to have a mission um and an objective.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um and and then you have to look at the practical things um that you do.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_02: For example, we have our own site team, we have an amazing operations uh director.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we have our team members, most of them are more than 10 years with us.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_02: So when we like back in the day, most of the teams are still with us.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I can literally say they built this industry, and I'm always going to them and shake their hands like guys, you are the fuel of this industry, and that's why Dubai has an amazing uh service and the region has an amazing service in ticketing, uh, because you guys push the limits.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_02: And this amazing team combined with our customers, which are really they are really vocal, and I like that.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_02: And we are actually um encouraging them to be vocal.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_02: We send them uh emails, give us your feedback, please.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um we I'm calling myself some clients, and it's like, look, your event ended.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_02: Let's meet and sit down and talk about what went right and wrong, and tell me what your team thinks about it.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_02: And and then you go back and you decide what to do about and how to choose the right things.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_02: And if you ask me, is there any um formula?
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_02: No, it's not a certain formula that you use, is about you adapting to each type of situation and and just choose the right things based on the situation you are, and then you look at the data helicopter view, yeah, and then see how things are moving, and then you go again on ground and fix things.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_02: So it's it's a fine line.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it's no um uh it's no a set formula for how to improve things.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_02: Is you need to to be there, you need to understand, and you need to really be practical.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_02: I think your team needs to become your client, yeah, if you ask it.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_03: And if it's not broke, don't fix it.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_02: Here it's it's a it's it's also uh uh it's a paradigm because you have a thing that you do for 10 years, you know, and it's working.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_02: But sometimes you need to go back and question things why are we doing this this way?
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_02: Can we actually do it differently?
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_02: Improve, you know, because we were right 10 years ago, yeah, but maybe from 10 years ago things changed.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_02: So you need to start questioning why are we doing this for so many years this way?
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_02: Why?
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_02: Because the other guy who did it before did it and he teached me?
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_02: No, let me question things.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so sometimes we go back and question things, and maybe we can remove some parts, technology advanced.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, now one tool can replace five processes.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, uh, so you need to go and revisit that because uh without keeping um your mindset and your uh your product fresh, uh the product would be outdated at some point, even if you think is right.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_02: So I think is you need to question yourself and your work more often and understand maybe I was not right 10 years ago, you know?
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_02: Let's not do it because we did it 10 years ago and somebody told you to do it.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_02: Question why you are doing it.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_02: And that way you start doing things better and better, faster, efficient.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and also there is a part of the business.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_02: Like we always talk about the visible stuff, which is how easy is to buy a ticket, how easy is to access an event, how easy is to do this business event right now.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_02: But there is an unseen side of it, which is the cost of the infrastructure, the uh cost of the processes, that also should evolve with with the with the with the seen side of the business because that should be improved as well.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: The time you have internally is so it needs to go hand in hand.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_03: Well, Cosman, thank you very much for joining us today.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, it was really, really cool hearing from hearing the the story and the journey of something that personally I remember when it you know was starting off and and and seeing how it's developed into something that's so huge and and growing and growing and growing.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_03: And I wish you all the best.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_03: And and uh if you need to get a ticket, if you need to go somewhere, platinumless.net, right?
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, that yeah.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_02: So thanks, Cosmo.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for coming.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for uh bringing me here.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_02: It was a pleasure.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_03: Here at the backdrop, we work hard to bring you the people, the stories, and the perspectives behind one of the world's most dynamic industries, events.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_03: So if you enjoy the conversations, like, comment, subscribe, and join in the conversation.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_03: It all helps us keep the backdrop growing.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_03: So thank you for watching.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_00: The backdrop was recorded live at One Central in Dubai United Arab Emirates.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_00: It was hosted by Michael McClennan and produced and edited by Dan Powell.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.