INTIX is quickly becoming one of the biggest event ticketing companies in the country, boasting many past sport partnerships with the likes of Melbourne Victory, AFL Victoria and the Tasmanian JackJumpers which lead to success.
Since their inception in 2017, the company has expanded abroad with offices in London and New York, and the expert-run company is looking to solve all the frustrations that modern fans suffer with current ticketing services.
In an interview with Soccerscene, INTIX founder Alex Grant discusses the company’s journey from organising large-scale festivals to making a strategic shift during the COVID-19 pandemic, the company’s point of difference in a competitive market and their ambitious goals to expand in the Australian sporting industry in the near future.
The company started in 2017 and has since expanded to the US and UK, why did you first start the company and how quick has the growth been since then?
Alex Grant: INTIX was founded in 2017, but I also like to think that in 2022 we became what we are today. Obviously 2020 to 2022 was a bit of a nightmare for anyone working in Sports and Events but after that period we grew quickly.
Prior to 2017 we were more in the festival space, so I’m talking the large scale events that aren’t at venues, and then once COVID hit we had to revisit our business area, and in Australia where we had the majority of our business at that point, spectator sport was still allowed to happen.
That is when we reviewed our entire tech stack and rebuilt the system from the ground up between 2020 and 2023. We have an improvement based on client feedback rule where, if a client asks for an improvement that is going to benefit many clients, we build it right away, to make the best possible ticketing platform available.
About mid-way through 2022 things started ticking over again in Australia, so at the end of 2023 we decided to expand internationally, and now we’ve got an office in New York and one in London which happened only the last 5-6 months.
Recently Ticketmaster and these other companies have left fans frustrated, what is INTIX’s point of difference as a company?
Alex Grant: First point of difference is that all the data is owned by the organisation, meaning everything that occurs within our platform is the organisation’s data, and not owned by any ticketing companies.
With other ticketing companies, customer data, and the relationship with the customer doing that purchase, is all essentially held by the ticketing company. Organisations can get access to that data through various reporting systems, but it is not immediate or a given, and in most cases a lot of that consumer data is owned by the ticketing companies. That means that customer relationship is essentially non-existent between the club and the consumer which limits fan engagement opportunities.
The other part where we differentiate is with live fan engagement. With our system you can segment on different data points and then, for example, communicate to customers live in the venue. If I wanted to send an SMS or a push notification to everyone who was scanned into the venue because someone kicks a record goal in the A-League, that communication can happen live both from a commercial point of view and a fan experience point of view.
You’ve had a deal with Melbourne Victory and now you’ve got the Football Victoria partnership, Is there an ambition for the company to grow within Australian football?
Alex Grant: Our ambition is to be the number one sports ticketing company in Australia. We believe we have a product that can improve, not just the ticketing experience, but also streamline event management, game-day operations, the customer purchase process, fan engagement and commercial opportunities.
We are working with a number of large sporting organisations in Australia, including various football organisations, and are definitely looking to continue to grow in this space.
Proving what we can do is certainly part of the bigger picture to be a leader in the sports ticketing industry in Australia.
