69 - Lucas McCarthy

This week Lucas McCarthy, Founder and CEO of Showpass, calls into the podcast to talk about how this event ticketing service is innovating at a time when events are all but illegal.

The ticketing industry is dominated by big, long-term players that typically either don’t take a very involved approach to their clients’ event organizing needs, or collect massive fees and are slow to pay out, or use outdated technology, or potentially all three. The lower ticket side of this industry is also heavily saturated, but those providers often suffer from the same problems as the big players.

Lucas saw this and recognized an opportunity to fulfill the long awaited needs of event organizers, and Showpass arrived to make that happen. Showpass takes a much more active role in helping organizers build their business and plan their events, almost like an extension of the organizers themselves. Alberta Beer Festivals is a great example of this, with Josh from the Showpass team being, for all intents and purposes, a member of the ABF team when the festivals happen.

But it isn’t just a high level of involvement with their clients that sets Showpass apart. It’s also their highly effective technology, and their commitment to innovation. With COVID-19 making it hard to plan events at all, Lucas and the Showpass team knew that entertainment would still need to play a big part in keeping people happy. This led to revolutionary new ideas like their hotel balcony concerts, a brand new format called Sessions that allow musicians to keep performing without doing it in person, and they’re even looking at ways to incorporate augmented reality and motion capture to make virtual and live concerts at the same time a possibility.

We also take some time to discuss how winning motivates Lucas in all parts of his life, some of his previous surprising forays into entrepreneurship, and why he hates the term “disruptor"

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Let’s Meet For A Beer: website | facebook

Alberta Beer Festivals: website | twitter | instagram

Lucas McCarthy - Showpass: website | twitter | instagram | facebook