Originally posted in the Business Post
Offaly-based firm has already secured clients in Australia, France and Senegal to add to its current roster of sporting organisations in Ireland and the UK
- Emmet Ryan, December 2, 2024
Future Ticketing, the Offaly-based ticketing services business, plans to expand substantially internationally next year. The firm, which was founded by Liam Holton and Mark Cotter in 2016, has 43 staff and has invested €2 million into its operations.
“We have developed a ticket sales enabling software that allows you to run your own system. Our software sits on the customer’s website or in its ecosystem to link up with all their other internal systems,” Holton told the Business Post.
Future Ticketing’s clients include all racecourses in Ireland as well as Cheltenham and Aintree in the UK, along with football clubs such as Shelbourne and Shamrock Rovers, and national governing bodies like Basketball Ireland and Cricket Ireland.
The idea grew out of Holton’s frustrations at the ticketing options available while working with Punchestown racecourse.
“I met eight ticketing companies over the course of two days. After sitting through the presentations, it became clear to me that they didn’t understand our business. Their priority was to take control of the process,” Holton.
“After the second day, I rang Mark Cotter on the way home to work out if we could start a ticketing company that works the way a sports organisation wants it to.”
Holton and Cotter, whom Holton describes as the smartest man he knows, set about developing the business. Unlike most ticketing software companies, the focus with Future Ticketing is providing control over the data to the client. That means the client can target promotions based on its unique customer needs.
“The very first client was Punchestown, and our first event had over 100,000 people at it. Initially our focus was on horse racing, but as we looked around, we realised the flexibility in our software meant it was suitable for a lot of other sports,” Holton said.
“We started with Shamrock Rovers in 2018 as our first club and football accounts for 39 per cent of our business now.”
The core target clients for Future Ticketing are organisations where ticketing is a high priority within a business model. Arsenal’s women’s football team, for example, is a client as it is seeking to grow support. The men’s team wasn’t even on the radar for Holton’s business as they already regularly sell out the Emirates Stadium.
Enterprise Ireland has supported the business, with Future Ticketing previously being part of the high potential start-up unit (HPSU).
“They invested in the business early on. They also gave us good advice when we entered the UK market, particularly in terms of location. They gave us guidance on setting up in Manchester, even with practical advice on where people could live in the city,” Holton said.
“We’ve met some really good people in there. They were quite helpful during Covid, providing funding structures that helped us keep the team together.”
The business has established its first partnerships in Australia, Egypt, France and the US amongst other markets. Holton aims to grow the international presence of Future Ticketing across 2025.
“We’ve got our first customer in Australia and will focus on the rollout there next year. Similarly, in France we’ve gone live with our first customer there and have an extensive pipeline in sport there,” he said.
“We also went live in West Africa this month, initially in Senegal. The focus right now is concerts and shows but the ambition is to expand into football there.”
This Making it Work article was produced in partnership with Enterprise Ireland
