Sophomores Cam Connor and Madhesh Desai have developed a location-based ticket app that allows people to buy and sell tickets for local events, such as concerts, sporting events or CU Boulder club activities.
Connor, a computer science major and Desai, who is majoring in political science and psychology, created BeLive to facilitate person-to-person communication that allows students to access a community of people wanting to buy, sell or request tickets.
The app puts users at the center of a map and shows all the tickets being bought and sold in that area. Tickets are posted by location and when a user sees a ticket they’re interested in, they touch the post and contact the seller directly.
“We see this app as creating a community where people can connect with buyers and sellers,” Desai said. “Other sites don’t bring the community together as perfectly as our site does.”
The idea for the app came from seeing an influx of Facebook posts from students trying to sell and buy tickets to the Chance the Rapper concert at Red Rocks Amphitheater. Especially before an event there’s a high surge of posts. Connor and Desai saw it as a problem they could solve.
To sell a ticket, the seller enters the ticket details, selects an image, then pins the post to a location on the map. Interested buyers message the seller through the app. Filters allow users to refine their posts and searches.
What sets their app apart from other online ticket exchanges, such as StubHub and Ticketmaster, is that BeLive focuses on smaller, local events and BeLive does not charge transactions fees.
“You find the best ticket prices too,” Desai said, “because it gives you a comparison of what other people are selling the same ticket for. And you can negotiate the price with the seller.”
In the few months since it launched, the app is being used by 400 CU students.
“Each university has its own unique culture and the kinds of events students like to go to,” Connor said. “People will find each other on the app depending on the type of events they like.”
They are already working on improving and enhancing the users’ experience on BeLive. Under development is a three-step verification process, which eliminates the need for face-to-face meetups. Eventually users will be able to upload their tickets and pay through the app. And they are planning to partner with event venues and to extend the app to other universities and cities.
“I see the app as having two branches,” Connor said. “There’s the buy/sell side that’s already there and we want to get more people on. The other side is expanding the explore feature where you can find information about events you don’t know about. There is no limit to where the app can go.”
To learn more about the ticket app, go to the BeLive website.
