Collection: Social Enterprise World Forum
Taking on the ticketing giants: Humanitix, a social enterprise event ticketing platform, launches in UK
Humanitix opens UK office in Edinburgh with announcement of £500,000 annual prize for UK social enterprises and charities, and promise of focus on events accessibility for people with disabilities
Humanitix, a social enterprise event ticketing platform founded in Australia, opened its first European office in the UK in Edinburgh, Scotland, on Wednesday.
The launch event, held in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, included the announcement of a £500,000 annual prize for UK social enterprises and charities. Details regarding how to enter the prize and judging criteria will be published by Humanitix UK soon.
Costly booking fees, dynamic pricing, difficulties getting refunds — the list of common complaints against commercial event ticketing platforms is long. As Adam McCurdie, co-founder of Humanitix, said: “Most people hate it.”
Humanitix can offer a better experience for both event hosts and customers, said McCurdie, all while saving hosts 25-30% on fees and donating millions of pounds of profit to social enterprises and charities.
Turns out, booking fees [on commercial ticketing platforms] are unnecessarily really, really high
McCurdie (pictured) told Pioneers Post: “Turns out, booking fees [on commercial ticketing platforms] are unnecessarily really, really high. Humanitix creates this sustainable, multi-million pound funding stream every single year into the best charities, purely out of fees that everyone previously resented, which went straight into the pockets of shareholders.”
After being founded in Australia in 2016, Humanitix expanded to New Zealand, then the USA, and now the UK. As of November 2024, more than 15m tickets had been sold through the Humanitix platform across 250,000 events, with 100% of profits donated to charity, totaling £8.5m.
There are already hundreds of events live on Humanitix UK. The platform caters to all live events, from small community events, to marathons, to music festivals.
Now it is operating in the UK, Humanitix was keen to collaborate with social enterprises and charities to find ways to deliver more impact, said McCurdie. To that end, social enterprises and charities can host events on Humanitix at cost and the platform will explore options for advertising local social enterprise products to users post-checkout.
McCurdie explained: “We thought charities and social enterprises are getting skinned on fees pretty badly by ticketing platforms, so why don’t we just give Humanitix at cost to the whole community? There’d be no point making a profit from a charity’s event and then donating that profit to another charity and calling that impact.”
When it launched and scaled in Australia, Humanitix received philanthropic funding from organisations including Google and the Atlassian Foundation. The launch of Humanitix UK has been funded by income earned by Humanitix Australia.
Why ticketing platforms are perfectly placed to improve event accessibility
The inconveniences many people experience with commercial ticketing platforms pale in comparison to the barriers faced by people with disabilities trying to access ticket websites and live events.
Many ticketing platforms can’t be read by screen readers, which are used by people with impaired vision to navigate websites, and don’t include the information people with other disabilities need to know to decide whether they can attend an event.
There are already hundreds of events available through the Humanitix UK website
McCurdie said Humanitix decided to focus on accessibility when they were developing the site and heard from people with a range of disabilities that they’d given up on attending live events, particularly small, community events, because of the challenges they faced.
The Humanitix founders realised event ticketing platforms were perfectly placed to improve event accessibility, both in terms of buying tickets but also physically attending an event, said McCurdie.
The Humanitix platform has been designed to meet accessibility needs, including being usable by screen readers. Hosts using the platform are asked to input the information necessary for people with disabilities to decide whether it is possible for them to attend an event — a process McCurdie said takes hosts just two minutes.
Events on Humanitix can be filtered by accessibility needs, and the platform’s reminders to customers include the accessibility information they need to plan their attendance at an event.
To try to increase the number of events accessible by people with disabilities, Humanitix shares good practice guides and advice with event hosts.
We understand that accessibility is a journey, not a final destination. It’s an ever-evolving commitment
Laura Walker, CEO of Visibility Scotland, spoke at the Humanitix UK launch event. Walker said Visibility Scotland and Humanitix shared a philosophy on accessibility and emphasised that both organisations adopted the social model of disability, a concept which says it isn’t a person who is disabled, but the environment that limits a person’s accessibility.
Walker said: “We understand that accessibility is a journey, not a final destination. It’s an ever-evolving commitment. As organisations, we must be ready and willing to embrace change and adopt new practices and continually improve to ensure services and events are truly inclusive.”
‘A statement of the kind of economy that we want to build in Scotland’
The decision to base Humanitix’s UK office in Edinburgh was the result of an 18-month process, supported by Scottish Enterprise, Scottish Development International and the International Social Enterprise Observatory, a Scottish government-funded initiative designed to support businesses with social and environmental missions to expand internationally, whether it is Scottish businesses looking to develop overseas, or international businesses looking to open in Scotland.
McCurdie, whose father is from Scotland, said the decision was made in large part because of the strength of support for social enterprises in the country. He said: “The social enterprise community and network here is phenomenal. It felt like the right fit and since being here it has been proven time and time again.”
Speaking at the launch event, Kate Forbes, deputy first minister of Scotland and cabinet secretary for economy and Gaelic, praised the organisations which supported Humanitix to base itself in Edinburgh for their coordinated approach to bringing investment to the country.
Forbes (pictured) said Scotland was home to more than 6,000 social enterprises, which contributed more than £2.8bn to the economy annually, and that Humanitix being based in Edinburgh demonstrated that Scotland was an attractive, credible and compelling destination for ethical and impact-focused entrepreneurs.
She said: “Over the next few years, we want to celebrate more opportunities for impact-focused businesses who choose to invest in Scotland. With Humanitix’s arrival, we continue to break new ground, proving that even in competitive industries like ticketing, there’s space for a different way of doing business. This is more than a business launch. It’s a statement of the kind of economy that we want to build in Scotland.”
Top image: Left to right, Kate Forbes, deputy first minister of Scotland, Adam McCurdie, co-founder of Humanitix and Laura Walker, CEO of Visibility Scotland at the Humanitix UK launch, in front of Edinburgh castle. Credit for all images: Karen Gordon
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