2018 Product Year in Review

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Hey All,

2018 was another amazing year for SquadUP. We experienced explosive growth, due in large part to the awesome hosts and guests on our platform. We have taken your feedback to continually improve the product, and we really appreciate all of the support we have received along the way. As we look forward to 2019, we wanted to take the time to highlight some of the updates that helped us hit almost $35,000,000 in ticket sales last year.

In addition to the highlights listed below, we launched our reserved seating offering at the beginning of 2019. This new feature really opens us up to a ton of new and exciting opportunities for the rest of the year.

Gift Cards
One really powerful new feature that we introduced in 2018 was Gift Cards. Event hosts now have the ability to create gift cards for their favorite patrons and sponsors. This new functionality is available in the host dashboard upon login. Gift card codes will be similar to promo codes, but they will retain a balance. For example – if you have a $1000.00 gift card, and use that gift card code to purchase $200.00 in tickets, you will still have a balance of $800.00 remaining on your code for additional tickets. Gift cards can also be used for loyal customers or sponsors. Hosts can create and share a percentage discount gift card code, so guests will always receive that discount when checking out. Special shout out to Charleston Wine + Food for helping us build this out!

Ticket Bundles
Ticket bundles allow you to sell discounted tickets from multiple events with one transaction. This functionality can be used to create anything from season pass for e-sports events to exciting event bundles for wine and food festivals. Simply select all of the tickets that you want to include in your bundle, set the bundled price of those tickets, select where you want the bundle to appear, and you’re all set! There is no limit to the number of bundles you can create, nor the number of tickets you can add to a bundle. You can also attach the bundle to as many events as you would like. Special shout out to NYCWFF for helping us build this out!

Ticket Exchanges
The ability to exchange tickets from one event to another (or one ticket tier to another) was a highly requested feature that we added to our platform in 2018. All you need to do is find the original transaction, select Exchange Tickets, and click the ticket that you want to exchange. After that, find the new event and the new ticket tier. Leave an optional reason for the exchange, or go right ahead and exchange the ticket. A new transaction for the exchanged ticket will be generated, and will include details from the original transaction. Special shout out to Village Vanguard for helping us build this out.

Lyte Integration
We wanted to offer a simple solution to reselling your SquadUP ticket, without navigating the murky waters of secondary ticket resellers. We partnered with Lyte to offer an amazing ticket re-sell experience to our guests. Lyte is a technology platform for event hosts to take control of their ticket reselling experience. Lyte is an extension of the SquadUP ticketing service and helps reduce fraud, driving down no-show rates and delivering real savings to fans. Special shout out to Charleston Wine + Food for helping us here.

Per shopping cart order form questions
Previously, hosts were able to add order form questions on the per event level. When we introduced the shopping cart, it meant that guests could be checking out for multiple events in one transaction. To avoid asking guests multiple questions, we added in the ability to ask the order form questions on the shopping cart level. This means that guests will only be asked questions once per shopping cart order, cutting down on checkout time and data entry. Special shout out to Hawaii Wine + Food and Reimagine for helping us here.

Sold out notifications
We previously offered the ability to receive sales email notifications for every time a guest purchases a ticket. In 2018, we expanded on this and added in new functionality. When turned on, you will receive an email notification every time an event sells out. Special shout out to Fullscreen Live for the idea.

Ability to hide a price tier after it sells out
Previously, you had the ability to set a ticket to go on sale when another ticket sold out. Expanding on this, you can also now hide that sold out price tier automatically. This can be really useful for creating clean checkout pages with multiple pricing options (ex: Early Bird, GA, Late Adopters). Special shout out to Fullscreen Live for the idea.

Auto-applying promo codes on white label
If you create promo codes on the edit event page, you can now set those promos to automatically apply to the ticketing page by passing the promo code via URL parameter. To use this functionality, simply create a promo code and then copy the code. At the end of your white label URL, add /?squadup-promo=promocodename, and that promo code will be automatically applied. Special shout out to LA Food and Wine for the idea.

Ticket Guardian Integration
A big 2018 initiative of ours was giving our guests options after they purchase a ticket. Ticket Guardian is ticket insurance that you can chose to purchase during your checkout. Once purchased, your tickets are covered against any type of conflict related to Illness & Health, Weather, Traffic Accidents, Military or Jury Duty, Family Emergencies, or Work Travel Conflict. This is great for event guests, because they will be able to get money back in the event of a conflict. It is also great for event hosts, as they will be able to double-sell that ticket.

Ability to filter white label events by topic
This piece of functionality is a configuration option that you can enable on the white label ticketing form. When paired with a Topic (as specified on the edit event page), the event list will only display events with that topic. This is great for showing certain grouped events within a larger schedule of events. Special shout out to CEO Willie for coming up with this functionality.

Boomset integration
Boomset is another amazing partner that we paired with in 2018. Boomset offers on-site event management solutions with badge printing and RFID technology. Boomset leverages SquadUP’s attendee data to help create RFID-enabled badges for tracking guests. This integration provides hosts with large amounts of additional data points for in-person event behavior.

Text messaging tickets
We always try to make the checkout experience as efficient as possible. We now offer the ability to receive your tickets via SMS text while completing a transaction. Guests who select this option will receive an SMS text with a link to their PDF ticket. You can now access your ticket from the SquadUP website (www.squadup.com), the SquadUP apps for iOS (www.squadup.com/ios) and Android (www.squadup.com/android), and via SMS message. Shout out to Ticketing for Less for helping with this.

Ability to upload custom 1D/2D barcodes
We now offer the ability to upload custom barcodes from outside allocations. Simply provide us with a csv file containing the codes, and we attach those codes to whatever ticket tier you would like. The custom code and barcode will appear on all future tickets, making it incredibly easy to resell tickets from outsourced venues.

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