Beyond Ticketing: What We've Learned Building for African Organisers

Event organisers juggle hundreds of moving parts and as the Product Growth Manager at Tix, one of the biggest lessons I've learned is that we're not just building a ticketing platform we're building for people whose jobs are already incredibly demanding and ticket sales are only one part of the equation.

Organisers are thinking about marketing, guest experience, check-ins, payments, sponsors, promoters, and a hundred other details that determine whether an event succeeds.At Tix, our job is to remove as much friction from that process as possible. 

That means every feature we build starts with one simple question: Why are we even building this? From there, we prioritise ideas based on impact and effort. Features that are high-impact and easy to build come first, followed by high-impact but more complex ones. Lower-impact ideas move further down the roadmap, this order keeps us focused on solving the biggest problems event organisers face.

Sometimes, organisers tell us exactly what they need in the comments or via tweets on X, Other times, we find clues in support conversations, comments, or the creative workarounds they come up with when the product doesn't quite fit their workflow. 

One of my favourite examples is Group Tickets: we noticed organisers creating "bestie tickets" because they wanted groups to attend together but what they really needed was a better experience for group bookings. So we built Group Tickets, making Tix the first event ticketing platform in Nigeria to introduce the feature. Shortly after, we increased the purchase limit from five to ten tickets because some organizers were selling in groups more than five, this enabled us create a smoother booking process for corporate events, Tix simply evolved with organisers.

Sometimes, however, the problem organisers face isn't convenience, it's trust. When certain events sold out on Tix, we'd see their tickets quickly resurface online, some were listed at outrageous prices, while others weren't even real, leaving attendees paying for tickets that never existed. We knew organisers deserved better, and so did their communities, that's why we built the Tix Marketplace; a safer place for attendees to buy and resell tickets. With features like Resale Markup, organisers now have more control over how tickets are resold, to reduce fraud and give attendees more confidence that the tickets they're purchasing are legitimate.

With Orbit, for example, we realised organisers needed to be able to reach attendees where they already spend their time. With features like likes, saves, personalised feed, and notifications from your favourite creators organisers are able to stay top of mind, keep potential attendees interested, and ultimately sell more tickets.

One misconception people have is that event organisers have financial resources. In reality, most are working with limited resources, trying to make sure every penny spent on things like marketing counts so they can't afford to waste money on influencer campaigns without knowing what's actually driving ticket sales.

That's why we built Promoters Link, giving organisers a better way to work with creators, ambassadors, and influencers who help drive ticket sales. Instead of managing referrals manually, Tix organisers can create promoter links, share with promoters and closely monitor who's contributing to ticket sales.

Of course, building at Tix also means accepting that there is no single "perfect" organiser. A concert promoter, a host, and someone organising a community brunch all use Tix differently. One of the hardest parts of product management is making decisions that work across all of those experiences while keeping Tix , flexible, and easy to use.

One piece of feedback I'll always remember was when an organiser once said, "I love that you guys hear me even when I'm not speaking." To me, that's the best compliment a product team can receive.

As we launch in the UK, our goals for organisers feel even more meaningful. For us, this isn't simply about expanding into a new market, it's about supporting Africans in the diaspora who are building communities, creating spaces for culture to thrive, and bringing people together through shared experiences. Whether an event happens in Lagos, London, Accra, or Manchester, we want organisers to have the tools they need to grow their communities with confidence. We're incredibly excited that Tix is now operating outside Africa because it means we get to empower even more organisers to create memorable experiences.

Lastly, I hope Tix continues to not just help organisers sell tickets, but also makes every part of event organising a little easier and if you ever see me out in the wild, please come and talk to me about Tix, I promise I'll have a story (or ten) about why we built something the way we did.