If you've tried buying tickets to a big-name concert lately, chances are you’ve been burned. Maybe you clicked “buy now” the second they dropped, only to watch the entire event sell out in seconds. Maybe you paid double—or triple—the price just to secure a seat from a reseller. And if you were hoping to catch Oasis’ long-awaited reunion tour, you might have been one of the fans scammed out of $2 million in just the first few weeks.
The root of all this chaos? Bots. Bots that swarm ticket platforms faster than any human ever could, scooping up massive quantities of tickets and feeding a secondary market that thrives on inflated prices and low accountability.
It’s a problem that’s ballooned into a $1.14 trillion headache for the live event industry, and one that governments, venues, and ticketing companies have all struggled to contain—even with laws on the books. The U.S. passed the BOTS Act back in 2016, but enforcement has been weak. Even recent efforts like the TICKET Act are fighting an uphill battle. Meanwhile, artists play to empty seats and fans keep losing.
Enter IdBase, a startup that says it’s doing what no one else has been able to: stop bots at the source.
Rather than play digital whack-a-mole with evolving bot scripts, IdBase is flipping the model. Their tech, called authenTICKET, verifies that the person buying the ticket is, in fact, a person—using government-issued ID and biometrics like facial or voice recognition. Not only that, it works with any type of ticket and plugs directly into venues’ existing infrastructure. No apps required. No overhauls needed.
Sounds like the golden solution, right?
According to IdBase CEO Alan Gelfand, the approach is simple. “Everyone’s trying to detect bots. We said—what if we just confirm the buyer is human instead?” That’s the core pitch. And at first glance, it’s compelling. Their system doesn’t store raw biometric data, only secure templates, and they’ve already partnered with Tickets.com, a subsidiary of Major League Baseball.
Still, there’s more happening under the hood.
A key detail tucked into the announcement is the business model. IdBase charges a 1 percent fee per ticket, capped at a dollar. With tens of millions of tickets flowing through its partners, that adds up quickly. And with IdBase taking 80 percent of that cut, this isn’t just a passion project to clean up the industry—it’s a pipeline to potentially huge revenue.
What’s more, the company isn’t just targeting bots. It’s selling a broader vision: turning identity into a platform. Think Visa, but for live events. An “identity layer” that could one day expand well beyond concerts and sports arenas into any transaction that requires identity verification. Whether that's good or bad depends on how much you trust the companies handling your biometric data and digital ID.
Even if you’re optimistic about the tech, it’s worth asking who this model really benefits in the long run. For fans, it might mean fewer scams and more fairness—until the cost of this added “security” gets bundled into your next ticket price. For venues, it’s about streamlining and savings. But what about control? What happens when a private identity layer becomes a gatekeeper to public experiences?
The company’s advisory board includes heavy hitters from MLB, WestJet, and Goldman Sachs. And they’re already working to align with new legislation worldwide. That’s smart positioning—but also suggests IdBase isn’t just a tech fix. It’s a business strategy designed to thrive as regulation tightens.
There’s no doubt the ticketing industry is broken. Bots, scalping, fraud—it’s all gotten out of hand. IdBase seems to offer a clean, tech-forward fix. But before we rush to crown them the heroes of the live event world, it’s worth digging into what’s being built behind the scenes.
Why now? Why this model? And who really stands to benefit?
Because if recent trends have taught us anything, it’s that disruption in the name of fairness often comes with strings attached. Just ask any tech worker who thought they were building for good, only to realize the playbook was always about scale, control, and monetization.
This may not just be about stopping bots—it might be about who gets to own the infrastructure of trust next. And once that happens, what will it cost just to be a fan?