TicketsPlus.ky was created mainly to facilitate the ticket sales of events of the affiliated Partners of the organization i.e (Renegade Mas, The Blacklist, Rub-A-Dub, Sparkle, Pull Up, Soka Junkie, Shades, Essence, Toast to name a few). It has since of course expanded into a ticketing service for other organizations seeking an alternative service for online ticketing events, similarly to other companies that compete in the same market. EventPro and its partners through this move is attempting to stifle competition on the premise of legal assertations of infringement that is unfounded. Competition is for the benefit of the consumers, an economy without adequate competition is dangerous and that increase supply chain problems and creates bottlenecks.
Notwithstanding the aforementioned, “We are extremely disappointed a peer would even take this route over such a small claim, a simple phone call would have rectified it, but we see it was never about the claims of infringement, but their ego and honest competition in the online ticket space. We made every effort to settle this matter before it got to this point.” said John Watler, partner of TicketsPlus. He further expanded that Event Ticketing Platforms’ main source of income is from convenience fees (percentage from each ticket sale), and that in this industry, the growth is generated from organizers, as they plan, promote and produce more events and grow attendance.
Cedric Gidarisingh, highlighted that as an event organizer, he had several issues with the services received from EventPro, and by extension its founder and director, Jonathan Christian. They therefore decided to remove their businesses from the EventPro platform in December 2021, after much deliberation. “This was a very strategic move to protect our brands and to have total control over the narrative and online sales. Consequently, TicketsPlus was founded. The claim brought to us for Copyright Infringement was a simple miscommunication, and not the claims outlined by EventPro and their partners”, said Mr. Gidarisingh. TicketsPlus.ky was launched to the public on December 10, 2021 using Stripe.com – Stripe Online Merchant Payment Solution (Based in the United States). The TicketsPlus E-commerce platform was still in development stage and had several content as placed holders on the website. Approval to use the local Merchant Solution was subsequently submitted and approved in January 2022 by Butterfield Bank and the first test transaction with the local Merchant solution was completed in April 2022. We replied to EventPro’s claim on May 27, 2022, acknowledging their infringement claim and did not admit to the use of their Terms and Conditions, Merchant Agreement and Privacy, collectively referred to as “works”, being the basis upon which we have gained profits or cause damages. We also further explained that the complex area of law which protects original expression, certain phrases and utilitarian language do not enjoy the same form of protection. Their claims of ownership of the “legal language” that protects online merchant transactions and their assertion that the very law and legal wording that has been protecting Ecommerce users long before the inception of EventPro is uniquely their own is a grotesque position by EventPro”, said, Mr. Gidarisingh.
“I’ve received work harassment emails and accusations to defame my character as a vindictive strategy by EventPro and their Legal team to create doubt in my workplace”, said Mr. Gidarisingh.
This is a very unfortunate situation which could have been dealt with differently, but the numerous claims are refutable. Additionally, EventPro has outlined a myriad of events which they were in direct competition, and on review 99% of these events were those of our Event Partners.