Chicago’s largest secondary ticket broker, Gold Coast Tickets, has announced they’re now accommodating bitcoin payments from customers who wish to use the digital currency to pay for tickets to sports events, concerts, theatres, and more.
The almost twenty-year-old company claims to be the first ticket broker in the world to accept bitcoin in a partnership with San Francisco-based Coinbase — one of the largest digital currency payments processor.
“We were one of the first ticket resellers to use ecommerce seriously and we are always looking to be a leader in the ticket selling community,” said Seth Sharin, who serves as a partner and vice president at Gold Coast Tickets. “Bitcoin is an innovative solution for many people and we are happy to accept it. This is the next step in our evolution.”
In celebration, Gold Coast Tickets says they’re going to be offering exclusive promotions, sales, and contests for the customers who choose to pay with bitcoin. Gold Coast’s first contest will be announced in the coming weeks ahead of their 20th anniversary.
Customers looking to pay with bitcoin can contact Gold Coast directly and request an invoice. The company says they are working on training their staff on the topic of cryptocurrencies, so you can probably bet it won’t be long before everyone at the company is well-versed on the topic.
Josh Metnick, CTO at Wrapports (the parent company of the Chicago Sun-Times, which has a great interest in crypto-currency) is the man who set Gold Coast Tickets up on Coinbase last week.
Metnick became Gold Coast’s first bitcoin customer by purchasing tickets to an Aziz Ansari show, noting that the entire process took about two minutes, and calling it “amazing”.
Seth Sharin is reportedly now a convert, enjoying the idea of receiving instantaneous payments without the risk for chargebacks should a customer decided their seats weren’t quite good enough (let’s face it, people come up with all sort of excuses).
Side note: Gold Coast is also the company that will be allocating the Jay-Z/Beyonce concert tickets for the Sun-Times advertisement experiment that is soon to take place. (You can read more about that here.)
The idea of an open source crypto-currency is said to have “struck a chord” with employees at Gold Coast Tickets, and the company says they’re excited to see how the digital currency will grow and change their brand.