On 3 May 2027 someone buys a ticket to a show with no venue and no lineup. Ten weeks later the crowd has chosen both. Eleven months after that, 11,400 of them walk through the gate. This is what the platform and the event each earn along the way.
Tickets issued. 3,000 founders at $100, then 9,000 in waves at the market price.
Primary ticket sales. The promoter's money to book the show with.
Traded on the built-in market across 18,000 trades.
Platform revenue from one festival. More than half of it from resale.
Kickoff is 1 October 2026. The gates open on 7 April 2028. The build is front-loaded, the money arrives in the middle, and the crowd does the rest.
Ticket token and custodial wallets, ballot, market, card on-ramp and identity, gate scanner. Legal review of resale caps and securities runs alongside. In February a 200-person internal test runs a full ten-round cycle in ten days.
4 venues and 32 artists sign: dates held, guarantee set, a sixty-second pitch. Listing fee $500 each, $18,000 in total.
3,000 tickets at a flat $100. Sold out in five days. The market switches on the Friday it closes.
One ballot a week, closing Fridays. Venue first, then headliner, down to set times on 16 July.
Five releases at the market price, 9,000 tickets, up to the venue's 12,000 capacity. Trading continues throughout.
12,000 tickets issued, 11,400 scanned at the gate. The crowd that walks in is the crowd that booked it.
The founders' round opens at nine. Two minutes later the first card payment clears. The buyer sees a ticket and a ballot that says the first vote opens in eleven days. They do not see a wallet, a token or a chain. All three exist.
By the end of Monday 1,180 tickets are gone. The pace halves each day as the people who were waiting for it get in, and the last 240 sell on Friday. Three thousand paid, verified voters before a venue is named, and $300,000 committed. That afternoon the market switches on and the first ballot is scheduled.
Selling out in five days is the target the pilot is designed around. Slower would still work. The rounds do not start until the founders' round closes, so a slow sell-out delays the calendar, not the mechanics.
| Day | Sold | Running total |
|---|---|---|
| Mon 3 May | 1,180 | 1,180 |
| Tue 4 May | 760 | 1,940 |
| Wed 5 May | 490 | 2,430 |
| Thu 6 May | 330 | 2,760 |
| Fri 7 May | 240 | 3,000 |
$100 by card, the same checkout as any ticket site. Identity is verified once, at signup.
A custodial wallet is opened for the buyer in the background. No app to install, no seed phrase, nothing to lose.
Ticket #0001 is written to a low-fee chain as one token, tied to that wallet and that verified person.
The buyer sees a seat, a countdown to the first vote, and a price. The chain stays under the floor.
The founders picked Redgum Flats in week one. Everyone who held a ticket voted from week two on. Turnout never fell below 80 percent, and averaged 84.9 percent across the ten rounds.
| Week | Decision | Winner | Price after close | Turnout |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 · 14 May | The venueFounders only | Redgum FlatsCapacity 12,000, camping, 2 h from the city. Beat Harbour Yard (8,000) and Pinebrook Fairgrounds (15,000). | $104 | 91% |
| 2 · 21 May | The headliner | Nova FenwickPop. Over Glass Harbor (indie) and The Long Dusk (roots). 2,100 trades that week. | $138 | 89% |
| 3 · 28 May | Second headliner | Glass HarborSome founders who wanted roots sold out at a profit. | $131 | 86% |
| 4 · 4 Jun | Support, first wave | Four acts from a ballot of twelve | $152 | 84% |
| 5 · 11 Jun | Support, second wave | Four more | $149 | 85% |
| 6 · 18 Jun | The late-night stage | Silent disco and electronic | $160 | 82% |
| 7 · 25 Jun | Camping and comfort | Glamping tier, quiet camp, showers | $158 | 80% |
| 8 · 2 Jul | Art and installations | Commission budget of $60,000 allocated | $171 | 83% |
| 9 · 9 Jul | Food and drink | Local-producer vendor shortlist | $175 | 81% |
| 10 · 16 Jul | Set times | Nova Fenwick closes Saturday | $190 | 88% |
| After ten rounds the show is fully specified | $190 | 84.9% avg | ||
Rules in force for every round: one verified person, at most four voting tickets. The vote travels with the ticket. Ranked choice, top three. Only pre-signed, bookable options on the ballot. The tally is on the ledger for anyone to check.
The first ticket sold changed hands twice before the gate. Each time, the market contract took 2.5 percent from the seller and 2.5 percent from the buyer before the token moved. There is no other way to move a ticket, so there is no way around the fee.
Across 12,000 tickets the average was 1.5 trades each, which is 18,000 trades at an average of $160. That is $2,880,000 in resale volume, and $144,000 in resale fees, on tickets the platform sold once for $100 or the market price.
The primary fee happens once. The resale fee happens every time the crowd changes its mind, which in this festival was every week for ten weeks and then steadily for nine months.
Once the show was fully specified, tickets released in five waves at the current market price, never at $100. The founders' discount was for being first. Every wave sold out and the price rose each time.
| Wave | Released | Tickets | Price | Revenue | Capacity filled |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Founders | May 2027 | 3,000 | $100 | $300,000 | 3,000 |
| Wave 1 | Aug 2027 | 1,500 | $165 | $247,500 | 4,500 |
| Wave 2 | Oct 2027 | 2,000 | $175 | $350,000 | 6,500 |
| Wave 3 | Dec 2027 | 2,000 | $185 | $370,000 | 8,500 |
| Wave 4 | Feb 2028 | 2,000 | $195 | $390,000 | 10,500 |
| Wave 5 | Mar 2028 | 1,500 | $210 | $315,000 | 12,000 |
| Primary sales, all waves | 12,000 | $164 avg | $1,972,500 | 12,000 of 12,000 | |
Trading did not stop for the waves. 9,600 trades happened during the ten rounds, 7,200 during the wave period, and 1,200 in the final two weeks before the gate.
Of 12,000 tickets issued, 11,400 were scanned at Redgum Flats over the weekend, a 95 percent show rate. Nova Fenwick closed Saturday, exactly as the week-ten ballot decided.
The gate did not scan a barcode. Each holder's phone signed a one-time challenge with the key behind their wallet, and the scanner checked the ledger for a live ticket belonging to that key. A screenshot cannot sign. A ticket sold on Thursday night was already in its new holder's wallet by the time they reached the car park.
Identity checks and scanning were rehearsed at the February 2027 internal test and again in the final two weeks, when 1,200 tickets changed hands.
Show of Hands never owns the risk of the event. It takes a percentage of every primary sale, both sides of every resale, and a listing fee from artists and venues who want on the ballot. For the pilot we are also the promoter, so the first festival earns both sides.
Fee rates in this model are placeholders for discussion: 5% primary 2.5% each side on resale $500 listing
Show of Hands. Fee income only, no event costs.
The promoter's side. For the pilot, also us.
A primary sale pays 5 percent. A resale pays 2.5 percent from each side. A ballot listing pays $500. There is no transaction on the platform that does not carry a fee, and there is no transaction off the platform.
A ticket is a token that can only move through the market contract, and the contract deducts the fee before the token moves. Nobody can trade around it, including us. That is why the resale line is a certainty, not a policy.
Primary fees are earned once per ticket. Resale fees are earned every time the crowd changes its mind. In this festival resale earned $144,000 against $98,625 on primary, and it will grow with every extra trade per ticket.
The fear is that voting fades after the headliner. In the model it dipped to 80 percent in the camping round and came back to 88 percent for set times. Average 84.9 percent across ten rounds.
The single biggest price move, $104 to $138, and 2,100 trades in a week. Everything about the calendar should build toward that Friday.
$144,000 in resale fees against $98,625 on primary, at 1.5 trades per ticket. Every extra trade per ticket adds roughly $96,000 of platform revenue at these prices.
Releasing 9,000 tickets at the price the crowd had set earned $1,672,500. Flat $100 pricing on the same tickets would have earned $900,000. The crowd priced its own show.