CTS Eventim AG launches fansale.de

Munich, 23 January 2007. CTS Eventim AG has launched its new www.fansale.de resale platform. The Group, listed in the SDAX index, sees considerable revenue and earnings potential in the first German Internet portal specially catering to ticket exchange and reselling. "By taking this step, we are further expanding our Internet activities. The exchange and reselling business is profitable in the extreme", says Klaus-Peter Schulenberg, CEO of CTS Eventim AG. The Group anticipates that this new field business will grow in its first year to a ticket volume of 200,000 to 300,000 and revenue of between 5 and 7 million euros. In the 2006 fiscal year, CTS achieved a 50 percent growth in its Internet ticketing volume. Well over 100 million fans of music and other events visited the www.eventim.de and www.getgo.de portals, buying more than 5 million tickets in total. Schulenberg believes "these figures show the enormous potential for our web business." 
 
Technical details and handling: security the utmost priority
When designing fansale, security aspects were the uppermost concern. Building on the technologies developed and applied by CTS Eventim for the 2006 Football World Cup, with which more than 200,000 World Cup tickets were resold and transferred under toughest security, fansale now offers buyers and sellers of tickets a unique package of security features. With its exclusive eventim.ticketcheck facility, fansale is the first-ever system to give buyers an opportunity to purchase tickets with an authenticity guarantee, also for resold tickets. Tickets are verified by a barcode check. Sellers offering tickets on the Eventim-Tickets portal need only enter the barcode number printed of the ticket. Fansale then checks the barcodes for authenticity and for other features, for example whether the event has been postponed or cancelled. Any ticket on sale that has been identified by its barcode as a genuine Eventim ticket is given a special tag by the fansale system. In this way, buyers can see at a glance that the ticket on sale is an original - effectively eliminating any problems with forged or even non-existent tickets. 
 
Secure payment
A special fiduciary system is deployed by fansale to ensure that all financial transactions are secure for both buyer and seller. When a ticket is purchased, fansale automatically charges the selling price to the buyer's credit card and administers the money on a fiduciary basis until the purchased tickets have arrived at the buyer. If the buyer reports a discrepancy within 48 hours after receiving the tickets, the proceeds are withheld until the buyer and seller have reached agreement. Costs and commission are not incurred until completion of sale, and an attractive launching offer will be available until 31.03.2007: the seller pays no commission, the buyer a fee equal to 10% of the price. Thereafter, sellers will pay 10% and buyers 15% of the selling price. No charges are made by fansale for submitting offers, and placing tickets on sale is free. 
 
Fast delivery
Offering fast, reliable delivery fansale is blazing a new trail, effectively excluding the risks associated with anonymous postal delivery. For each transaction, fansale automatically produces a special dispatch label and documents that are printed directly from the system. Delivery is only by express post via DHL, who collect every consignment from the seller and deliver by the next working day to the buyer. Delivery can be tracked from one station to the next, is fully documented and monitored online by fansale.  
 
Convenient handling
The barcode check is used not only to authenticate tickets being sold, but also to guarantee the seller an easy placement process. Most data, such as date of event, venues and seat details are displayed automatically after entering the barcode. All the seller needs to do is select the type of offer being made and specify the starting or fixed price. Preparing dispatch can be managed online by the seller with just a few clicks: the collection order, the address label, the duplicate address label and the consignment note for the DHL driver are all ready and waiting at fansale.de and can be conveniently printed at home. Both sellers and buyers gain from this fast and reliable handling, because fansale organises door-to-door delivery - once tickets have been bought, the seller chooses a time within a specified window when the tickets can be collected. By noon the next day, except for Sundays, DHL delivers the consignment to the buyer. fansale offers both parties maximum reliability with minimal effort. Throughout the sale and delivery process, fansale also keeps buyers and sellers up to date by sending status eMails.