Rebuilding ticketing on a shoestring
A custom ticketing and door system for a venue that couldn't afford the per-ticket fees of the big platforms — built for the budget, delightful anyway.
- Problem
- Platform fees were eating a venue's already thin margin, and the off-the-shelf flow felt nothing like the room.
- Approach
- A lean custom stack — Supabase + a thin front end — designed around the door staff's actual night.
- Outcome
- Fees gone. Faster door. A checkout that finally sounded like the venue, not a SaaS vendor.
Tight budgets are a design constraint, not an excuse. The cheapest system that works is usually the one shaped exactly to the people running it.
Constraints we leaned into
- No per-ticket fee — the whole point
- The door had to be faster than the old scanner, on bad wifi
- It had to feel like this venue
Constraints made it better. They usually do.