UK Made Ticket Platforms
British ticket sales systems compared by company registration, pricing currency and data location
This guide lists ticketing providers built by companies registered in the United Kingdom, using the registration details recorded on each provider's comparison page.
Where a company is registered is a separate question from where it stores attendee data, who owns it, and what it charges. A UK registration does not mean the servers are in the UK, and it does not tell an organiser what the service costs.
What "UK made" can mean
Three facts are often grouped under the phrase, and they can be true separately:
- Company registration. The business is incorporated in the UK and appears on the Companies House register, so it is subject to UK company law. Whether UK consumer law also applies depends on the contract and on whether the organiser is buying as a consumer or a business.
- Where the software is built. The people writing and supporting the product work in the UK.
- Where attendee data is stored. The servers holding names, email addresses and orders sit in a particular country, which may not be the country the company is registered in.
The tables below cover the first fact only, and say so where no registered legal entity is recorded for a provider. Where the software is built and where attendee data is stored are set out for Chobble Tickets further down this page.
UK-based ticketing providers
These providers have a checked UK registration record on this site.
| Provider | Registered company | Based in |
|---|---|---|
| Chobble Tickets | Chobble CIC, community interest company number 17050113 | Prestwich, Manchester |
| Dandelion | Symbiota Ltd, company 09603539, a company limited by guarantee | United Kingdom |
| Eventim Light | Operated in the UK by EVENTIM UK Ltd; its parent, CTS EVENTIM, is in Bremen, Germany | United Kingdom |
| PTA Events | PTA Events Limited, company 09404586 | Bedford |
| Resident Advisor | Started in Australia, now based in London and self-described as independent | London |
| tickts | TICKTS LTD, company 17029682 | London |
Resova, run by Resova Ltd (company 09559910), is also UK registered. It is classed here as adjacent software rather than a ticketing product, because it sells bookings for escape rooms, tours and activities.
Four more providers are run from the UK but have unreviewed or undocumented registration records here. Their comparison pages give the details: BookitBee is operated by Live It Group Ltd, Fatsoma has been in Manchester since 2005, FIXR is operated by VIPR Digital Limited in London, and Ticket Tailor has run from London since 2010 without a registered entity recorded here.
Being UK based says nothing about fees, and the charge is not applied the same way by each provider. BookitBee, Fatsoma, FIXR and Ticket Tailor charge for each paid ticket. PTA Events charges a percentage of each transaction, so a buyer taking four tickets in one order is charged once. Resova sells subscription plans with a monthly booking allowance and charges for bookings above it. Chobble Tickets and tickts add no per-ticket platform fee. Each comparison page sets out the current rates.
Providers based outside the UK
Several platforms used by UK organisers are run from elsewhere. This matters for which company law applies and which courts hear disputes. Some rows give a headquarters rather than a registration, because no registered legal entity is recorded for that provider here.
| Provider | Registered or headquartered in |
|---|---|
| Hi.Events | Hi.Events Ltd, Ireland |
| Humanitix | Founded in Australia and run as a registered charity |
| Pretix | Heidelberg, Germany |
| Swicket | Vivento Lab, Lugano, Switzerland |
| Tessera Tickets | Tecture, Chicago, Illinois |
| Wix Events | Wix.com Ltd., Tel Aviv, Israel |
Some records here are marked unreviewed, which means the registration has not been checked for this site rather than that the provider is UK based. Eventbrite, Ticketek, Ticketmaster and Tito fall into that group; their comparison pages describe where each is run from.
Two platforms are run from London without being small British companies. DICE began in London and now belongs to a larger international group; its registration is not recorded here. Resident Advisor started in Australia and is now based in London, describes itself as independent, and has offices in several other countries.
Where Chobble Tickets stores data
Chobble is a UK company, but its managed hosting is not entirely UK
based. Bunny.net, the hosting and CDN provider, is
headquartered in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The managed database uses Bunny's
available primary and replica regions, so records may be replicated
outside the UK and EU. The configured storage region is eu-west-1.
Attendee personal data is encrypted at rest, so the stored records do not contain readable names or contact details without an authorised keyed user.
An organiser who needs data to stay on specific infrastructure can self-host the same product on a UK server. That covers the application and its database. Payment, email and any other configured services still receive the data they need to do their work, so those providers have to be chosen with the same question in mind. The hosting and data page lists every company in the stack and where each is headquartered.
Features that assume a UK setup
Some parts of the product are built around British conventions:
- Hosting priced in pounds. Chobble Tickets costs £50/year or £5/month, with a £25 annual price for charities, community groups, artists and musicians. The hosting invoice is in pounds whatever currency a site sells in, and each site's own country and currency are chosen during setup.
- Postcode lookup. Customers type a UK postcode and pick their address from a list. Address data comes from EasyPostcodes using the organiser's own API key.
- UK payment providers. Organisers connect Stripe, Square or SumUp. SumUp is a UK company. Ticket income goes to the organiser's own account.
- Custom domains. An organiser can point a domain they own at their site, including .co.uk and .uk domains. A site starts on a host-provided subdomain such as yourname.tix.chobble.net, and a custom domain is added on top of it.
UK data protection and company law
Chobble CIC is registered with the Information Commissioner's Office, the UK data protection regulator, under reference ZC097497. An organiser with a complaint about how Chobble handles data can raise it with the ICO.
A community interest company is a UK legal structure. Chobble CIC is limited by guarantee without share capital and has an asset lock, which restricts how company assets can be transferred. There are no shareholders to pay.
Dandelion is provided by Symbiota Ltd, which Companies House records as a company limited by guarantee. Symbiota describes itself as a not-for-profit worker co-operative.
Checking a provider yourself
Every UK company appears on the free Companies House register, which lists the registered office, incorporation date, directors, people with significant control and filed accounts. Searching a provider's name there shows who runs it and whether the company is active.
A provider's privacy notice states where it processes personal data. The currency shown on a website does not establish which company issues the invoice, so check the legal entity named in the terms, on an invoice, or in the privacy notice instead.
The full comparison pages record the sources behind each entry, and give a checking date where one has been recorded.