Rhino's Ramblings - Ticket Rocket "The Good Guys You Have Been Waiting For"
Editor’s Note - I would like to thank the reporters and publications in New Zealand who took the time to speak to me, to write and point me in the proper direction. I hope I have given proper credit where it is due.
By Robert Thomas - Opinion/Commentary
On a sunny Novermber day in 2015 Dunedin, New Zealand a jubilant Canadian born Matt Davey addressed the media.
Davey was there with a major announcement for sports fans in the city of about 120,000 .
He and three other entrepreneurial friends were there to buy the license to operate the local New Zealand Super League rugby franchise the Dunedin Highlanders for a term of five years. The team which operated out of the 30,748 seat Forsyth Barr Stadium had been saved from a rumoured move to Singapore by what could be best described as the Highlanders most devoted superfan.
The deal would not only see the Highlanders move from the direct ownership and control of New Zealand Rugby (NZR) but also would prevent the team from being purchased by a Singapore group of investors who had plans of eventually moving the franchise there.
The Highlander’s deal was the last of the deals NZR struck to move the five upper tier teams to a private ownership model.
Although in New Zealand rugby is not only a big sport and a source of national pride it is also a sport where the national rugby body - NZR has had revenues of $1 billion New Zealand Dollars in the last four years but had a loss of $7.4 million in 2019 - has been bleeding millions of dollars in red ink over that time.
Finding a new business model for the association dedicated to helping build and operate the sport from the beginner to the elite level was vital in 2015 and still is today.
Matt Davey soul shareholder and CEO of Ticket Rocket (right) with New Zealand Highlanders chief executive Roger Clark (left) in a 2015 photo handout to the press
The Highlanders were the last of NZR’s top tier teams to transfer to private ownership as they were the most financially troubed and in need of new life and a cash injection. The NZR had operated all five upper tier rugby franchises from 1996 - 2012 and in late 2015 the financially troubled Highlanders were about to leave the nest.
“It is where I got my start. Opportunity came to bring up some close friends 16 years association with Highlanders,” a jubilant Davey would tell the handful of media gathered in Dunedin to hear the announcement.
Davey had created a New Zealand event ticketing dynamo, TicketDirect (later Ticket Rocket), literally for being a fan of the club.
But who is Matt Davey?
Davey had arrived in Dunedin close to two decades prior after he and three friends had sold an internet start up they had created while Davey was pursuing a health informatics degree from the University of Victoria.
With the money he earned from that sale Davey headed off to Dunedin, New Zealand to study law as a post graduate degree at the University of Otago.
It was a degree Davey would never complete as he soon found work as a manager of information technology at South Link Health Inc Dunedin NZ from 1996 - 2001.
While working at South Link Health Inc Davey would become friends with a manager at the local radio station where he would one day hear about the problems the Dunedin Highlanders were having with their ticketing system.
Davey was a Canadian immigrant who had fallen in love with rugby while a student there and was well known to associate with the Highlanders in any way he could.
According to local legend the computer savy Davey said “I can fix that” and in that instant what would later become the stuff of legend the roots of a ticketing empire which would not only later dominate New Zealand’s ticket issuing market but move on into Australia, Fiji, the UK, the USA, Iceland and Canada was born.
So successful was Davey that he was even listed as a business mentor for the University of Otago’s full-time MBA program despite his never completing his Masters degree in law there.
Davey would go on from that moment to become not only a respected local businessman in Dunedin but he was seen as the immigrant success story in the South Island of New Zealand.
Here was a man who by the seat of his pants and initiative had not only arrived in the city from the most British of British cities in Canada (Victoria) to make a name for himself but through his hard work, determination and sheer luck he was creating much needed jobs in higher technology diversifying the economy. He was an adopted champion for the region.
Davey had stumbled onto opportunity, recognized it and then through his own personal determination and work flourished because of it.
At its height what was started at the Highlanders that day at the radio station grew to 95 employees with annual revenues (according to filings) of $20 million.
So What Was Ticket Rocket?
What Davey created that day was in reality a hands on sole proprietorship business. A business which some may say got too big for his hands on approach to life.
He would use his business and computer programming skills to create not only a ticketing system for the Highlanders but he would tailor it to meet the needs of the small events and venues first around Dunedin and then across the South Island of New Zealand and then move it to the entire country.
Davey basked in the mystique of his creation.
He would take on the large behemoths in the event ticketing business by not only offering better computer and technology solutions to mid to small events and venues but he would add a personal touch as clients would meet with the actual person behind the system and he would tailor it for your particular needs.
His firm then called TicketDirect was something of an anomally in the highly competitive industry.
While other major players in the industry ran on software and technology they licensed or had other firms operate for them, Ticket Direct offered it all. They were on the fast lane to not only dominating the industry in New Zealand but also had plans to move into other markets with their hands on approach dedicated to helping out smaller events and venues.
They were the little guys who cared and you as a smaller event or venue received better service, lower prices, a more tailored approach and above all the client could rely on TicketDirect and often Davey himself to respond to their needs.
According to filings Davey would incoroporate the business as 2448273 TICKETDIRECT USA LIMITED on March 31, 2010 in New Zealand. The filing was made by Judth Cambridge Limited a chartered accountancy firm in New Zealand that has in many ways the same business strategy and roots Davey had - hands on client centric service, care and listening plus responding personally to clients needs.
The incorporation would list 1 million shares issued for TicketDirect all of which were issued to Matthew (Matt) Robert Davey. He was listed as the CEO and only director of the private company.
TicketDirect according to further filings would become TICKET ROCKET ENTERPRISES NZ LIMITED on March 23, 2018.
And according to its last filing with New Zealand authorities, an August 10, 2020 filing, Matthew (Matt) Robert Davey is still listed as the sole shareholder and director of Ticket Rocket a company registered in Dunedin, New Zealand.
From its meagre beginnings as a chance encounter by a rugby fan TicketDirect would grow into a parent company the Australian registered Fortress Group and have five divisions - Fortress Information Systems Inc (FISL), TicketDirect, Ticket Rocket, I Knight and Dash Tickets. All still at the time they were operating not in receivership having Davey listed as the sole shareholder and director.
Davey The Sports Mogul Nobody Has Heard Of
As Davey’s business grew in New Zealand and made in-roads into Australia and the South Pacific he maintained contact with his friends and classmates back home in Canada.
While Davey was out saving the Highlanders and becoming the pride of not only Dunedin and the South Island he had bigger plans for himself and Ticket Rocket.
The firm with humble beginnings was about to use the same formula it had for success in New Zealand to take on the behemoths in the event ticketing marketplace - Ticket Rocket was about to challenge Ticket Master and others on the turf they dominated.
Ticket Rocket, in Davey’s mind, was set to become a global power in the business and they were going to be doing it wth the formula that worked in New Zealand.
According to a June 13, 2015 report in the Victoria, BC based Times-Colonist Davey was back in Canada and he was set to light the fuse to send the Canadian and US divisions into the stratosphere of the industry.
Davey told the Times-Colonist that Ticket Rocket was set to make inroads into the event ticketing marketplace based upon two things - that unlike the competitors Ticket Rocket owned its own proprietary technology and they were about to offer the smallest of venues the same straight up front personal service that had made Ticket Rocket the ticketing service leader in New Zealand.
Ticket Rocket was targeting first the smaller events and venues which graced his hometown following the same proven strategy he took years to succeed at in Dunedin and then almost immediately aggressively target markets across Canada and the United States similar to the layout of Victoria.
After purchasing the five year rights to the Highlanders the jubilant Davey would once again grace the pages of a Canadian newspaper.
This time in a Vancouver Province article he would be portrayed as rugby’s unknown champion who like his company TicketDirect (which later became Ticket Rocket) he was about to help the sport become widespread in his native Canada.
He was the fan who had made it big in his developed passion for rugby.
Ticket Rocket Arrives In Moose Jaw
In June 2016 Ticket Rocket signed an agreement to provide ticketing services for the now defunct Downtown Facility and Field House (DFFH).
Ticket Rocket had won the contract replacing the service which had from Mosaic Place’s opening in 2011 been operated for the DFFH by the Moose Jaw Warriors ice hockey team the principal tenant at Mosaic Place.
Ticket Rocket’s arrival in Moose Jaw did not sit well with some in the community but nevertheless the DFFH board of the day - which was a combination of Council members (Councillor Heather Eby is the lone member on Council today from the 2016 DFFH board) and compentancy based community members - basically rubber stamped Ticket Rocket’s arrival arranged by the DFFH’s former CEO Scott Clark.
Clark, who was later revealed as the main villain in the DFFH Financial Scandal, had somehow come into contact with Ticket Rocket and the firm offered something the DFFH need desperately at that time and that was cash.
Mosaic Place - MJ Independent file photo
While Ticket Rocket was getting on board with the DFFH the soon to be beleagured Scott was according to an August 15 report from My Grande Prairie Now interviewing in June 2016 for the general manager job at Revolution Place in Grande Prairie, Alberta.
After Clark left in mid August for Grande Prairie the City released the KPMG report which revealed losses of up to $1 million a year for the three years prior with Clark at the helm.
It may be the opinion of more than a few that the Ticket Rocket deal was a way for Scott to hopefully improve the rapidly deterioating cash flow problems at the DFFH.
After Clark left Moose Jaw the DFFH report would strongly criticize Clark for how he operated the DFFH - without a proper understanding of his accountability to City Hall, not instituting proper personnel procedures, an inability to budget properly and most damning of all controlling information that the board received to the point he blinded them to the reality of what was taking place.
Four years after his departure what is now Mosaic Place is still trying to re-right itself and correct the problems identified in the KPMG report.
The Wheels Fall Off For Ticket Rocket
The first signs City Hall has publicly admitted to of there being major problems with Ticket Rocket came at the September 8th, 2020 Council meeting.
At that meeting city manager Jim Pufflat admitted that problems with Ticket Rocket began weeks, if not months, in advance of the COVID - 19 pandemic.
According to Puffalt the concerns started when it came to receiving funds for the Scotties Tournament of Hearts Canadian Women’s National Curling Championship which was held at Mosaic Place February 15 - 23, 2020.
The City Manager told Council since the funds were not coming in as they were suppose to the City put Ticket Rocket on a shorter leash forcing the ticketing agent to submit funds every Friday. Puffalt would tell Council it “could have been worse.”
According a report submitted to Council the agreement with Ticket Rocket had them holding event funds in separate accounts and they were to remit the funds to Mosaic Place within seven working days after the event.
Meanwhile in New Zealand questions were being asked by the Hurricanes from Welllington, another Super League rugby team, as early as February about ticket receipts owed from well before any COVID - 19 pandemic shutdown.
The Hurricanes could not get any response to their questions about whether Ticket Rocket had in fact put the money into a separate account as they were contractually obliged to do. In the end the Hurricanes called in the police because of it.
Early in June 2020 a New Zealand judge issued an order on behalf of Palmerston North City Council in New Zealand to freeze $675,958 NZD after Davey admitted “cash flow problems.”
Justice Rachel Dunningham's judgment said in her order "I accept there is a real risk that FISL (Fortress Information System Limited) has been using, or will use funds held on trust to meet its cashflow requirements, or debts unrelated to the trust fund."
At the time of her order Ticket Rocket had just promised Ryan MacIvor general manager of Mosaic Place (Spectra Events Management) that refunds for the two cancelled concerts and three Warriors games were in process and that in 60 days (August 22, 2020) the refunds would be available.
The 60 day promise is one Ticket Rocket and Davey personally would make all over New Zealand.
He claimed the number of refunds were in the thousands and a skeleton staff had to manually process them plus answer thousands of emails and enquiries from patrons looking for their refund. Davey estimated only 40 refunds were being processed daily because of government restrictions brought on because of COVID - 19 restrictions mandated by the New Zealand government.
It was a similar reason given to MacIvor and through him the City of Moose Jaw that the BC government had imposed restrictions meaning Ticket Rocket employees could not go to work and manually process the refunds.
This from a company that prided itself in having ownership of the best proprietary technology and mobile equipment in the event ticketing industry. They could not process the refunds from at home, Ticket Rocket claimed.
Ticket Rocket would go on to owe refunds for hundreds of events cancelled in New Zealand due to COVID - 19 restrictions. With tens of thousands of people now likely creditors to Ticket Rocket and Davey’s other companies that declared bankruptcy on August 31, 2020.
The ticketing company is now being operated by a Receiver who only accepts responsibility for ticket purchases after the bankruptcy.
But were there any potential public warning signs Ticket Rocket was in trouble well in advance of the COVID - 19 pandemic and it may have been the last straw in a company that in my opinion shows at least a few signs of being just one step ahead of the creditors?
Actually there is.
In a February 24, 2017 story on the New Zealand web-site Stuff entitled “Ticket refunds on track for cancelled Wings over Wairarapa airshow “ ticket purchasers expressed concerns that the refunds for the event were not being made right away after the February 17 - 19, 2017 event was cancelled due to poor weather.
Ironically it would be another biennial air show cancelled in 2020, Warbirds of Wanaka, along with a series of events which would have New Zealanders crying foul and asking where their refunds were according to a story in the Otago Daily Times.
As in Moose Jaw major concerns were raised about the lack of communication by Ticket Rocket and a vague promise to provide refunds within 60 days.
Cost To Moose Jaw
In the end it could well be argued the City of Moose Jaw managed to extract itself from a very bad situation in something that in my opinion could have been much worse.
We have to ask ourselves what would have happened if the City had not stepped in and forced Ticket Rocket to remit the Scotties funds on a weekly basis?
With an attendance of 59,298 and a single draw costing $20.20 a conservative gross estimate of Scotties receipts is $1,197,819.60. Was there the potential Ticket Rocket could have left the City on the hook for these funds or a good portion of them?
It is something we may never know for an ascertainty because if my hunch is correct the City likely signed a non-disclosure agreement with Ticket Rocket when they parted ways in the May 29th, 2020 agreement.
What is in that settlement is anybody’s guess.
Did the City pay a fee to get out of the Ticket Rocket contract? Or did Ticket Rocket transfer funds to the City as part of the agreement? And if Ticket Rocket did transfer funds to the City were they from the same account that a Madame Justice in New Zealand froze later in June owed to Ticket Rocket clients there?
We may never know unless there is something there and the police in New Zealand happen to come calling.
In the end of it all it left Moose Jaw City Council this past Tuesday evening with a momentous decision and that is how do you restore confidence in Mosaic Place which is seen as vital by many as an economic driver for the community?
How do you appease the taxpayers who now no matter how you might portray it are in the end footing a bill which could cost as much as $200,000? And is it fair to the taxpayer to do this?
And finally how do you appease ticket purchasers who just want their money back and not a gift card for an equivalent dollar amount?
As one of the New Zealand reporters said to me in an email “its a mess.”
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