Where Did It All Begin?

Sometime in late 1999, a small team of designers and developers at First Call Tickets started putting together a service for delivering ticket sales over the Sky TV interactive platform ("Open ..." as it was known then). At the time, we had access to an in-house ticketing system called (BOCS - Box Office Computer Systems). BOCS had a simple yet effective EDI API which we used to process the transactions, but not in real-time. At the same time, we re-developed the FirstCallTickets.com website and birthed the first ancestor of what would eventually evolve into "middleware". Over time we added an SQL database (MySQL) and made several development decisions which cemented the middleware concept in our own minds including the addition of affiliate sales tracking.

We had been proceeding in a very linear manner with our development - single supplier system : single platform. We always knew that there were other supplier systems out there, so it was no great leap of logic to think that we could easily develop a modular system to aggregate all of these systems into a single central database. Even way back then, we believed that we didn't want to get involved in the intricacies of the transaction once we had enabled it to take place. Connect the customer to the supplier, enable the transaction, then get out of the way. Payment handling, ticket dispatch, customer relations and marketng should all be handled by the supplier.

In 2002, we were merged into the Seatem Group becoming responsible for the technology behind a whole new e-commerce strategy and, more importantly, gaining access to another ticketing system (ENTA, developed by Galathea who are also a part of the Seatem group). We were now connected to several BOCS systems, an in-house ENTA system, and were hosting and managing a slew of branded websites (taking over KeithProwse.com and IFBArts.com).

In 2004 we became officially known as TicketSwitch.

In 2006 we opened an office in the USA.

We now connect over 20 individual ticketing systems to 400+ affiliates and major distribution partners. In addition, we provide over 10,000 travel agents world wide with access to our suppliers. We also support prominent retail networks in the UK and Ireland.