Kyle
To many the event space is an extremely crowded one for new startups. It seems everyone and their grandmother wants to challenge the stranglehold that LiveNation/Ticketmaster has on the event industry. Others feel that they are safe battling the likes of Eventbrite and TicketLeap, and then there are the dime a dozen startups aggregating events in your local area.
Well when we heard Kansas City startup Local Ruckus was pivoting to something new in the event space we were intrigued.
Basically the problem is that event repository websites are everywhere with none really having that big a piece of the pie. That problem stems from the content. Typically these event sites have a sentence or two about the event leaving potential attendees wondering what the event is really about. Without a more indepth look at the event itself, event organizers are leaving would be patrons on the table, or at least still at home.
Adam Arredondo and Matthew Marcus set out to change the way events are marketed and promoted by putting an emphasis on the content and content distribution.
Here at nibletz we must get 25 emails a day from entepreneurs and event organizers that ask us to publish their event. Well it’s hard to write five sentences much less 300 words on an event when all we get is the name of the event, date, time and if we’re lucky, cost. So unless we want to go digging through the internet to find the relevant information and build a story we have to pass on it, and it may have been an amazing event.
Marcus described Hoopla.io like this: “Many local businesses don’t have the time, money, or expertise to effectively promote their events. Publishers struggle to provide high quality, relevant local events to their audience. With a focus on content distribution, Hoopla.io solves both sides of the problem and will create a nationwide local events syndication network.”
In it’s previous life Local Ruckus was trying to do what many local event sites are doing. While it may not sound like it, Hoopla.io is offering a new, and definitely refreshing approach to local events on a national scale. Local Ruckus had hit a wall that other startups like Louisville’s Impulcity and Nashville’s Wannado have hit. That all changed.
“We had been working on our original startup Local Ruckus for a couple years now, and it hit us that Ruckus didn’t have the scalability or force of disruption needed to spread across the country like we had planned. With that epiphany, we knew we needed to change our direction, and change it fast. Hence, Hoopla.io was conceived and born in the span of two months. With Local Ruckus, our passion to help local businesses better promote their events, and consumers more easily discover local events, was always simmering on the back burner of our minds. Hoopla.io was created when our goals and mission really started to boil. And everyone knows to take action when things start to boil.” Marcus said in an interview.
Hoopla.io has already received significant validation. They’ve already partnered with Kansas City corporate giant Sprint. They’ve also acquired over $100,000 in non-dilution capital, been named “Best Young Company to Work For” by Turnstone, and they’ve also been accepted into the Digital Sandbox program.
Hoopla.io is also preparing to pitch in the semi-finals of the Miller Lite Tap The Future startup contest. The contest pits startups against each other in regional pitch offs judged by ABC Shark Tank Shark, Daymond John. Miller Lite held their first semi-finals in Phoenix Arizona on October 15th. The remaining pitch offs include Atlanta, October 22nd, Dallas Texas, October 30th, Philadelphia , November 1st and Chicago November 5th. Hoopla is pitching at the Dallas event.
Find out more about Hoopla here.