DerekAnderson
Journal Staff
Christian Galvin is the ticketing filter of Boston. With the start of his company TixList.com, Galvin connects sellers of sporting, concert, and event tickets to anyone wishing to buy. What’s the catch? Absolutely nothing, the service is free.
“The genesis of it was really just a hobby. I’m a Red Sox season tickets holder. I’ve been a holder since 2001,” said Galvin. “They play 81 home games and it’s impossible to go to 81 home games. I had to get rid of tickets somehow.”
Galvin, a former Suffolk student, runs TixList.com, a website completely devoted to finding tickets at base price or cheaper and connecting those sellers with consumers. In emails, Galvin sends out the top ticket deals for the Bruins, Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics, concerts, and events happening throughout Boston.
“I’m a conduit. I don’t view myself as a person who sells tickets. I’m the middleman, who connects the seller and the buyer. What I do is provide as much information as possible,” said Galvin. “I’m Craigslist with a filter. I get tickets from three buckets. I have a network of season ticket holders, I probably spend two to three hours on Craigslist, and then I work with local ticket brokers who have excess tickets. The lists I end up producing are only face-value or below priced tickets. I want to find the best five to 10 deals everyday and put them in your inbox.”
Galvin started working with web businesses when he attended Suffolk. After being approached by a few friends with a real estate idea, he left school to make it in the business world.
“This was during the first ‘dot com’ phase. It was like the Wild West. Everyone had these business plans on napkins and they were passing ideas around trying to get them funded,” said Galvin. “A friend of mine had money behind his idea, so I said, ‘what the hell, let’s do it’. It was a fun time.”
After four years, things fell through and Galvin and his friends parted ways to make their own paths. Eventually it occurred to Galvin to create TixList.com. The website is free to join, connected with social media and a complete one-man-show.
“Selling things has never been a problem for me,” said Galvin. “I thought I could generate revenue by getting enough people on my daily email lists and then sell sponsorships to local businesses, product services, basically anyone that wants to put their item in front of a Boston-based sports fan generated audience. That’s the only way I generate money right now, through email sponsorships.”
Galvin doesn’t make any money from the actual selling and buying of tickets through his website. The sponsorships completely fund his activities and make it what it is. After receiving a sponsorship, Galvin pitches the product from the company in the beginning of his emails with ticket listings.
“I was a journalism major at Suffolk. I like writing. It’s sort of the creative side of me. If you were to ask me what my favorite part of this job is, literally it’s sitting down and writing this four line sales pitch on that daily sponsor,” said Galvin.
But all the searching through Craigslist would raise concerns of scams and fake deals. Galvin said no one has yet been scammed through his listings. After doing the job for 10 months, he’s gotten the eye for fakes.
“Knock on wood, I have yet to hear back from a TixList subscriber saying, ‘Hey Christian, I just met someone through the list and it was a scam. After time, I’ve been able to sniff out [bad listings]. If it looks funny, and if it smells funny, it probably is funny.”
Starting out, Galvin’s first email of listings had 25 people on the other end. He informed the Journal that the yesterday’s email contained over 2,500 email addresses. With TixList growing as a successful website, Galvin has more plans in store. Currently, he’s working on a book, which he hopes to release in the beginning of 2011.
“It’s going to be called Fenway My Way, a season ticket holder’s guide to doing Fenway the right way,” said Galvin. The book will contain information from best places to sit in Fenway all the way to best parking places or places to visit after the game.
Galvin hopes, with the growth of his company, to expand to other cities. “I see myself doing TixList in New York, TixList in Philadelphia, TixList in Chicago, TixList in Dallas. My eventual, long term vision is to have 50,000 subscribers in Boston, 50,000 in New York, 50,000 across every city.”
Galvin’s idea of connecting buyers to sellers in Boston is picking up and picking up quickly. “What I do isn’t rocket science, but there’s a lot of time in it. I’m saving people [time],” said Galvin. “Who wants to spend two or three hours looking through postings? No one.”
