Holdmyticket.com Facilitating Live Stream Events

Collected Works Bookstore and Coffeehouse also embraces the art of the live stream

While performing arts communities around the world scramble to replace lost shows, lost income and an uncertain future, the online live stream model seems the best choice for reaching fans. But since this is also a job for many, Albuquerque-based ticketing company HoldMyTicket (holdmyticket.com) is stepping in to provide free tools for anyone looking to live stream an event.

"It's the same thing we do every time you create an event," Caitlin Cano, the outfit's strategic content and marketing manager, tells SFR. "[Ticket buyers] will get an email with their e-tickets and a link to the live stream—and there's no way people can share the link because you need to have the actual e-ticket."

HoldMyTicket hosts the streams, and they're viewable on computers or mobile devices such as phones and tablets. Cano says HoldMyTicket is a small business looking to help other small businesses survive amid the chaos of COVID-19.

HoldMyTicket makes money from service charges, though that format is no different than its usual business model. Signing up and ticketing an event is free and, Cano says, live streamers have already hosted a number of successful events. If all goes well, the service could extend far beyond New Mexico in the near future.

Cano also emphasizes that anyone can use the service, from performing artists and musicians to dance teachers, personal trainers and beyond—they simply need to make an account at sell.holdmyticket.com and select the live stream option.

The live streaming situation has indeed exploded over the last week. SFR previously reported on musician Trevor Bahnson, a former Santa Fean, performing live on Facebook nightly as aggressive social distancing stretches on. Collected Works Bookstore and Coffeehouse's Cecile Lipworth is using the store's Facebook page to kick off a free children's story hour on Friday, March 20 at 10 am, intended for children ages 3-5. Lipworth will read from Ronald Wohlman's The Kingdom of Nothing, a book about how little we actually need, which she feels is apropos of the moment.

"We're a community-based store," Lipworth tells SFR, "and we have to pivot into figuring out how we can still offer community events that support our community, that entertain people and that also support the authors who are now not doing any book tours."

Lipworth says Collected Works has already hosted some online author events and will continue to do so, and that the store has taken new provisions into account, including curbside service and free postage in New Mexico for books bought online.

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