Towards the end of January, Bhutan witnessed an extraordinary event. It hosted its largest ever international concert by world-famous singer Ed Sheeran. Behind the success of this major event also lies several unknown stories of triumph one of which is Tix.bt, an online booking platform. In this story, we look at how a group of college students developed the platform that helped provide a seamless online ticketing experience and in its own right contributed to the success of the event.
Ngawang Chojey Rai, the team leader of Xceed Studio, recollects how a chain of coding competitions or hackathons led them to building the online ticketing platform.
While constantly challenging themselves in different competitions, they found themselves in last year’s GovTech Hackathon, which had a huge cash prize and promising projects.
Although they did not win the competition, he says their participation in the event is what connected them to the Royal Office for Media.
Ngawang Chojey Rai said “Mr. Phuntsho Gayenden, who participated in the hackathon, recommended us to be part of the team, and ROM accepted us. We are very glad for their trust in us. As undergraduate students, we did not even have much industry experience. So, we built the system for about six months.”
In the beginning, the team had no idea who the performing artist would be but they were told it was going to be someone very big. The team was told it had six months to get the platform ready and so they started, juggling their work with their classes, to develop a robust platform.
Even after the platform was ready, he said their work was not ready.
Deploying the platform came with its own set of challenges.
Ngawang Chojey Rai said “We were the development team, then we became the customer and support team. We also became the ones who mediated between foreigners and everything in between. So, it was a totally new experience and we are very glad for the opportunity.”
He emphasised how working under immense pressure and proper mentorship taught them more than any college course ever could.
Furthermore, Ngawang said that suddenly, Tix.bt was not just a platform; it was a gateway to a moment that would forever be etched in Bhutan’s story.
Meanwhile, Niraj Bhattarai, another team member, reflected on improvements that can be made to Tix.bt.
He said that the current payment gateway has limitations, especially for international users. It involves only local banks which restricts accessibility, and integrating international payment gateways such as Stripe or Western Union would ease usability and accessibility.
“As we saw the event ending, we saw Instagram remarks by the band, One Republic. He thanked Ed Sheeran for opening the gate to Bhutan and hinting at a future event that could be held in Bhutan. He could be using our platform since it is the first one built for international and national tickets, but it could be better since the payment systems have limited options. If we have more payment options and better load-handling systems, then it would be better for hosting international events as well as local events here.”
Though Tix.bt was their first major project, the young developers believe it is just the beginning. The team hopes to apply everything they have learned to redefine how Bhutan connects with events.
Devika Pradhan
Edited by Yeshi Gyaltshen
