When you and your friends want to find something to do on Friday night, where do you look? A favorite club's website? Social media? LA Weekly? Despite the fact that there's so much to do on any given night in LA, it's hard to find them all in one place.
LA-based Rivo hopes to change that. The events curation app allows users to follow their favorite artists, venues and clubs so any time a new show is announced, all the followers will know.
Founded by LA tech veterans Peter Trepp and Mark Mazur, as well as LA native Taylor Ross, Rivo, which launched in May, allows users to manage every aspect of attending an event, from buying the ticket to alerting friends, all within the app. But while it might make going to a concert with friends much easier than more conventional methods, it also helps artists develop a following.
“We very much see ourselves as a platform for those who don't necessarily have as big of a voice because they have a limited marketing budget,” said Ross, who also doubles as Rivo’s community director. “It's a curated feed of events that's especially unique user-to-user, and where the value lies for the event organizer is that we're able to create this sticky connection once you get someone to follow your channel. We don't want them to just know about the event this week, we want them to know about all of the events in the future.”
Creating a one-stop shop for events has been difficult for developers in the past. Whether it be a lack of relevance or the necessity for users to RSVP or buy tickets outside of the app, there aren’t many consolidated options for people who want to discover new things to do.
“Everybody tries to scrape APIs from Eventbrite or Ticketmaster, but there's no structure to these events, none of them are connected or organized in a way that they should be,” said Ross. “What we do on the app is connect events via hashtags and neighborhoods so we increase the exposure for events. We very much wanted to consolidate the steps that go into planning and attending events, consolidate all those things on the app so when the user has all the tools to act on the event.”
Rivo users receive a notification when an event is added to one of the channels they follow, and the app allows them to add it to a personal calendar, purchase tickets or share with friends, streamlining the process and allowing users to focus on simply printing out the tickets.
“If you look at something like EventBrite, it's a platform for people looking to throw one event, and it’s great for that one event, but it's not connected to the venue or similar events that are going on,” said Ross. “I think the biggest differentiator, and honestly the aspect that I think has us positioned to really find a place in the market, is that you can follow entities and stay up to date with all those events.”
For now, the Rivo team is focused on raising funds to help the app launch in additional markets. Despite its sheer size, which makes it difficult for people to know exactly what's going on in different neighborhoods around the city, Ross said he believes launching in LA has allowed the Rivo team to learn lessons vital not not only launching an app, but understanding what is important to the app's users.
“We knew going in that launching in LA would be the hardest market because of how segmented everything is by neighborhood, but I feel that as we move into new markets, what we've learned from LA will really help us out," said Ross. "I really see it as something that can provide value for the underserved one day, and help change the way people interact with events and networking.”
Images via Shutterstock
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