With Playroll.me users can find events and name their own price

Playroll.me is giving attendees and organizers more options for putting events together. Founded and manned in Hong Kong by a three-person team hailing from McKinsey & Company, Goldman Sachs, and Soda Card, the fledgling startup is seeking to become a central player in Hong Kong’s social scene.

Users can benefit in a variety of ways. The simplest benefit is a straight discount for registering via the service – as seen by this album launch. Other events, like this Christmas-themed jazz night have special packages if you buy a pair of tickets. Diligent users of Playroll.me can also register for events (like a touring Japanese pop group and receive regular updates as gig details get finalized.

The most notable feature of the service is its name-your-own-price tool. Co-founder and CEO Enoch Chan tells Tech in Asia that the tool allows organizers to test demand and then price dynamically. The pop-punk band Yellowcard is one of the acts giving this method a try.

Since its 2013 founding, Playroll.me has garnered US$600,000 in revenue and is already US$50,000 in the black.

Judges’ Comments

One of PlayRoll’s co-founder’s, Enoch Chan, was on our stage today at Startup Asia looking to raise around US$1million to US$2million.

Stefan Jung, partner of Monk’s Hill Ventures and one of our four judges today had some concerns regarding PlayRoll’s heavy focus on the bidding system, citing past experiences from companies such as eBay who learned that users do not particularly like the bidding system. Chan stated that in the concert industry, fans who really want the ticket would jump through hoops, thus driving the price up. Jung then asked how early in advance do users buy a ticket, Chan claimed that in their research it was 6 – 8 weeks for normal tickets and 7 days for VIP “name your price” tickets. Khailee Ng, managing partner of 500 startups asked about their user acquisition strategy. Chan stated that it was pretty simple and straight forward, as they use only Facebook and Google ads. Willson Cuaca, managing partner of East Ventures, asked about the market size, Chan stated that it was US$130million in Hong Kong, with the combined total of South East Asia coming up to about US$100million.

See: Gaming events in Asia are always more for the fans

This is part of the coverage of Startup Asia Jakarta 2014, our event running on November 26 and 27. Check out all the Startup Arena pitches here. You can follow along on Twitter at @techinasia and on our Facebook page.