Today, TicketCo powers professional sport across Europe - from national leagues to elite clubs - with a platform built for the realities of modern matchday operations. But our story didn’t begin with stadiums and scale. It started in a rock club inside a former bomb shelter in Bergen, Norway - with a scanner, a problem, and a belief that ticketing could be better. Here’s how it all started - and how it has progressed.
Long before founding a tech company, Carl-Erik Michalsen Moberg and Kåre Bottolfsen were event organisers in Bergen, Norway. In 2012, they were frustrated. The ticketing systems available were clunky, outdated, and made simple tasks painfully slow—one even required fax-machines to complete transactions.
So they started doing what most organisers dream of but rarely do: they built their own. A system that was supposed to be modern, intuitive, and could get an event on sale in minutes, not days.
But they didn’t stop there. They wondered: Are there others like us?
Just down the street from their office was Hulen (The Cave), the oldest rock club in Northern Europe. When they visited the student volunteers who ran it, they found an even bigger problem: without access to scanners, the club had no way of preventing ticket fraud. Attendees could duplicate PDF tickets and enter without detection. This wasn’t a niche pain—it was widespread.
That insight led to TicketCo’s first major breakthrough: a mobile-friendly, built-in scanner system, turning ordinary smartphones into secure gate devices. A small innovation, but with huge impact. Word spread. More venues called.
One of those early calls came from Sogndal IL, a professional football club nestled between fjords in western Norway, playing at Fosshaugane Campus, a 5,622-seat stadium. At the time, TicketCo was still a fledgling solution built for small venues and clubs. Carl-Erik and Kåre initially declined—Sogndal, they thought, was too big for them.
But Sogndal didn’t back off. They insisted.
That determination led to TicketCo’s first foray into professional sport. In close collaboration with the club, TicketCo developed key football-specific features—seat maps, season ticketing, access control integrations, and supporter communication tools. What emerged was a scalable solution with real-time capabilities, designed to meet the operational demands of a stadium but still intuitive enough for non-technical users.
The breakthrough at Sogndal opened new doors. Soon after, Norsk Toppfotball—the governing body of Norway’s top two professional leagues (Eliteserien and OBOS-ligaen), representing 32 clubs across the country—announced a public tender for a unified ticketing solution.
TicketCo entered the race alongside ten competitors, some of them being the world’s leading ticketing providers. Despite being a young company, TicketCo’s agile, club-first approach resonated with the league’s strong commitment to innovation and digital transformation.
Against all odds, TicketCo won.
That partnership became a defining moment. Not only did it validate TicketCo as a serious player in the professional sports space—it shaped its product roadmap, values, and vision. With direct input from clubs across all tiers of Norwegian football, TicketCo evolved into a platform that didn’t just serve football—it was shaped by football.
From that point forward, sport wasn’t just a vertical. It became TicketCo’s core identity.
Winning the trust of Norsk Toppfotball was a game-changer. With a national rollout across two tiers of professional football, TicketCo matured quickly. But success at home sparked a bigger question:
If this works in Norway—could it work elsewhere?
The answer wasn’t to dip a toe into a small adjacent market. Instead, TicketCo went straight to the UK—the birthplace of modern football, and home to the world’s most competitive ticketing landscape. The reason for this decision?
“If we can make it there we can make it anywhere.”
It was an ambitious move, but it matched the company’s philosophy: bold, direct, and partner-driven. The focus remained the same—listen to clubs, understand their operational pain points, and build technology that solves them, fast.
After launching in England, Sweden followed, and then Ireland. In each country, TicketCo has entered through collaboration—securing trusted partnerships with local clubs and leagues before expanding further.
In 2024, this approach culminated in two major league-wide contracts:
These league partnerships have reaffirmed TicketCo’s position as a rising force in European sports ticketing. They’ve also brought TicketCo closer to its long-term goal: to build the world’s best ticketing solution for sport and focusing on creating the best fan journey in the world—in lockstep with the clubs and leagues who shape it.
While TicketCo has always been a tech company, its greatest strength is its community mindset.
That mindset gave rise to Don’t Forget Your Tickets (DFYT)—TicketCo’s content and community platform for the sports ticketing industry. What began as a podcast has grown into a multi-channel knowledge hub that brings together voices from across global sport.
Today, DFYT features:
DFYT has helped elevate the conversation around ticketing - from a back-office function to a strategic asset. It has also given TicketCo a front-row seat to the trends, challenges, and ideas shaping the future of sport.
Meanwhile, behind the scenes, the company has scaled its capabilities. Development teams in Lviv (Ukraine) and Dhaka (Bangladesh) now drive continuous product evolution, while commercial teams in Norway, Sweden, the UK, and Ireland bring local insight to every market.
From podcasting to platform architecture, from grassroots clubs to league-wide deployments - TicketCo is no longer just a vendor.
It’s a partner. A builder. A listener. And it’s moving fast.
While TicketCo now operates across multiple markets, it remains proudly Norwegian.
"Norway has a strong tradition of innovation, and we bring that mindset into everything we do. Simplicity, efficiency, and technology that just works - that’s our DNA."
With a carefully selected team of experts, TicketCo continues to push forward—helping clubs own their data, streamline operations, and create seamless fan experiences. But for Carl-Erik, the true passion lies in something bigger: building a company that delivers real value.
"What excites me isn’t just football—it’s solving problems. When you build something that truly makes a difference for your customers, success follows. That’s what drives me. And in ticketing, the biggest impact comes from eliminating friction and unlocking new opportunities for clubs and fans alike."
Over a decade since that first visit to Hulen, Carl-Erik still sees the same structural problems in the ticketing world:
“Too many clubs—big and small—have little say in how their platforms are designed or which problems are solved. Innovation often happens above their heads, not at their side.”
TicketCo exists to change that. It listens first. Then build. Then solve it.
And it remains committed to its mission: To become the world’s best ticketing solution for sport, built in partnership with those who live it.
