Applauze launches its iOS ticket finding app in five Canadian cities

Canadian cities like Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver rarely lack exciting events, from clubs to bars to sports arenas, but ask someone to corral all those listings into one place — especially on a smartphone — and you’ll get head scratches.

Applauze is an app by a company that thinks it can solve this problem. 955 Dreams, the company behind the app expanding into five Canadian cities today, first found success on the iPhone with 2011’s award-winning Band of the Day. Applauze takes what the team learned in those early days and applies it to commerce: users can find and purchase tickets in four categories: music, theatre, sports and community.

“We started looking at the events space and found all other experiences severely lacking. There needed to be an app entirely focused on the customer and their needs — free and paid events optimized for the user, delivered in a beautiful and intuitive interface that just works. That’s Applauze.” – Kiran Bellubbi, Applauze CEO.

Launching in Toronto, Calgary, Montreal, Edmonton and Vancouver, with promises to reach more Canadians in the near future, the app beautifully displays upcoming events of shows, many of which are sold out through Ticketmaster or other providers. It’s possible to purchase tickets with a credit card from within the app, though prices appear uncomfortably inflated, often selling for twice what a local provider would charge. Users can report higher than normal ticket prices, too, and inviting friends to Applauze nets both sender and sendee $5 to use towards future buys.

If another user, gleaned from Facebook or elsewhere, connects with you on an event, a group chat forms to work out the particulars. Service fees, along with shipping costs and a small take home for Applauze itself, are cut into the total ticket price — the company promises “no surprises” — and total costs are comparable to StubHub or TicketsNow, according to the developer.