“It’s brutal. Nobody likes their vendor in my space.”

Lucas McCarthy, founder and CEO of Calgary-based Showpass, doesn’t pretend the ticketing business is easy or well loved. For more than a decade, he’s been proving there’s a different way to build trust in an industry that frustrates people more than it delights them.

Speaking to Digital Journal at Inventures 2025, McCarthy explained how grew from a scrappy startup with just enough cash to survive into a platform that helps power everything from music festivals to berry picking and curling bonspiels.

From the start, Showpass focused on taking smarter risks, keeping money flowing without chasing invoices and putting real people on the phone when things went wrong. As McCarthy puts it, “nobody was doing” that when they launched. That commitment still shapes how the company works with thousands of organizers today.

Now, the company is doubling down on what made it stand out in the first place. McCarthy said Showpass is working on a smarter recommendation engine to help people discover what’s happening in their city; the company is financing events that bigger players might overlook; and he shared views on hiring teams that stay for the long term.

For Alberta’s tech community, it’s a look at how an established company keeps changing to back local culture, small businesses and the people behind the scenes.

[Watch the full video interview below]

How to keep the lights on and the risks in check

McCarthy and his team built Showpass to keep cash coming in and to help organizers who might not get funding elsewhere. That decision, made years ago, still shapes how they take risks today.

Unlike many startups, Showpass didn’t chase big funding rounds when it launched. Instead, it was built around steady cash flow.

“Ticketing is unique, because if you bought a ticket to something in a week or a year, you don’t need an accounts receivable department. You never need to chase down your money,” says McCarthy. “You always get to clip it as it comes in.”

That structure has helped the company focus on real problems faced by event organizers, especially small teams that handle huge ticket volumes with few staff.

Showpass also found ways to act more like a business partner than just a vendor. It put real people on the phone and on site to fix problems as they came up. That approach still holds today for thousands of events.

This mindset is also why Showpass sometimes finances events directly. Years of ticket data help spot trends that banks or investors might miss. McCarthy says the company will back ideas that might not happen otherwise.

“If you have a reasonable estimate on how something is going to perform, and you don’t take action in supporting it and creating it, in allowing it to flourish in whatever market, we’re doing a disservice to our organizers,” he says.

Sometimes the bets work. Sometimes they don’t. But McCarthy believes sharing risk is better than letting new experiences die.

[Watch the full video interview below]

Making ‘things to do’ easier to find

Showpass’s biggest bet may be that people want more than just a smooth checkout. They want to find things they didn’t even know were happening in their city, and trust that someone will help if things go sideways.

“Our thesis… is that in order to deliver them an amazing experience, they need to understand everything that’s going on in a city,” says McCarthy. “They need to know that the berry picking is there. They need to know that they can go to the theme park.”

Unlike competitors focused mostly on big concerts and sports, Showpass is building a recommendation engine that can match a fan of tattoo expos to an art show or a family festival. The same audience, McCarthy says, might want entirely different experiences each day of the week.

“Our platform understands that on a Tuesday you may be a sporting fan, and on a Friday you may be a Rosé fan.”

The challenge, he says, is to know enough about local tastes to make those connections.

That local focus even shapes what Showpass helps create. McCarthy’s team has tested community pop-ups in unlikely places, like hosting conversations in breweries or helping organizers use underused spaces for niche events. If the community wants it but an organizer can’t afford it, Showpass might step in with financing or production support.

“Our central goal in all of these things is to create more opportunities for people to go do things,” says McCarthy. “And that category, we call just ‘things to do.’ It’s super broad, but that’s our business: it’s ‘things to do’.”

[Watch the full video interview below]

In it for the long run

For all the data and tech, McCarthy believes the company’s people-first approach is what makes it work. That includes how he hires.

Too many founders, he says, build companies assuming everyone will stick around for two years at best. McCarthy wants to recruit people he could see working alongside him for the long run.

“I’ve always recruited for life. I’ve wanted to build a company with people that I wanted to build every other company, whether it was this one or the next one,” he says. “That is something that’s completely overlooked, because… when you build a company, you don’t consider what this person’s relationship with you will look like in 20 years.”

That long view shaped how the company handled tough moments during the COVID pandemic and continues to guide decisions on risk and growth. In a sector where last-minute ticket sales and sudden shifts can make or break an event, trust and stability are proving just as important as any platform feature.

For Alberta’s innovation scene, it’s a reminder that building what lasts sometimes means going slow, staying local and paying attention to people — the ones throwing the events, the ones attending, and the ones keeping the lights on behind the scenes.

Watch the interview: