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Humanitix co-founders, Josh Ross and Adam McCurdie, have been recognised as emerging leaders by the Committee for Sydney as part of the thinktank’s annual awards alongside other NSW business and culture leaders.

The awards recognise Humanitix’s social enterprise activities that sees it donate booking fees for tickets that it sells for festivals, concerts and events to children’s charities.

Since launching Humanitix in a garage in 2016, the ticketing platform has grown rapidly, now ticketing about 14,000 events at any one time with operations in Australia, New Zealand and the USA.

McCurdie explained “live events and events ticketing are notorious for charging booking fees, and these booking fees add up to billions of dollars across the planet.

“Our idea was simple, which was: can you create a ticketing platform that gives away all the profits from these booking fees to funding the most impactful children’s charities … so that we can transform what was previously a resented fee into millions, maybe even billions of dollars of funding every year, into things that really matter?”

While the social enterprise initially struggled when live events were cancelled when the pandemic started in 2020, the business worked with organisers on ways to run events online or offer vouchers for future events and was able to keep growing.

Noting that “these were creative ways to help our thousands of event hosts stay afloat”, McCurdie advised that the company is now donating more than $1 million to partner charities every year.

Award judge and executive dean of the Macquarie Business School, Professor Eric Knight, said it provided an exciting example for up and coming business founders on how to make a social impact, noting “Humanitix takes a part of our life that is very transactional - buying tickets - and turns it into something that’s transformational, making a difference in the world.

“They realised people want to be transformational even when they do really mundane activities like buying tickets to a concert. They’ve found a way to inspire a generation of business leaders to think about business for good.”

Ross and McCurdie were recognised for their work as part of the Sydney Awards that seek to celebrate and elevate people working to “make Sydney the best city in the world”.

The awards also recognised Sydney Opera House Chief Executive, Louise Herron for her work to “invigorate and reposition” the landmark venue.

Herron, who recently oversaw the venue’s major renewal program, was awarded the City Visionary Award.

The global Sydney award was handed to outgoing artistic director of Bangarra Dance Theatre, Stephen Page, who led the company for more than 30 years.

Image: Humanitix’s Adam McCurdie (left) and Josh Ross. Credit: Humanitix.

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