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Punk fans are most likely to be called Matt, says Ents 24

By Chris Cooke | Published on Friday 17 November 2017

A punk fan is most likely to be called Matt, while your mate Tom probably likes electronic music, anyone called Chloe possibly digs hip hop, and Mike can’t get enough of folk music. Oh, and classical fans are most likely to be called Margaret and metal-heads Dave.

These bold statements have come from live entertainment guide Ents24 and are based on it crunching a decade’s worth of data gathered from its platform. Or in the words of Ents 24 itself: “These findings, while tongue-in-cheek, are derived from a vast wealth of data … detailing millions of connections between fans, artists, venues, tickets and towns”.

The data crunching has been done by the company’s Ents24 Labs unit, which has just developed a thing called the ‘event affinity engine’ that tries to predict what kinds of events someone might be interested in based on where they live, their favourite bands and – why the hell not? – even what their name is. People can now play with this ‘event affinity engine’ via the Smart Gift Finder that Ents24 has just launched.

Says the company’s Mark Wood: “In addition to our comprehensive events database, we have a wealth of historical user data here at Ents24. The goal of our new Labs initiative is to dig into and analyse that data with novel methods and cutting-edge tech, and then pass on the insights we gain to our customers and industry partners”.

On the Smart Gift Finder tool, the firm’s Adam Brooks adds: “Generalised gift guides that treat ‘mums’, ‘dads’, ‘kids’ etc as homogenous groups are blunt and ineffective tools, and so we were intent on reinventing them. In addition, we know that people favour experiences over products when buying and receiving gifts, but also that buying the right ticket for somebody else is not always an easy process”.