California Festival Slashes Ticketing Fees by 99% by Building Its Own Platform On Shopify—Now It’s Ready to Expand

Photo Credit: Same Same But Different Festival / Instagram

San Diego’s SSBD Festival claims it cut 99% of ticketing fees with its self-made Shopify platform, lowering the price of one of its tiers by $60.

San Diego’s Same Same But Different Festival (SSBD) says it has lowered the price of one of its ticketing tiers by $60, slashing ticketing fees by an incredible 99% by using a self-made ticketing platform on Shopify. The California festival has announced its 2027 Community Tier, offering general admission presale tickets for $295 thanks to a 75-cent fee built into the new price. Last year’s $355 price carried roughly $56 in fees.

Festival organizers credit its Shopify-based ticketing platform, ShopTickets, for the lower fees. SSBD co-founder and CEO Brad Sweet developed ShopTickets, drawing on his experience working in investment banking and tech prior to launching the festival.

“Ticketing fees have gotten disconnected from the actual cost of selling a ticket,” said Sweet. “We realized that instead of complaining about it, we could build something better. So we did.”

ShopTickets is built on Shopify infrastructure and can be used to support festivals, promoters, venues, and touring events, offering a variety of ticket tiers and reserved seating. Promoters can use the platform without being bound to multi-year ticketing agreements, as ShopTickets has no long-term contracts.

SSBD raised more than $690,000 through a WeFunder campaign last year by selling equity in ShopTickets to fans, extending the ownership model it applied when it launched the festival itself.

“If something we create becomes valuable, the community that helped us get there should participate in that value,” Sweet explained.

The news follows SSBD’s 2026 edition just days ago at Lake Perris State Park. This year’s tickets were sold through Tixr. ShopTickets, which has been listed in the Shopify App Store since December, charges a flat fee per ticket rather than a percentage cut.

A Federal Trade Commission (FTC) rule enacted in May 2025 requires all live event ticket sellers to disclose the total prices—including mandatory fees—up front. ShopTickets essentially just minimizes how much of that total goes toward mandatory fees.