With the return of major concerts and other events after the COVID-19 pandemic, travelers are on the road again. In order to make it easier for them to book their stays, a new platform has launched to help the traveler—as well as event staffers.
Crewfare is an integrated, seamless and social way for people to book event travel, powered by technology and a user-friendly digital interface. “We founded Crewfare in 2021 with the goal of tying the booking experience into a larger group travel event-goer journey,” said Jason van Esso, founder/CEO, Creware. “That idea has since evolved into a travel tech company with an integrated, seamless and social way for groups of people to attend their favorite events and discover new experiences. We quickly realized that not only are we involved on a b2b level with hotels through relationships and procuring supply, but also with the events themselves.”
Since its founding, Crewfare has accommodated travel for 200,000-plus travelers across more than 3,000 hotel partners with more than 75 global live events slated for 2023, including Rolling Loud, Ultra Music Festival, South Beach Wine & Food Festival and Governors Ball.
“We are the glue that connect hotels with these really exciting experiences,” he said. “The technology can allow those two to combine sometimes hotels are coming from a more corporate business-focused lens, while events are coming from a way less corporate business-focused lens and we speak that language and use our tech to tie it all together.”
The founders, including Jordan Scheffler and Zach Picon, have experience putting on large-scale events. “Over the years producing large-scale events, we kept running into roadblocks when it came to travel—for attendees and internally for our team,” said van Esso. “A software that addresses this pain point didn’t exist, so we created one.”
Scheffler added, “As we built this platform for consumers, we found all these other gaps in the market—the staff travel, destination package travel—so we’ve started looking at…how you get individuals or groups to experiences.”
Hotels on the platform, which are curated by Crewfare, gain direct access to large room blocks from event-goers, sponsors, VIPs and staff.
The company works with event organizers to meet their needs, offering heavily discounted accommodations curated by its team, 24/7 customer support and access to exclusive extras like merchandise and shuttle passes—bookable on Crewfare’s website and directly through festival websites.
Event organizers can also monetize their attendees’ travel with bespoke solutions, including white-label booking pages powered by Crewfare. The platform also has a centralized and personalized internal staff travel booking portal, “making archaic room block Excel grids obsolete,” according to Van Essen.