Ticmate has decided to stop selling tickets to bullfights in Madrid. Here is the internal message from CEO and founder Marcus Moeschlin explaining the thoughts behind the decision:
”Ticmate will stop selling tickets to bullfighting
Dear Mates,
Just when the season was about to end, the question came up whether we should keep selling tickets to bullfighting and after giving it a thorough thought the short answer is ”No, we will no longer sell tickets to bullfighting”. A big thank you for all the feedback both in shape of spontaneous reactions and also to those who got the question ”formally”.
In an isolated point of view, I think it is an easy question. It is totally against the Ticmate values to sell tickets to an event which final purpose is to kill an animal. It is also a part of my job to look a bit further and that is when I find the question much more complex. Other of Ticmate´s core values are working for tolerance, affirming a cultural variety and think in long term and with consistency.
The question about tolerance is to me the most difficult one since we as a consequence to this decision are saying that we don´t tolerate bullfighting. Personally, I am concerned about that the levels of tolerance are decreasing so fast over the world. What is considered politically correct is a very narrow path that creates ”fanatic” followers and ”fanatic” opponents that contributes to the unfortunate polarization in the society.
Personally, I try to be as tolerant as I can as long as other people are not injured along the way and if we also include animals here, it turns into an almost ungraspable enormous question.
If we should think long term and consistently; Why such huge focus on some bulls being slaughtered in a disgusting way when there are, for example, almost a billion pigs in the world, where most of them probably suffer a lot more in their lifetime than these few bulls? Should we stop offering our clients to have their meals in restaurants that serve meat? We could run this argument to absurdity about what is politically correct and what should be tolerated and this is actually happening already in the daily debate, where e.g. Astrid Lindgren´s books are being questioned and the latest idea is that Alfons Åberg should be hazardous for children.
And coming to the debate regarding the refugees we can see how fast the ideas are changing on what is considered politically correct. I feel much more consolidated that Ticmate is supporting the refugees in Syria, which we started to do already in 2013, while the rest of the world looked the other way and especially now when the European borders after a few months of being more open, are now closing again in an even more efficient way.
A little reminder when we now see the images from Greece: ”For the gift of 500 000 SEK from Ticmate, MSF can provide medical equipment, medicine, and basic healthcare to 80 000 people in a refugee camp for three months.”
This being said, I hope we all can see this as an isolated decision based on the opinion of the majority and I understand if you think that I am way off here, considering the entire society´s evolution in this decision
Again, thank you for your commitment and that we all seem to work for tolerance, affirming a cultural variety and think longterm and with consistency.
Kindly,
Marcus
P.S. I come from a family of artists where Pablo Picasso was the ultimate definition of culture, including his paintings of bullfights which indisputably are part of the cultural heritage of Europe DS.”
