Last week, in Part I of this two-part article, your man Durgin dared to ask the question “What’s in a name?” The query was directed at some of those INTIX member-companies with names that might not be readily apparent as to their meaning or origin. Response was so strong that we have indeed split the feature in two. And let’s start with two companies that have made big strides in recent years, even though their names have been relegated (by design) to the small print.
Two Big Companies That Compel You to Read the Small Print
There are a couple of companies within the INTIX membership that insist on spelling their names all lower-case. So, in addition to getting the story behind their names, we asked “Uh, why so small?!” First up is menta tech. Iñaki Sanchez Lopez, co-founder and CEO, reveals, “We'd love to tell you the name came out of a carefully considered branding session. The truth is simpler and better — menta is the name of our founder’s cat!”
Here's how it happened. When menta was launched nearly five years ago, the small staff was working out of the veranda at one of the founders' homes and menta, the cat, was always there. “He was ‘part of the furniture’ for everything we built in those early days,” Lopez recalls. “So, the name started as an inside joke — ‘Whatever this thing was going to become, menta had been in the room for all of it!’”
He continues, “Then it got serious. As the company professionalized, we stopped to ask whether ‘menta’ was really a name worth keeping, and that's when it clicked: menta is Spanish for mint, and mint turned out to mean everything we were trying to build. It's fresh, clean and unmistakable, but also quietly relentless. It grows fast, thrives in difficult conditions and takes hold in whatever ground it's given. That's a fair description of what we do. A cat gave us the word; mint gave us the reason to keep it.”
And why all lower case? Lopez replies, “Both come from the same place: menta is infrastructure, and infrastructure works best when it's quiet. Lower case is a posture. We don't capitalize the name, even at the start of a sentence, because menta isn't meant to shout over the platforms it sits inside. Our partners keep their brand, their users, their experience; menta runs the resale layer beneath all of it.”
Also keeping it lower case is accesso. Chaeli Walker, Campaign Marketing Manager for the company explains the origin: “The accesso name was adopted following Lo-Q's acquisition of accesso LLC in 2012. As the combined company expanded beyond virtual queuing into ticketing, eCommerce and guest experience technology, the new name reflected a broader vision and a unified brand. More importantly, it captures our core purpose: helping attractions, venues and live entertainment organizations access the technology they need to improve the guest experience, operate more efficiently and grow revenue.”
Walker went on to explain that the lower-case "a" is simply a brand styling choice that has been part of the company's identity since the original accesso brand was established. She states, “It reflects a clean, modern and approachable look while creating a distinctive visual identity across our products and communications. There's no deeper significance behind the lower-case spelling beyond maintaining a consistent and recognizable brand. Another lesser-known fact and branding choice: accesso should always be bold, semi-bold or offset with italics.”
Companies That Take Their Names From the Arts
When it comes to ticketing and live events, companies have a broad array of words and terms to use from the arts when naming their businesses. One organization that has taken advantage in this regard is Tessitura. President and CEO Andrew Recinos says, “Tessitura is a term that refers to the comfortable octave range of a particular piece. A song written for Mariah Carey may have a multi-octave Tessitura that reaches to the highest notes. A song written for me would have a very narrow Tessitura — maybe five notes [chuckling]. Our name is a nod to our first organization — the Metropolitan Opera — and has lived on as the range of our member organizations has continued to soar.”
SINE Digital has its origins in both music and technology. A sine wave is a sound wave with a single frequency. It produces a pure tone, a tone without harmonics or overtones. Darby Lunceford, VP, Arts & Culture (US) for SINE Digital, recalls, “SINE Digital was founded in the U.K. in 2017. Prior to establishing the company, our founder and CEO James Dale was in an English indie pop/rock band called Goldheart Assembly. They actually had a pretty decent following. Due to various circumstances and the demise of MySpace, the band completely lost its digital presence. Because the industry heavily invested in acts that already had online fan bases, the label dropped them and presenters wouldn't book them.”
Lunceford adds, “Thus, James and a bandmate created SINE Digital built on the foundations of data to help the artist and art and culture sectors traverse the ever-changing digital landscape. Given the music background and the implication of data science, they named it SINE . . . i.e., sine music waves.”
A Tale of vivenu
For some, it would be a challenge to run a ticketing company with no ticket in its name. Not so in the case of vivenu. Maik Erkelenz, Global Director Marketing for vivenu, was eager to tell the full story of his company’s (lower-case) name in print for the first time here.
He says, “We did not start as vivenu. We started as yourticket, and the name fit who we were. The product was nowhere near what it is now, but we had one promise we could keep while we built it and learned the industry: tailor-made ticketing, cut like a suit, shaped around whatever the organizer in front of us needed. We loved that hands-on work.”
But the time came when the company’s leaders asked whether its name still fit. Management ended up finding three reasons to let yourticket go. The first was the product. “We had grown past the ticket.” Erkelenz states. “Entry was becoming one part of what we built, alongside data, distribution, brand and the whole commercial engine around an event. A name that says ticket draws a box, and we had stopped fitting inside it.”
The second reason was “findability.” He explains. “Your ticket are two of the most common words in the language. Type them into a search bar, and you get everything and nothing. Even people who knew us struggled to find us. We did not foresee generative engines in that room, but the instinct was right: be the only result for your own name, and put what you stand for inside it.”
The third reason is the one Erkelenz and his colleagues still tell new staff members on their first day. “We are driven by something bigger than helping sell tickets,” he states. “ We asked ourselves what we are actually here for, and how to put that into a name that still fits the work.”
He went on to describe a ticket as “a promise of a moment.” It could be a first concert. Or a first Broadway show. Or the game when your home team finally wins it all. Erkelenz notes, “The Latin word for ‘to live’ is vivere. That was the first half.”
He says, “The second half had a different job. Our platform is for everyone who creates those moments, from festivals to stadiums to conference halls. So the word had to hold all of it: a stadium, an opera house, a festival field, a museum — whatever this industry builds next. Every one of them is a venue. So venue went into the name. vivere + venue = vivenu. We tested it. The letterform holds, the v-i-v rhythm repeating like a signature. And one test that sounds childish and is anything but: you can write the whole name without lifting the pen. Try it! Six letters, one stroke, the way you sign your own name.”
Finally, What’s in a Name . . . of a New AI Agent?!
Lastly, there is the curious case of FEVO. Steve DeMots, Chief Commercial Officer and Head of Alliances, was only slightly interested in explaining the (all upper-case) name. “We used to be called Host Committee. Leadership at the time wanted a shorter, catchier name that we could get the URL for, and they came up with FEVO.”
But what he and his FEVO colleagues are really proud of in this moment is their new AI agent that they’re in the process of rolling out that helps build offers. “There is a GREAT human interest story behind that name!” he exclaims.
And, indeed, there is. The fan commerce platform used by hundreds of sports and entertainment organizations this month announced Gibson, an AI-powered Offer Creation Agent that allows sales, marketing and operations teams to build, configure and publish ticketing offers through simple conversation.
DeMots states, “Gibson is named in honor of Gibson Harnett, a beloved member of the FEVO team who passed away in January 2024 after a courageous battle with clear cell sarcoma. Gibson was 24 years old. Before his passing, he founded Time to Compete, a charity supporting young adults facing late-stage cancer diagnoses. He embodied the spirit of competing hard, showing up fully and making the people around him better — qualities that feel right at home in the work FEVO is building toward. Naming this agent after him is the team's way of keeping him in the room.”
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