Introducing Salato: Events. Tickets. Experiences.
Think about the last event you attended in Kenya. You probably heard about it on a WhatsApp group, sent money to someone’s personal M-Pesa number and waited for them to confirm. On the day, you may have queued at the gate with a printed ticket while someone checked names off a paper list.
That is still how many events here are run, and it costs everyone. Organisers pay to print tickets that are easy to lose or copy, and fans have no real proof they paid. Salato is a Kenyan ticketing platform built to change this, with simple and affordable digital ticketing. Organisers sell tickets, get paid and check guests in from one place. Fans pay with M-Pesa or a card and get their ticket in seconds, with nothing to print.
The problem we are solving
Kenya’s events scene is full of energy, but the way tickets are sold has not kept up. Many organisers still collect payments manually, track buyers on spreadsheets and confirm entry by hand. That creates real problems on both sides of the gate.
For organisers:
- Payments arrive scattered across phone numbers and accounts, and reconciling them takes hours.
- There is no clear, real-time view of how many tickets have sold.
- Fake or duplicated tickets slip through at the entrance.
- Reaching ticket holders with updates means copying numbers into group chats.
For fans:
- Paying for a ticket often means trusting a stranger’s phone number.
- Proof of purchase is a screenshot or an SMS that is easy to lose.
- Entry is slow, and there is little protection if something goes wrong.
The result is lost revenue for organisers, lost trust for fans, and a weaker experience for everyone.
Why events, and why Kenya
Events are where communities come alive. Concerts, conferences, church gatherings, school fundraisers, sports days, comedy nights and trade fairs all bring people together. Behind each one is an organiser taking a real financial risk, and they deserve tools that work as hard as they do.
Kenya is the right place to build this. Kenyans already pay for almost everything on their phones, and M-Pesa has made mobile payments part of daily life. Fans are ready to buy tickets digitally. What has been missing is a local platform designed around how Kenyans actually pay, communicate and attend events, rather than one imported from elsewhere and adapted as an afterthought.
Salato is built here, for here, with the ambition to grow across East Africa.
What makes Salato different
Salato is built around the full journey of an event, from the first ticket sold to the last guest through the gate.
- Pay the way Kenyans pay. Fans check out with M-Pesa or a card in a few taps.
- Organisers get paid directly. Each organiser has their own payout account, so ticket money goes straight to them, not into a pool they have to chase.
- A real ticket, every time. Every buyer receives a personalised PDF ticket with their name, a unique ticket number and a secure QR code.
- Delivered where people already are. Tickets arrive by email and on WhatsApp, so nobody has to dig through their inbox at the gate.
- Fast, reliable check-in. Door staff scan QR codes from their phones, and each ticket can only be used once.
- Stay in touch with your audience. Organisers can send updates to ticket holders on WhatsApp, filtered by ticket type or check-in status.
- Simple, transparent pricing. No setup fees. Salato earns a small commission only when an organiser sells a ticket, so we only succeed when they do.
See it in action
Here is how a ticket moves through Salato, from purchase to the gate. The event shown is a sample.
Organisers follow every sale, payout and check-in live from one dashboard, and can message ticket holders in a click.
Events. Tickets. Experiences.
Our tagline is three words, and each one is a promise.
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Events. We exist to help events happen and succeed. Whether it is a 50-seat workshop or a festival of thousands, Salato gives organisers the tools to plan, sell and run their event with confidence.
Tickets. A ticket is a promise between an organiser and a fan. We make that promise secure, instant and verifiable, from the moment of payment to the moment of entry.
Experiences. In the end, people do not remember the ticket. They remember the night, the conversation, the performance. Every feature we build is measured by one question: does it make the experience better for the people in the room?
What we stand for
Four values guide how we build Salato and how we treat the people who use it.
- Innovation. We use technology to remove friction, not to add complexity. If a feature does not make an organiser’s job easier or a fan’s night better, we do not ship it.
- Accessibility. Ticketing should work for every organiser, from first-timers to established promoters, and for every fan, whatever phone they carry or however they prefer to pay.
- Trust. Money and access are personal. We protect both with secure payments, verified tickets and honest pricing.
- Community impact. Events build communities and support livelihoods, from artists and caterers to sound crews and venues. When events grow, so does everyone around them.
The team behind Salato
Salato brings together deep experience in building technology and in running events on the ground.
Janet M. Salaton, Co-founder. Janet is an entrepreneur and SME development professional with over a decade of experience across Government, Events and enterprise programmes. She has coordinated programmes across Nairobi’s 17 sub-counties, worked with hundreds of MSMEs, supported major events including the EAC seven-nation Trade Fair, and is the founder of Jilly & Tilly Comiidas, a women-led agri-food business.
She understands events from the organiser, participant and business perspective, the real-world challenges of registration, payments, attendance, communication and reporting.
At Salato, Janet brings the customer insight, business perspective and on-the-ground understanding that keeps the technology focused on solving real event problems.
David Abol Ger, Co-founder. David is a product developer and senior Ruby on Rails engineer who has built payment, logistics and healthcare platforms for clients across the region, and advises companies on product and technology strategy. He leads Salato’s product and engineering, turning the challenges organisers face into simple, reliable tools.
Together, they combine operational know-how with technical depth: one understands the event, the other builds the platform that powers it.
Where we are going
Our vision is to become the most trusted way to discover, buy and experience events in Kenya, and then across East Africa. We want every organiser, from a youth group hosting its first concert to a national conference, to have world-class tools in their pocket. And we want every fan to walk into an event knowing their ticket is real and their money is safe.
Salato is live today at salato.app. If you are organising an event, we would love to help you sell your first tickets. If you are a fan, look out for the Salato ticket at your next event.
Get in touch at hello@salato.app.
Salato. Events. Tickets. Experiences.
