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Breaking down the ticketing landscape

“There is more change happening now in the ticketing industry than I’ve seen in the last 20 years. There are a lot of big things happening that are all coming to a head,” said Bryan Perez, AXS president and CEO.

Within that fervent environment of transition, here’s a capsule look at many of the leading players in ticketing and their key initiatives.

Ticketmaster North America
Headquarters: Hollywood, Calif.
Key executive: Jared Smith, president
The Live Nation company remains the 800-pound gorilla of the industry. The company is several years into an effort to make its oft-criticized purchase processes easier and more fluid for consumers. It was an early adopter of many trends in the industry, such as heavy use of data and analytics and blending primary and secondary ticket inventory through its TM+ product. A settlement over a 13-year lawsuit regarding Ticketmaster fees led to the release this year of millions of dollars worth of discount codes and concert ticket vouchers.

StubHub
Headquarters: San Francisco
Key executive: Scott Cutler, president
Few, if any, ticketing companies have made more noise within the industry this year than StubHub. The dominant resale marketplace made a significant move into primary sales through a partnership with the Philadelphia 76ers that blends both types of ticket inventory into a single buyer experience without designating what is primary or secondary. StubHub then doubled down on its relationship with the club through the NBA’s first jersey ad deal. A few months later, StubHub repaired its troubled relationship with the New York Yankees, guaranteeing the team more than $100 million between now and 2022 to become the club’s official resale partner. The company this past spring also added veteran industry executive Perkins Miller as general manager of North American operations.

AXS
Headquarters: Los Angeles
Key executive: Bryan Perez, president and CEO
The AEG-owned giant is in its first full calendar year of its merger with Veritix, holding a portfolio of more than $2 billion in annual sales and primary ticketing relationships with more than a dozen big-league teams. The company has been aggressive in seeking to link all the parts of its far-flung operation, including facility management, concessions, content creation, and data and analytics.

Photo by: Getty Images

SeatGeek
Headquarters: New York
Key executives: Jack Groetzinger and Russ D’Souza, co-founders
The aggregator of secondary ticket listings recently made a major move with its open ticketing partnership with Major League Soccer (see related story). But even before the arrival of that deal, the company was in the midst of significant transition. Within the last 18 months, the company has partnered with Spectra Ticketing & Fan Engagement to allow hundreds of Spectra clients to list primary inventory on SeatGeek platforms, and created a marketplace that allows individuals to sell on the site. The company now generates more than $1 million in gross ticket sales per day, with more than half of that happening on mobile.

Eventellect
Headquarters: Houston
Key executives: Patrick Ryan and Ignacio Cubero, co-founders
The secondary market player works with more than 70 teams in a variety of facets including data analysis and yield management, and is a sister operation to the consumer-facing The Ticket Experience marketplace. The company has held a front-row seat in the industry shift by many teams to consolidate their relationship with secondary brokers.

Experience
Headquarters: Atlanta
Key executive: Greg Foster, president and CEO
The company has been a trailblazer in developing mobile-based ticket products including seat upgrades and monthly passes. More recently, Experience has expanded beyond solutions for individual teams and events by testing a city-based product that pools together multiple teams and events. An Atlanta-based version of the new product, called Inwego, ties together unlimited ticket access to 10 teams and events in that market, including the Falcons and Braves, for a flat rate of $29 per person, per month, in essence creating a Netflix-style ticket subscription offering for sports.

Spectra Ticketing & Fan Engagement
Headquarters: Irvine, Calif.
Key executive: Dave Butler, president and CEO
The former Paciolan continues to operate as a Comcast Spectator company following a 2010 purchase from Live Nation, and maintains a particularly strong position in college sports. To aid that core base of college clients, the company has been active in developing a 3-D visualization product that will serve as a recruiting tool for athletic departments. Spectra also is supporting the back-end operations for the groundbreaking StubHub-76ers ticketing partnership, extending an already deep relationship between the company and StubHub.

Tickets.com
Headquarters: Costa Mesa, Calif.
Key executive: Joe Choti, president and CEO
The MLB Advanced Media subsidiary works with 21 MLB clubs, including the perennial industry attendance leader Los Angeles Dodgers, and maintains a much broader business in sports and performing arts. As a result, the company has as much access into emerging industry trends as anybody in the business. The company also is helping power the Boston Red Sox’s team-branded ticket resale destination, Red Sox Replay.

TicketIQ
Headquarters: New York
Key executive: Jesse Lawrence, founder and CEO
Recently rebranded from its prior incarnation as TiqIQ, the company has pivoted from its original base as a publishing platform with ticket listings to an analytics-driven aggregator that works with more than 30 pro and college team and venue clients. The new branding signifies an increased consumer-facing profile for the company.

ScoreBig
Headquarters: Hollywood, Calif.
Key executives: Adam Kanner, executive chairman and co-founder; David Goldberg, CEO
Self-described as an outlet mall for tickets, the company more than doubled sales last year and has partnered with industry heavyweights such as Ticketmaster and AXS to help offload seats. The company’s operational model, somewhat similar to Priceline, allows venues and properties to discreetly move excess inventory without cannibalizing existing distribution strategies.

ShooWin
Headquarters: New York
Key executive: Brisa Trinchero, founder and CEO
Ticket options have a troubled history in the industry. But this startup, led by Broadway producer and investor Trinchero, is seeking to take a far different approach than its predecessors with a model that focuses more on fan access at face-value prices and less on creating a marketplace to trade those options. The company has been buttressed by assets acquired from the former FirstDibz and an official relationship with the Big Ten Conference.

Gametime
Headquarters: San Francisco
Key executive: Brad Griffith, founder and CEO
This mobile-focused outlet has established a solid position for itself as the ticketing industry’s version of the last-minute impulse buy. Most of its sales occur in the final two hours before an event starts, and it even has sold tickets beyond an event’s starting time. The company has expanded from its original base in sports into concerts, and is now supporting two brothers from Utah in their quest to set a Guinness World Record for the most college football games attended in one season.

ReplyBuy
Headquarters: Scottsdale, Ariz.
Key executive: Josh Manley, founder and CEO
Another mobile-based outlet focused on last-minute ticket opportunities, ReplyBuy has found a fertile niche in texting, a simple and unglamorous but almost universally used technology. The company works with dozens of pro and college teams and venues, and like SeatGeek, has also worked with Spectra.


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