Ticket Industry Stories

Entrepreneurial and small business magazine Inc. has named Ticket Software LLC, parent company of TicketNetwork, to its prestigious "Inc. 5000" list of innovative and fast-growing companies for 2008. Ticket Software was ranked 27th overall based on Gross Dollars of Growth, and third of leading software companies.

The company, founded in 2002, sells Point-of-Sale 8.0 software, one of the leading software products for ticket brokers, operates a marketplace exchange with an inventory of more than 5 million tickets worth more than $1 billion, and operates more than 3,000 Web sites that sell tickets. It has grown at a staggering rate of 4,737.3 percent to generate annual revenues of $83.8 million. In six years, the company has grown from a handful of employees to more than 160, and it occupies a 40-acre campus in upstate Connecticut.

The closing ceremony for the 2008 Olympic Games are just around the corner on Sunday, August 24, and some travelers are still trying to nab last-minute tickets for the competitions. But with recent crackdowns on ticket reselling, potential buyers may have trouble tracking down legitimate tickets and safe options for buying them.

Days before the games began, scam sites like beijingticketing.com and beijing-tickets2008.com were charged with making more than $50 million in fraudulent ticket sales. According to published reports, Chinese officials arrested 276 scalping suspects and confiscated more than 600 tickets within the last five days. Convicted scalpers could face upwards of 10 days in a Chinese detention facility -- a penalty that many brokers are avoiding by staying out of Beijing.

A California woman who ordered two tickets to a Jersey Boys performance from an online broker late last year not only never received her tickets but has yet to receive a refund. But her persistence is a lesson in how fans should handle customer service lapses, as she told TicketNews this week.

Tracy Taylor of Ventura ordered two tickets to the popular show in November, 2007, from Chicago, IL-based ticket broker TicketSpecialists.com, paying a total of $544 for them. The purchase was a Christmas gift for her parents, and the costs broke down as $230 a piece for the tickets, $69 in obtaining fees and $15 in two-day delivery charges. The show was scheduled for August 5, 2008, at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles, and the seats were located in the Mezzanine in Row L.

Seldom do you hear good news about a story of a ticket buyer who was scammed out of tickets and money. Most of the time, that buyer usually contacts his state legislator or calls an attorney. For a consumer who went by the name of "J.B.", all he wanted was his tickets.

"We ordered tickets for two home New York Yankees games Aug. 15 and 16 from StubHub (an online ticket broker) and sent out our payment," he said in a letter written to the 'Action Line' at the South Bend Tribune. "And it turns out it was all fraud."

He went on to explain that he was scammed out of tickets by someone posing as StubHub, using their copyrighted information. The Tribune contacted the secondary ticket company, to see what could be done to help.

TicketNews has released its exclusive venues rankings for the week ending Sunday, August 17, and Yankee Stadium remains the top venue, holding the number one slot with a power score of 3.62. In its eighth week at the top, Yankee Stadium this week holds a commanding lead over all competitors, with its next closest rival, the Gershwin Theater in at number two with a power score of only 2.28. The Gershwin, enjoying continued robust sales of tickets for "Wicked," is this week’s top Broadway venue once again and jumps back up to the overall number two slot from last week’s number five.

Texas Stadium is the second sporting venue in the rankings this week. This week the stadium comes in at an impressive number three position overall with a power score of 2.20, up from position number six and power score of 1.73 last week. As the Dallas Cowboys’ season approaches, their fans are showing their love with their wallets, making this venue a real mover and shaker this week.

"RazorGator.com Half-Price Summer Seller Sale has been Extended, Slashing Fees for Selling Tickets"

Los Angeles, CA (RazorGator) August 19, 2008 – RazorGator.com announced it will extend the Half-Price Summer Seller Sale and continue to slash commission fees through August 27, 2008.

As the leader in Hard-To-Getsm tickets for sports, entertainment and theatre events worldwide, RazorGator kicked off the industry first ‘Seller Sale’ on August 7, 2008, in conjunction with the launch of its’ new and improved Fan2Fan Ticket Exchange. Due to the favorable response from valued sellers, RazorGator will continue to offer commission fees of only 7.5% for all tickets sold, as long as they are listed during the sale period. Customers listing tickets on RazorGator will continue to earn more money on each ticket sold than on any competitor’s websites.

TicketNews today released its exclusive events rankings for the week ending August 17, and the results show that sports events are still popular overall amongst ticket buyers, with a few theatrical shows and concerts climbing the rankings. Cher, whose show has been a Vegas top-seller for weeks, sold enough tickets last week to make a number ten debut (power score 1.35) on the Top Combined Events chart. Wicked tickets, New York Yankees tickets, and Jonas Brothers tickets are still the most popular, but theatre shows like Jersey Boys and South Pacific are moving up in the top events rankings to numbers four and eight, respectively.

The Eagles still have a popular summer tour; they have the second bestselling concert with a 4.65 power score, behind the Jonas Brothers, who have a 7.10 power score. The Eagles have an edge on Cher (power score 3.43), as well as Madonna (power score 3.33). Celine Dion was ranked at number eight last week, but this week she's number five, with a 3.32 power score. The Cheech & Chong reunion tour sold enough tickets for the number nine spot and a 2.11 power score; Kenny Chesney, who had a top-five ranked concert earlier in the summer, is back in the rankings this week at number ten, power score 2.01.

The City of Denver, which currently prohibits the resale of event tickets, is considering changing its anti-scalping law to allow for an unfettered market which would, according to the legislator pushing for the change, even the playing field between fans and ticket brokers.

While the State of Colorado allows for ticket resale, Denver does not based on Chapter 7, Article XII, 7-291-294 of the city's ordinances. But, as many municipalities and jurisdictions have found out, trying to enforce anti-scalping laws in the Internet Age is, at best, extremely difficult.

The online live music database JamBase, a Web site dedicated to connecting music fans with accurate and up-to-date concert information, will now be helping fans find tickets to see their favorite bands.

An extremely popular stop for live music fans, JamBase has been evolving since its inception ten years ago, continually adding new content to its Web site. Assisting music junkies find tickets to events will be the latest addition to a site that already includes news, artist interviews as well as album and live show reviews.

"TicketNews announces top ticket sellers rankings for the week ending August 9, 2008."

Vernon, CT August 14, 2008 - Live Nation came in fourth place with a power score just under 8, and the company has not maintained the temporary second-place position the company held in the rankings several weeks ago. At the end of the year, LiveNation's contract with Ticketmaster will end. Shakira, Madonna and Jay-Z have already formed deals with the company. LiveNation ended the second quarter with profits that exceeded the expectations of Wall Street analysts.

Ticketmaster continued to dominate the overall ticket market last week, with a power score of 42.399. Earlier this month, Ticketmaster announced it has positioned itself to offset loses by LiveNation's departure. Furthermore, Ticketmaster will begin trading its stock publicly on August 21.

The lawsuit filed over the last-minute cancellation of an Aerosmith concert in Maui can move ahead as a class action case, according to the Second Circuit Court in Hawaii.

Attorney Brandee Faria, who is representing the concertgoers who were denied a chance to see the band, told TicketNews that the court agreed with her assessment that "it would be best for all 8700-plus class members' claims to be resolved in one lawsuit, thus it means that this case will either be resolved by trial or settlement with compensation for all 8700-plus class members."

Broker software and secondary ticket company TicketNetwork has recently launched a new redesigned retail Web site designed to make shopping for event tickets quicker and stress free.

"With its quick-search capability, and dynamic top ten listings, TicketNetwork.com makes it easier now more than ever for fans to find the tickets they want to any event in the country," TicketNetwork's marketing program manager Molly Martinez said.

Ralph Garreffa, a five-year veteran of TicketsNow who served as Director of Sales and Client Support, has left the company in what is the latest departure of a senior executive from the secondary ticketer.

In his position, and with his trademark long ponytail, Garreffa had become one of the most recognizable faces at TicketsNow, and he essentially worked with the company's ticket broker clients troubleshooting issues with the EventInventory system. His departure follows that of Nick Bucci, former president of EventInventory, who abruptly resigned in May.

You want to catch your favorite team's next game, but your usual sources for tickets are all out. Instead of trying to search through hundreds of other ticket broker Web sites, log into TicketStumbler.com and let them do the work for you.

TicketStumbler.com is a "ticket market search and comparison Web site" that helps users find and buy tickets to events. Fans can search by keyword, location, league or date and find tickets being sold by a plethora of sources, including StubHub, TicketNetwork and RazorGator, among others, with which the site already has partnership deals.

When Facebook Connect launched in July to allow Facebook users to connect to third-party websites using their Facebook identities, twenty-four partner companies were included in the launch. Among them is amiando, a Munich-based event management Web site.

"Events are the most important social happening," Felix Haas, CEO of amiando, told TicketNews. "Therefore we will use Facebook Connect to let event organizers and their guests enjoy, recommend and promote events within the social context of their real identity and friendships on Facebook."

Posting a slim profit, Live Nation this month reported that it beat Wall Street analysts' expectations and posted better than expected second quarter earnings for the three months ended June 30, 2008.

The company reported revenue of $1.16 billion, an 18 percent increase from $986 million a year ago. According to David Kestenbaum, an analyst with Morgan Joseph, it was an impressive quarter, and the company’s $1.16 billion revenue “was easily ahead of our $1.04 billion expectations," he wrote in his report.

TicketNews has released its exclusive venues rankings for the week ending Sunday, August 10, and Yankee Stadium maintains its dominance of all other venues for the seventh straight week. With a power score of 3.53, the stadium’s margin of victory over the rankings’ number two venue is tighter than last week, but with Yankees tickets topping TicketNews Top Sports Events Rankings for much of this summer, this lead appears solid. Giants Stadium continues its climb through the top ten, finishing at the number two slot, up one from last week. With a power score of 3.45, the host of New York’s Jets, Giants and Red Bulls came the closest of any venue in several weeks to topple Yankees Stadium from its perch at number one.

Madison Square Garden (MSG) rounds out the top three this week, once again boosted by sales for popular shows like the Jonas Brothers, Neil Diamond, the Dave Matthews Band, Celene Dion and Madonna. MSG’s power score for this week is 2.94, a solid showing for this venue.

"buy.at Affiliate Publishers Can Now Choose and Earn Revenue Through Advertiser Widgets"

New York, NY (Platform-A) August 12, 2008 – Platform-A announced the launch of an affiliate marketing solution that links the buy.at affiliate network to the widget-based marketing tools of Goowy Media, Inc. The new offering lets publishers generate revenue by merging the power of affiliate, widget and viral marketing. buy.at is the affiliate network of Platform-A, and Goowy Media forms part of AOL's newly created People Networks business unit. Platform-A, http://www.platform-a.com, is AOL’s digital advertising division.

This first-of-its-kind solution provides buy.at affiliate publishers with an exclusive gallery of advertiser-generated widgets through the buy.at web site. Once a publisher places a widget on their website, consumers can grab it and distribute the widget to other locations on the Web, including social network pages, desktops and blogs. The publisher earns revenue for each sale driven by the widget, even if it’s several download-generations away from the publisher’s site.

Primary ticket selling giant Ticketmaster will officially be spun off and begin trading its stock publicly on August 21, according to a statement issued today from parent company InterActiveCorp (IAC).

Called the world's leading ticket company in TicketNews's exclusive industry rankings, Ticketmaster will trade under the symbol TKTMV on Nasdaq. Other IAC properties being spun off, including TREE.com and HSN, Inc., will also begin being traded publicly on the 21st.

It's the end of summer and sports tickets are still selling strong. TicketNews's top events rankings for last week are in, and sports fans propelled baseball and football tickets onto the Top Combined Events chart. The New York Yankees sold the most tickets of any sports franchise and had the second-best selling record last week with a 3.44 power score, behind Wicked's 4.59. Perhaps not as popular as the Jonas Brothers (number three), So You Think You Can Dance? (four), and the Jersey Boys (five), major sports teams are still drawing in the crowds with the Seattle Seahawks, Chicago Cubs, Dallas Cowboys, and Boston Red Sox close out the overall rankings.

The sports teams that took over the combined rankings also sit atop of the sports rankings. They are followed by the Brett Favre-led New York Jets and a Brett Favre-less Green Bay Packers. Consistently among top sports events, the Pittsburgh Steelers rank at number nine this week, behind the Miami Dolphins but ahead of the San Diego Chargers.