Ticketmaster is growing its presence in the festival and DIY ticketing space with two new acquisitions: Front Gate Tickets and Universe.
Started in 2003 as an alternative ticketing service for venues in Austin, Texas, Front Gate Tickets now helps venues, artists, promoters and festivals grow their business and effectively promote events to fans.
Its clients include music events as Coachella, Austin City Limits, Electric Forest, The Governors Ball Music Festival, Lollapalooza, RBC Royal Bank Bluesfest and X Games,
Meanwhile, DIY ticketing platform Universe helps event organisers sell tickets online. It works with thousands of event organizers worldwide and provides them with tools to sell tickets, and promote and manage events online.
It allows event organisers to embed a customizable Buy Now button to sell tickets on any website with no redirect to Universe. It saw a seven-fold increase in sales last year.
“Ticketmaster provides the world’s largest ticketing marketplace, connecting over 450 million fans with their favorite artists and other live events each year,” said Live Nation Entertainment President and CEO, Michael Rapino.
“Front Gate and Universe have built innovative platforms for their respective verticals, and combined with Ticketmaster’s marketing and distribution capabilities we will be able to deliver the best experience for even more fans and artists. The companies continue to build on our commitment to provide the best solution for each segment of the ticketing landscape, combining the specific needs for each occasion with the power of our global marketplace,”
“We are dedicated to maintaining Front Gate’s fan-focused philosophy and targeted festival-specific functionality,” said Jared Smith, President of Ticketmaster North America. Universe’s advanced DIY ticketing and event marketing platform will not only provide event organizers with amazing tools to manage their events, but their plug-and-play distributed commerce and analytics products will also benefit clients across the entire Ticketmaster portfolio, including festivals,”
Additionally, Front Gate Tickets offers RFID-powered access control, experiential marketing and cashless POS systems that streamline festival entry, sponsorship activations, and concession sales.
In 2014, Front Gate processed over $300 million in sales, sold over 3 million tickets, shipped over 1 million wristbands and scanned over 2.5 million RFID chips.Music Business Worldwide
