The Pepsi Center in Denver announced last week that it would not be renewing its ticketing contract with Ticketmaster, instead it will be teaming-up with the arena’s own in-house ticketing company, TicketHorse.
Kroenke Sports Enterprises (KSE), which owns the Pepsi Center, founded TicketHorse in 2006 in order to create one source for tickets to all the sports teams and venues the company owns, which includes Dick’s Sporting Goods Park, the Colorado Rapids, and the Paramount Theatre. The venture utilizes Flash Seats paperless ticketing technology developed by Veritix.
Unfortunately for KSE, the Pepsi Center signed a 10 year contract with Ticketmaster when it opened in 1999, so the company had to wait until last week in order to add the Pepsi Center to its list.
The addition of Pepsi Center events will also be quite lucrative for KSE. Instead of sharing ticket sale profits with a middleman like Ticketmaster, KSE will now collect every cent of every ticket sold.
Because of the switchover, all tickets for Pepsi Center events will now be exclusively sold through TicketHorse. This includes concerts, as well as Denver Nuggets and Colorado Avalanche tickets.
The Pepsi Center’s move away from Ticketmaster marks the second venue to drop the ticketing giant this month, following the Tennessee Performing Arts Center.
A Ticketmaster spokesperson did not return a message seeking comment on the Pepsi Center’s decision.
In a recent press conference, KSE’s Executive Vice President, Paul Andrews, explained the benefits of TicketHorse.
“In short, TicketHorse will create Colorado jobs and provide an easy to use platform for the consumer,” Andrews said. “The systems allow patrons to purchase, sell and transfer tickets instantly.”
