Boston's CitySide Tickets looks to boost its profile

By Jean Henegan

There's a new kid on the ticket resale block and he's making quite a bit of noise. CitySide Tickets, based in Boston, is quickly gaining a name and capital in the ticketing world. A publicly traded company (symbol: CIST), CitySide has taken the street smarts of its CEO and parlayed them into a profitable ticket resale business.

CitySide CEO Michael DeAmicis started out in the ticket resale business as a teen-ager, selling his extra tickets to Boston Red Sox games outside of Fenway Park. "Through this experience I realized there was a lot of money to be made in the ticket business," DeAmicis told TicketNews in a recent interview. In 2002, DeAmicis took the knowledge he had gained selling tickets in his youth and honed it into what would become CitySide Tickets. Operating initially out of his home, DeAmicis eventually upgraded his office to a storefront, mere steps away from Fenway Park.

In fact, one of the cornerstones of Citywide's success has been its prime location. According to DeAmicis, "Currently, about 50-60 percent of CitySide's business comes through walk-up traffic at the store." However, with the company's new national marketing campaign and current focus on acquiring smaller companies, CitySide hopes to expand its reach into the country's most popular ticketing markets.

CitySide has recently made news through its acquisition of smaller ticketing brokers, most notably StadiumSeats.com, which CitySide hopes to groom into a competitor to current industry giant StubHub. While the acquisition of a smaller business might not be a stellar feat within the ticketing world, the way in which CitySide has structured its business model makes its growth particularly novel. The key lies within CitySide's status as a publicly traded company.

According to Michael McCarthy, corporate communications director for CitySide Tickets, the company's public status makes it "lean and mean" and allows the company to "roll with the economy better than some of the competition." Furthermore, according to McCarthy, when CitySide acquires a smaller business, it is able to offset the costs of the purchase through offering CitySide stock, thus allowing CitySide to focus the bulk of its capital on acquiring inventory to keep customers happy.

In addition to acquiring new businesses, CitySide has also begun a national advertising campaign, aimed at creating a presence in larger markets such as New York, California, and Florida. Over the course of the next several weeks, CitySide will roll out this campaign, bringing the company national recognition and further raising its profile.

While the future of CitySide Tickets lies in acquiring new locations for sales and developing the company's presence on the internet, DeAmicis doesn't see the company's moves as aimed at generating fresh competition within the ticketing industry.

"I don't look at it as a competition," DeAmicis said. "CitySide just wants to make some noise in the ticket industry."

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Anonymous's picture
 

J Cobb's picture
J Cobb (not verified)

I wonder how much it costs to have TicketNews write a fluff piece about your company.

Anonymous's picture
Anonymous (not verified)

Figures, I bought this stock from a tip on a penny site that had some big hits; wow did I get taken, bought at .32 and .23 and wow did it drop like a rock. Figures!!!!

Anonymous's picture
Anonymous (not verified)

Prior to last month this company was called "The Upturn, Inc." using the ticket UPTR - some kind of real estate marketing company. Not that I ever had much respect for FOX, but it realy doesn't take that much research guys...

Anonymous's picture
Anonymous (not verified)

This has penny stock scam written all over it. Looks like they put out a steady stream of fluff "press releases" and they emphasize the stock almost as much as the product on their website.

It's the same story. Get people excited about a new "upstart" with lots of potential. Put out lots of press releases about any tidbit of information to give the image of a "real" company. Sincere personal appeals by the CEO/President in interviews or press releases about all that he is doing to turn his company into something great. Do enough to give the sense of a real business - actual contracts with other businesses even. All the while selling millions of shares of new stock for this "publicly traded company." After a year or two it will all fall apart. The stock goes back to $0.0001. The leaders will say they were sincere but just couldn't make it work, or perhaps they themselves were scammed somehow. It sits idle for another year or two, then somehow gets resurrected as a new company with a slightly related or even completely different company.

By the way, I've got a lead on a company that bought up a bunch of gold mines in AZ. They were orginally abandoned by company that spent all the money to find them and then couldn't afford to do the actually mining and went bankrupt. According to a geology professor from ASU, there should be between $100-$500 trillion of gold just waiting to be dug out. You should get in on this company NOW before word gets out. NEXT WEEK they are getting the first official research results back. The stock symbol is...

John 's picture
John (not verified)

This is a huge scam, its nothing but a typical stock scam, and its backed by guys being investigated by the SEC, be really careful here. I know folks who these guys have screwed pretty bad,DO NOT touch this companys stock. Im surprised Ticketnews would even cover these guys and allow them to scam more honest people. Do some research and you will see this companys stock has changed names 5 Times!!Dont be swindled

Anonymous's picture
Anonymous (not verified)

Who is being investigated by SEC. I bought and lost on this one. I have called the CEO MD, Michael DiGeorgia and Michael McCarthy at Quality Stock all seem to have something to hide.

Anonymous's picture
Anonymous (not verified)

Wow Ticketnews... Really dropped the ball covering these guys. One click to citysidetickets.com and you will see this is nothing more than a basic ticket site. You can't even sell tickets as they advertise.

Anonymous's picture
Anonymous (not verified)

http://www.qualitystocks.net/videos.php

Cant even make one coherent point.

Anonymous's picture
Anonymous (not verified)

He has a vision!

Anonymous's picture
Anonymous (not verified)

WOW was that video awkward and embarrassing.

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Month of April 2012

  Seller Score
1     Ticketmaster.com 31.21
2 StubHub.com 15.02
LiveNation.com 8.10
4 Eventbrite.com 7.50
5 Tickets.com 6.05
6 TicketsNow.com 3.74
7 TicketLiquidator.com 3.59
8 TicketNetwork.com 2.57
9 Goldstar.com 2.28
10 ETix.com 1.81
11 Vividseats.com 1.52
12 TiqIQ.com 1.23
13 TicketWeb.com 1.17
14 Telecharge.com 1.15
15 BrownPaperTickets.com 1.10
16 TicketFly.com 0.93
17 EventTicketsCenter.com 0.87
18 Tix.com 0.82
19 SeatGeek.com 0.76
20 TicketCity.com 0.76

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