The UK secondary ticket market, the subject of a government inquiry, is steadily growing and recently received a spot of welcomed news with word that national officials will leave the industry alone in favor of the market policing itself.

For viagogo, the UK-based secondary ticket company founded by StubHub co-founder Eric Baker, the decision by the British government further validated what Baker always believed: that the secondary market should be allowed to thrive in the country.

Chris Tsakalakis, the influential General Manager of the combined eBay Tickets/StubHub business, has been named to the roster of speakers at Ticket Summit 2008, the largest trade show and convention dedicated to the secondary ticket industry. StubHub is the world’s most dominant secondary ticket company, according to TicketNews’ exclusive industry rankings.

Tsakalakis will be a panelist for the “Blurring the Line” discussion, which will explore the different ways the primary and secondary ticket markets are coming together and the potential shifts on the horizon. Attendees will hear about the ways the primary market is attempting to extract more revenue from consumers; how the secondary market continues to provide value; ways the two markets are already working together; and how the line between the two is expected to blur even more in the coming year. TicketNetwork, organizer of Ticket Summit and owner of TicketNews, expects the conference will attract about 1,000 brokers, experts and executives from throughout the ticket industry.

Celebrity Access, a leading provider of news and information to the live performance industry, will be the media sponsor for Ticket Summit 2008, the third annual secondary ticket industry conference scheduled for July 23-25 at the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino in Las Vegas. In addition, industry heavyweight Eric Baker, co-founder of StubHub and founder of viagogo.com has been added to the line up of speakers.

The collaborative marketing partnership between Ticket Summit and Celebrity Access will provide exposure of Ticket Summit 2008 in editorial coverage and banner ads in Celebrity Access' industry newsletter, Encore, in the months leading up to the conference. Through the sponsorship, Celebrity Access will be granted exposure to attendees at Ticket Summit 2008 via the event's web site, in addition to a booth presence and an opportunity to provide a presentation during the conference.

Ticket futures exchange yoonew.com has launched a new online market for baseball fans looking to score World Series tickets.

The new program allows fans to buy futures for the first four games of the World Series for any of the 30 Major League Baseball teams for virtually any seat at a fraction of what that ticket might cost at the time of the game. In addition, users can buy “fantasy match up” futures for specific teams to reach the World Series, for example the New York Mets vs. the New York Yankees. Under this scenario, both teams have to make the World Series, but currently, such a future is trading for about $120, which is considerably lower than what tickets for such an event would cost.

“This is our biggest undertaking yet, because of the number of tradable contracts,” yoonew co-founder Gerry Wilson told TicketNews of the new World Series market. “Now, users can buy futures tickets for the World Series regardless of the teams involved. No one has sold tickets to the World Series this way before Opening Day.”

The concept is almost too easy, but it took some Massachusetts Institute of Technology grads to think it up.

Super Bowl tickets will cost the average fan several hundred – actually more like several thousand – dollars, but what if that fan could lock in a price of, say, $200 per ticket? The catch: all that needs to happen is that their team has to get to the big game.

yOOnew.com, the brainchild of former MIT students Gerry Wilson and Hagos Mehreteab, gives fans that opportunity. The website sells futures contracts for tickets to championship games, months before the event, for a fraction of what the tickets might cost on the open market closer to the game. A team’s value as a futures contract depends on various criteria, including the team’s likelihood of reaching the championship, the original cost of a ticket and the size of the stadium or available supply of tickets. . .

Fred Rosen, former CEO of Ticketmaster and new Chairman of AudienceView, Wednesday told 600 ticket brokers, agents and other industry insiders that no one entity would ever totally control the secondary market, and that everyone benefits as the ticketing business continues to become more legitimate.

Rosen was delievering his message during his keynote address at TicketSummit 2007, the secondary ticketing industry’s premiere trade convention, held this week at the Venetian Hotel Resort Casino in Las Vegas. . .

The Better Ticketing Association is running an exclusive promotion until Dec. 31 where annual membership dues will be waived for registered attendees of Ticket Summit 2008, scheduled for July 23-25 at the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino in Las Vegas.

Annual membership dues for the association are regularly $149, which Ticket Summit 2008 will save by signing up for the convention this month. The cost to register for Ticket Summit 2008 is $399 through the rest of the month of December.

Fresh on the guest list, Ticket Summit is proud to announce the arrival of team and venue managers from the:

With only a few months before Ticket Summit 2008, companies are snapping up the exhibitor booth spots for the annual event, but a few remain.

Ticket Summit is the secondary ticket market’s largest annual conference and will be held July 23-25 at the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino in Las Vegas. This year’s event is the third annual, and it has doubled in attendance the first two years.

Ticket Summit 2008, the secondary ticket market’s largest industry conference, is still five months away, but the attendance list is already impressive, attracting representatives from a variety of sports teams and venues.

Ticket brokers attending the conference will have a opportunity to interact with team representatives from the National Basketball Association’s Detroit Pistons, Houston Rockets and Indiana Pacers, as well as Major League Baseball’s Minnesota Twins, San Diego Padres, and Washington Nationals.

Ticket Summit 2008, the secondary ticket market’s largest industry conference, is offering event sponsorship opportunities for businesses looking to market their products and services to the influential ticket industry executives in attendance. The conference and trade show is scheduled for July 23-25 at the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino in Las Vegas.

Available sponsorship opportunities, which cost as little as $200, include pens, pads, statement stuffers and other bag drop-in items. In addition, businesses can sponsor a raffle prize, or go even bigger by sponsoring the event’s Internet Lounge, Conference Guide, Registration Booth, or one of the multiple catered events. Also, all sponsors will receive a free link on the Ticket Summit website and inclusion in the Ticket Summit Conference Guide.

Fanprice.com, a new website where buyers and sellers set asking prices and bids for tickets, is hoping that it fresh new approach will help fans better navigate the often choppy waters of the secondary ticket market.
The idea behind the business is simple. Say a buyer only wants to spend $100 to go to an event, but no sellers have tickets for less than $150. As the event draws near, sellers sometimes lower their prices, and buyers raise their bids, and Fanprice.com allows the two to meet somewhere in the middle.

Venue ticketing solution specialists AudienceView Wednesday announced that Fred Rosen is the company’s new Chairman. Rosen, former CEO of Ticketmaster from 1982 to 1998, is considered one of the true innovators of the ticketing industry.

The five-year-old AudienceView provides white label ticketing solutions to more than 80 clients and 120 venues in North America, the U.K. and Asia, and allows users to control all aspects of its event ticketing offerings by becoming their own primary-ticketing vendors.

As a business model, that movement continues to gather stream as venues – and artists and sports teams – look for ways to increase revenues and manage more of their assets. . .

About 600 secondary ticket brokers and industry service providers made new contacts and discussed the state of the marketplace during TicketSummit 2007 in Las Vegas this week, where they also discovered what new challenge industry heavyweight Fred Rosen has undertaken.

Rosen, former CEO of Ticketmaster from 1982 to 1998, gave the conference’s keynote address, which he used to announced his new role as Chairman of AudienceView.com, a Canadian-based provider of ticketing services to venues.

The secondary market is strong and getting stronger, he told brokers, adding that no one entity could dominate it even though he anticipated a lot of consolidation in the future. He also said that venues, artists and sports teams will jump into the secondary in greater numbers in the future and will seek to control much of their own ticketing operations. . .

Ticket Summit 2008, the leading industry convention for ticket brokers, will be held in Las Vegas July 23-25 at The Venetian Resort Hotel Casino, marking the third consecutive year the event will take place at the palatial facility. The summit is presented by TicketNetwork, the parent company of TicketNews.

The 2007 summit more than doubled its attendance compared to the inaugural year in 2006, and organizers expect to do that again and exceed 1,000 attendees in 2008. Several industry executives, experts and journalists are expected to speak at the event, and among the ticket industry topics that will be discussed is the impact of recent legislative changes that allow for ticket reselling at the state level.

Today’s ticketing industry is a high-speed internet juggernaut designed for maximum efficiency of transaction and problem resolution. Yet, the new informational revolution is in the global payment service industry, where exciting possibilities are being realized almost daily by pioneering e-commerce companies. Of these, the GlobalCollect online payment platform is the leading electronic processor for internet transactions whose applications are being tailored to meet the various needs of the ticket industry.

Vernon, Conn. – June 28, 2006 – TicketSummit, the secondary ticket market conference and trade show to be held at The Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas on July 19 and 20, 2006 is fast approaching its targeted limits.

Second Annual Event to Be Held July 17-19, 2007 at Venetian Resort Hotel Casino

VERNON, CT--(MARKET WIRE)--Jan 3, 2007 -- TicketSummit.org is pleased to announce its second annual secondary-ticket conference and trade show, to be held July 17-19, 2007 at the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino in Las Vegas.

By Nicole Nielsen

Later today, the Ticket Summit conference and trade show is expected to announce its initial lineup of speakers for the 2007 event, being held July 17-19 at the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino in Las Vegas.

VERNON, Conn.—February 28, 2007-- TicketNetwork, the leading technology solutions provider dedicated to addressing the needs of the live entertainment industry, today announced the confirmed speakers for its second annual Ticket Summit, being held at the world-class, Venetian Hotel and Conference Center in Las Vegas, Nevada from July 17-19th, 2007.