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. . .
TicketSummit 2007 featured two days of panel discussions on various aspects affecting the secondary market, including how the lines of commerce in the industry are blurring and how the spate of recent legislative decisions to allow ticket reselling will affect the future.
“This year’s show exceeded my expectations,” said Steve Kobelski, executive director of the conference, which was run by TicketNetwork. “We had an all-star line up of speakers, exhibitors and sponsors that made the show a resounding success.”
“We more than doubled attendance from last year, which is a testament to the hard work of everyone involved,” Kobelski added.
Sean Pate, public relations director for StubHub!, said he was impressed by the “vigorous debate and discussion” from fellow attendees at the conference, adding that he was looking forward to next year’s conference. Organizers said TicketSummit 2008 also will take place in Las Vegas but the specific date and location have not been determined.
“I thought it was not only extremely informative but time well spent,” Pate said.
In addition to seminars and panel discussions, more than a dozen brokers and service providers set up booths during the conference to showcase their products.
Andrew Blachman, CEO of Getmein.com came to the conference from the U.K. and said it was a valuable experience.
“For us, this conference was big because we’re in Europe, but we’re seeing that the secondary market is becoming an increasingly global experience. We need relationships with brokers from across the ‘pond,’ as it were, so the ability to come to one place and see so many in the industry is great,” Blachman said.
