Independent primary ticketer Ticketfly has added to its quickly growing list of partnerships by inking two agreements with regional independent promoters.
Last week, the company announced new deals with Northwest area promoter Monqui Presents and Nashville-based Outback Concerts. With the deals, Ticketfly expands its reach into two large regions of the U.S. as well as British Columbia.
Ticketfly CEO Andrew Dreskin is enthusiastic about working with Monqui and Outback Concerts and sees great potential in these new agreements. “Outback and Monqui are two of the best independent promoters in the U.S. We have a tremendous amount of respect for both of these promoters, so it is very gratifying to be able to work with them.”
Outback Concerts, launched in 1997, promotes musical and other live performance events mainly in the south and southeast U.S., but also has acts appearing as far west as California and as far north as Maine.
Begun in 1983, Portland-based Monqui Presents books for a number of venues in Oregon and British Columbia. With this new agreement, Monqui brings two major Oregon amphitheaters under the Ticketfly umbrella.
Ticketfly provides its ticket seller clients with hosted Web sites and mobile ticketing solutions, including the ability for ticket purchasers to print tickets at home and download scannable bar codes to their smartphones. In addition, the company offers other tools such as analytics and social marketing features such as Facebook and Twitter interfaces, blog ads and customized email. Their analytics cover not only completed sales, but also activity around a particular venue or event on social networking sites. The company also knows how to provide hands-on services at events, with capabilities to set up one or more box offices and ticket scanning stations on site.
Dreskin notes that these new promoter agreements promise great benefit to all participants. “These partnerships are important for Ticketfly – and for the communities served by Outback and Monqui. The public will benefit in that the fees associated with these tickets will be lower than in the past.” Exceeding sales of one million tickets annually, Outback “will become one of our largest clients”, according to Dreskin. “Monqui sells a ton of tickets as well, and this relationship will give us a beachhead in the Pacific Northwest. I think these folks will benefit from the relationship as well. They will now have access to some of the best ticketing, website and social marketing technology there is.”
Launched in only 2008, Ticketfly currently boasts over 100 partnerships, many completed just in the last year. The company has signed venues ranging from the Troubadour club in Los Angeles to amphitheater the Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, MD. In recent months, the company signed a deal with the Baltimore Grand Prix, a new three-day IndyCar street circuit event to take place on Labor Day weekend. Agreements with promoters include one with Knitting Factory Presents, which books venues in several cities across the country. And with the new agreements, the company extends its reach into two major U.S. regions as well as Canada.
Dreskin understands the significance of the ever-growing numbers of partnerships between indie promoters and ticketers for the industry as a whole, as well as their potential long term impact on business as usual. “I think these deals further illustrate how some of the biggest promoters in the country are moving away from legacy ticketing companies and embracing a new model.”
Legacy ticketing companies like the recently merged Ticketmaster/Live Nation? “For a variety of reasons, one being the merger, promoters are seeking a new, more modern solution to their ticketing and technology needs. The days of managing numerous disparate systems – ticketing, website, social networks, email newsletter, etc. – are becoming a thing of the past. Promoters want a more lightweight, integrated solution that offers deep ties into social media and sophisticated analytics that offer them actionable data and allows them to gauge the efficacy of their marketing efforts.”
