Canadian ticketing company AudienceView will provide the platform for News Corp.’s Foxtix ticketing initiative in Australia, the two companies announced this week.
The decision comes about a year after News Corp.’s News Limited division announced the launch of Foxtix. The ticketing company was created to compete with market leaders Ticketmaster and Ticketek by offering fans and event producers “a flexible, easy, option to buy and sell tickets.”
Foxtix currently handles ticketing for the Australian Grand Prix, among other events. But the move to AudienceView’s platform gives Foxtix a more proven and scalable option that is currently operating ticket sales for the United Kingdom’s Ambassador Theatre Group and Ticket Factory.
Among other features, AudienceView’s ticketing platform allows venues to set up “white label” ticketing operations, under which the venue controls its own customer relationships.
“We were highly impressed with the AudienceView platform and felt that the Australian market was ready for their advanced, innovative ticketing platform,” Foxtix CEO Adam McArthur said in a statement.
Ticketmaster has identified the Australian ticketing market as one of its international growth areas, and last year its parent company Live Nation opened a concert promotion division there.
Despite the increased competition, Foxtix believes it can grab a healthy piece of the industry in part by leveraging the marketing capabilities of News Limited’s 100-plus newspapers and publications throughout the country.
In addition to signing AudienceView to operate the Foxtix platform, News Limited this month also hired former Google executive Stuart Spiteri to oversee News Limited’s entire digital division, which includes Foxtix. The Melbourne, Australia, native most recently ran Google’s Asia Pacific platform from the company’s Singapore office.
“News Digital Media has comfortably outgrown the market over the last five years and is now set to significantly scale its business through innovative advertising solutions, digital subscriptions and transactional revenue streams,” Spiteri said in a statement.
