In a growing trend among ticketing companies, several organizations — including popular online social ticketing platform Ticketfly — have partnered with other industry players in an effort to reach more consumers and streamline services, particularly those in the areas of ticket distribution or sales, marketing, and social marketing.
Ticketfly recently announced their partnership with alternative media company Village Voice Media (VVM) to become the exclusive ticketing provider of VVM-produced cultural events in order to streamline the process of how and where users purchase their tickets.
According to their website, VVM reaches 12 million subscribers via email, with 17 million page views on their site and 1 million mobile page views. VVM’s partnership with Ticketfly will help them to expand their reach and satisfy current and future users, allowing them to purchase tickets anywhere, anytime, whether it is from their mobile phone or computer. VVM users will also be able to buy tickets via Facebook, according to a press release from VVM.
“We’re extremely excited about our partnership with Ticketfly,” said VVM president and CEO Scott Tobias in the press release. “Our mission is to give our readers and customers a 360-degree experience. Readers can already get great reviews, concert updates, restaurant reviews and critics’ picks; now they can complete those experiences with a ticket purchase on our websites and through our mobile platforms,” he said.
As the nation’s leading alternative media company, VVM provides news coverage across 13 major American markets on a variety of topics including food, music, arts, and events via websites, weekly print newspapers, and mobile applications.
VVM also produces and sponsors a number of cultural events across the nation ranging from food tasting events to music festivals. Ticketfly will now be on board to handle the entire ticketing process for VVM’s many events.
On the VVM website, users can access information about all upcoming events including VVM’s “Signature” events, such as Choice Eats, an annual tasting event held in New York City. The event featured over 50 restaurants from around the city with cuisine from over 35 nations. In July 2012, VVM will hold their annual Siren Music Festival at NYC landmark, Coney Island — the all-day festival will feature both recognized and emerging artists.
In addition to their partnership with each other, VVM and Ticketfly have also developed additional partnerships within the industry. According to The Association of Alternative Newsmedia, VVM will also partner with Lineup Systems, a UK-based advertising management company. The relationship will utilize Lineup’s “integrated online environment, which connects all these applications though a centralized database, so users can access common customer data, order information and strategic reporting through a web browser to create a seamless workflow,” according to VVM director of business systems Brian King.
According to Ticketfly’s February 2012 press release, Ticketfly is joining forces with ScoreBig, which is a premier online resource for discount tickets. That partnership provides Ticketfly’s venues and promoters with a new distribution channel to move unsold tickets and reach a broader audience of consumer, which is precisely the goal of the partnership between Ticketfly and VVM.
With the help of Ticketfly and their social marketing platform, users will now be able to read about VVM events on Facebook and easily purchase tickets without ever having to leave the social networking site.
“Ticketfly aims to help people discover and buy tickets from anywhere, and social media is an integral part of that discovery and sharing experience. Our platform enables clients like Village Voice to leverage social tools, such as our Facebook ticketing solution, to build community and sell more tickets. Our analytics tools provide valuable insights that help our clients optimize marketing efforts and identify the sales impact from social media,” said Gannon Hall, SVP Marketing at Ticketfly in an email response to TicketNews.
