Just two years after purchasing Ticketfly, one of the main ticketing alternatives to Ticketmaster, Pandora has sold the business to Eventbrite for $200 million, $250 million less than it paid for the company, according to an article on Techcrunch.
Eventbrite, which acquired Ticketscript in Europe earlier this year, hopes to make further expansion into the music event business.
“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and we see immense alignment and opportunity with this union, especially as we continue to expand Eventbrite’s global footprint in music,” Julia Hartz, CEO and co-founder of Eventbrite, said in a statement. “Together with Ticketfly, we will focus our collective energy on further developing our unparalleled solution and superior services for indie music venues and promoters around the world.”
In a blog post on Ticketfly’s website posted this morning, Ticketfly Co-founder and CEO Andrew Dreskin described the partnership as being between “the two most progressive live event companies in the world,” and that that platform would be “game-changing for independent venues and promoters.”
The post notes that the combined efforts of Ticketfly and Eventbrite sold more than 175 million tickets worth more than $3 billion last year, and that Eventbrite was No. 1 in the world when measured by number of events and number of event organizers.
“This is the right next chapter for Ticketfly,” Dreskin says. “It ensures that we can stay independent, and continue to deliver great software and services to indie venues and promoters.”
