The ticketing firm Rival is working with Ticketmaster to help its first client – Kroenke Sports & Entertainment – transition as its contract with AXS closes this summer. This is familiar territory, since Rival’s founder Nathan Hubbard was the former CEO of Ticketmaster.
Kroenke’s contract with AXS will end on August 1, and according to Billboard, the transition has not been as easy as the company would have hoped, causing Ticketmaster to step in. The ticketing giant will support Rival in Denver, providing interim ticketing services on a month-to-month basis. The Ticketmaster officials will help with large data migration – which sources tell Billboard is partially driven by AXS – as Kroenke owns larger venues such as the Pepsi Center.
In addition to the data migration complications, AXS is reportedly planning to terminate Kroenke’s software license and transfer any remaining barcodes to Altitude, Kroenke’s regional ticketing system. A source close to the situation told Billboard that Ticketmaster “stepped up to help make the transition to Rival that AXS declined to facilitate,” noting that “Rival is in a much better position to launch successfully.”
Currently, a handful of events serviced by Altitude are on sale via Ticketmaster, although industry sources told the publication that it would be much easier if AXS handled the ticketing for any events that had already been put on sale and worked together through the transition.
Earlier this year, Hubbard announced that Rival would partner with Kroenke, and the deal was brokered between Josh Kroenke and his mom Ann, who had taken over their father Stan Kroenke’s Denver sports holdings back in 2010. The deal includes Altitude Tickets, the in-house ticketing system for the Denver Nuggets, Colorado Avalanche, and Colorado Rapids. Hubbard described Rival as the “platform for the most coveted live events on the planet.”
