The ticket resale world is abuzz with rumors this week, as it appears that Vivid Seats co-founder Eric Vassilatos is looking to re-enter the business in competition with his former firm. The Chicago entrepreneur, who co-founded Vivid Seats with Jerry Bednyak in 2001 and more recently served as co-managing partners at Skybox Capital, is said to be recruiting both talent and inventory suppliers to a new ticket resale exchange.
“GoTickets.com is coming soon….” is public message greeting anyone who visits that website as of Friday afternoon, but behind the scenes there are multiple postings on ticket broker-centric online forms regarding the platform. One online form shared with TicketNews is being circulated among those in the industry to request more information about the developing company.
“If you want to get on Eric’s new exchange, put your information here and they will call you or send an email directly to [email address redacted] or call [redacted] at [phone number redacted],” says a post sharing the request for information form by Zak Ellman, who formerly worked as a senior VP at Broker Genius/Automatiq but now operates a business called OneMarket Recruiting, according to his LinkedIn bio.
“We are onboarding brokers all weekend,” reads another post from Ellman. “Get setup today and be a part of history. Thank you to all of our friends for the overwhelming support.”
Vassilatos and Bednyak ceded day-to-day operational leadership of Vivid Seats in 2018 when Stan Chia was appointed as CEO of the company, becoming served as co-chairs of the board of directors. The company went public as part of a SPAC merger in October 2021, trading as SEAT on the NASDAQ. Neither are currently listed as members of the company’s Board of Directors.
Rumor has it, though TicketNews has not been able to independently confirm, that Vassilatos has been chafing with the leadership at Vivid Seats for many months. It is also rumored that the company’s recently announced secondary sale of stock was precipitated as part of Vassilatos’ new direction, though that also has not been independently verified.
Requests for comment to Vivid Seats, Skybox Capital, and email addresses listed in association with the GoTickets venture have not received a response as of Friday afternoon.
