Pandora To Acquire Ticketfly

Online radio service Pandora has just spent the best part of half a billion dollars to acquire independent ticketing agency Ticketfly – a bit of business that will allow the streaming platform to sell tickets direct to its 80m users.

Music Business Worldwide reports half of the buyout sum is being fulfilled by Pandora in cash, with the other half in company stock.

Brian McAndrews

Since being founded in 2008, Ticketfly now provides ticketing and marketing software for approximately 1,200 venues and event promoters across North America.

Pandora says that the buyout will ‘solve the longstanding problem of event discovery by seamlessly connecting Pandora’s nearly 80 million monthly active music fans to events they’ll love’.

Ticketfly and Pandora say they will also ‘harness the power of their combined data to create new tools for music makers to increase their revenue’.

“This is a game-changer for Pandora – and much more importantly – a game-changer for music,” said Brian McAndrews, chief executive officer at Pandora.

In 2014, Ticketfly sold 16 million tickets to more than 90,000 live events, generating more than $500 million in transaction volume and crossing the $1 billion mark in cumulative transaction volume.

Andrew Dreskin

An average of 14 million people visit Ticketfly.com and its network of client sites each month.

“Pandora’s entry into live events is a watershed moment for the music industry and will forever change the landscape for artists, promoters and fans,” said Andrew Dreskin, co-founder and chief executive officer of Ticketfly.

North American concert ticket sales grew 22 percent since last year, fueling a rapidly growing industry now estimated at $6.2 billion.

“Live music is booming, and we can grow the number of shows being staged and tickets being sold,” added McAndrews.