Eventbrite lets anyone sell (or give-away) tickets for their events. It some ways it levels the playing field between small event organisers and the giants of the industry, by providing the publishing, promotional and management infrastructure needed.
Now Eventbrite is planning on taking on the big boys of ticket sales, and has its sights set on the biggest of the lot — Ticketmaster. According to the New York Times anyway.
The newspaper reports that Eventbrite has raised $50M to support expansion plans. The new funds will be used to build improved back-end processes that can handle the larger, more complicated aspects of ticket selling, as well allowing Eventbrite to launching into more non-US marketing.
The article makes clear Eventbrite isn’t planning on taking on Ticketmaster directly, instead it will focus on building a larger base of customers from those events that don’t appear on Ticketmaster’s radar.
Kevin Hartz, Eventbrite Chief Executive:
“TicketMaster has a different focus than we do. It serves a very small niche of the ticketing world — the largest and most complex sporting and entertainment sectors. This will be part of a much larger business of being the ticketing platform broadly for all events of all shapes and sizes.”
Source: The New York Times — Eventbrite Raises $50 Million to Tackle Ticketmaster