Ticketmaster's Empire
It was an item that was easy to miss in the business pages last week. Ticketmaster, the US-based ticket company, bought out Lippupalvelu Oy, the leading provider of tickets for events in Finland. The terms were not disclosed, by they were doubtless at most in the tens of millions of dollars, a relatively small change for Ticketmaster, which sold almost $5 billion worth of tickets in 2003.
But the acquisition capped a series of moves that is making Ticketmaster as dominant in selling big event tickets through the world, country by country. For example
- Earlier this year, Ticketmaster acquired Sweden's largest ticket seller, BiljettDirekt, itself the result of a 2001 merger.
- In 2003, Ticketmaster acquired BIILETNet AS, the leading Danish supplier of tickets.
- In June of that year, it acquired Ticket Service Nederland B.V., the Netherlands' top ticket service company.
- In 2002, the company acquired Norway's top ticket company, Billettservice AS.
Looks like a pattern here.
Ticketmaster already had major operations in Canada, the UK, Ireland, Brazil, and Australia. It is acquiring ticket companies at the rate of about two a year, along with ancillary services. In the past few years, the company expanded operations in Canada by buying Towne Ticket Centre (in Western Canada) and Admission (in Quebec), and bought the leading live ticketing company in Hawaii (Tickets Plus).
It also acquired other service companies including 2b Technology, which specializes in ticketing for museums, zoos, and aquariums; Reserve America, which takes camping reservations; EDCS, a fan loyalty program fro sports teams; Evite.com, an online event planning suite; Soulmates Technology, a leading online dating company; and Synchro, a company that supplied software and services to the sports and entertainment industries.
Ticketmaster is absolute dominating in the US, where one estimate has it as the main ticket seller for over 70% of the major events m whether sporting, concerts, theater, or other special events. The company was the main seller of tickets for the Athens Olympics. It has an exclusive contract for all the concerts run by the leading rock concert promoter in the US, Clear Channel. The company has extensive Webs services, phone centers, and physical ticket locations.
Ticketmaster is a division of Barry Diller's IAC holding company, along with a number of other online services. It has become the essential middleman for most sports teams, concert promoters, monster truck rally promoters, and now even theater producers and museum directors. It is a true oligonomy, where it is one of the few ways customers can buy tickets to many events, and most event producers are forced to deal with it to get their tickets sold. Ticketmaster takes a percentage off the top on every transaction.
