Merriweather Post Pavilion Comes to Ticketfly
February 18, 2010
The good news just keeps coming in! We’re thrilled to announce that Merriweather Post Pavilion will be using Ticketfly for all their ticketing needs! We’ve been happily working with I.M.P., the folks who run Merriweather and 9:30 Club, for the last few months and we’re excited to take this next step with them.
Tickets for shows at Merriweather Post Pavilion will go on sale starting February 26 on ticketfly.com!
Read below for full details courtesy of the Baltimore Sun:
Merriweather drops Ticketmaster, signs with Ticketfly
Severing its final ties with the recently merged Ticketmaster/Live Nation conglomerate, Merriweather Post Pavilion operator I.M.P. has signed with independent ticket distributor and marketer Ticketfly, officials announced today.
Starting this season, Ticketfly will handle all of the Columbia amphitheater’s ticket sales, according to I.M.P. chairman Seth Hurwitz. Hurwitz, an outspoken opponent of Live Nation, began using Ticketfly for shows at the 9:30 Club, which I.M.P. also runs, near the end of last year.
“This is obviously a major venue for (Ticketfly), but we’ve had a great time with them,” Hurwitz said. “They seem to be able to handle anything.”
Through Ticketfly, customers will not have to pay a fee to print tickets at home, and service charges will drop as much as 30 percent, Hurwitz said. …
The first two shows offered through Ticketfly, My Morning Jacket’s May 1 performance and the May 16 Sugarland concert, will go on sale at 10 a.m. Feb. 26.
“I know people hate service charges, but they’re a fact of life,” Hurwitz said. “We wanted to get them as low as we could.”
Last year, Hurwitz filed suit against Live Nation, claiming the company acquired a monopoly on the national touring market and used its leverage to “entice and coerce artists to appear only at amphitheatres and other venues it owns, operates or at which it controls the booking.” The lawsuit is pending.
“We’re like the Goldman family in the O.J. trial,” Hurwitz said. “The government didn’t help, so we’re taking matters into our own hands.”
Ticketfly was launched by the co-founder of pionering online ticketing company TicketWeb, and uses social media to help promote its shows. It currently sells tickets for the Knitting Factory, Bimbo’s 365 Club in San Francisco, Brooklyn Bowl in New York and Troubadour in Los Angeles.
Merriweather’s contract with Ticketmaster expired in 2008, and I.M.P. was using Ticketmaster at will since then, Hurwitz said. He hopes his decision will prompt other independent venue owners to sign with smaller ticket sellers such as Ticketfly.
“Hopefully this move will demonstrate to people it’s possible to have a choice,” he said. “We wanted to make that choice — rather than sitting around whining about it.”
(Baltimore Sun photo of Merriweather by Christopher T. Assaf)
Posted by Sam Sessa at 2:00 PM
Categories: News
Fast Company’s Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Music
February 18, 2010
Did we really make the same list as Dr. Dre!? The folks over at Fast Company have released their picks for Top 10 Most Innovative Companies by industry, and we are VERY honored to say that we’re number 8 in the music category! Go team!
This is shaping up to be an awesome year, and we’re all excited to be working for a company that aims to make ticket buying a fun and innovative experience for all! Now if only we could drop some sick beats like Dre….
To read the full article, find out why we’re “scrappy,” and to see who else made the list see below:
BY TYLER GRAY
1. Spotify
The dominant source for free, legal, anytime, anywhere music. Scared yet, iTunes? Top 50 No. 15
2. Apple Corps
The Beatles’ label cracked open its Abbey Road vault to collaborate onThe Beatles: Rock Band and a remastered catalog for a new generation of Fab Four fans. The group may have broken up 40 years ago, but it sold 3.28 million albums in 2009 — without digital downloads.
3. Man Made Music
Whether he’s recruiting John Legend to sing U2′s “Pride” for the History Channel’s MLK Jr. special, helping make Morgan Freeman the voice of CBS News, or sonically rebranding CNBC, Joel Beckerman says he’s telling stories through sound — and growing his company 200%.
4. Vevo
Backed by Universal, Sony, Abu Dhabi Media, and YouTube’s infrastructure, Vevo is on its way to becoming the Hulu of music videos.
5. Antares Audio Technologies
Invented in 1997 by a seismic data researcher for Exxon, Antares Audio’s Auto-Tune was tweaked for pop — early on in Cher’s “Believe” and later by robo-voiced hip-hop artists T-Pain and Kanye West. Despite a backlash led by Jay-Z, Auto-Tune has already defined an era of rap and R&B.
6. Third Man Records
White Stripes singer-guitarist Jack White’s boutique label moved to Nashville in ’09. Third Man makes handmade limited-edition 7-inch vinyl discs fast and cheap, and even released a mashup of Auto-Tune and Carl Sagan’s Cosmos just after it debuted on YouTube.
7. Beats by Dr. Dre
The partnership between Monster, Interscope Geffen A&M Records chairman Jimmy Iovine, and Dr. Dre made giant studio-quality headphones a fashion accessory. By late 2009, the black-and-red cans were at “Club Beats” pavilions at Best Buy.
8. Ticketfly
The scrappy concert-ticket service uses software pioneered in the hedge-fund industry to let groups of friends buy tickets together with just a few clicks.
9. Insomniac Productions
Electric Daisy Carnival, its annual late-June, two-day electronica festival in L.A., grew to 135,000 attendees in 2009 — as pricier festivals including Lollapalooza struggled.
10. Playdar
While services such as Pandora pull song suggestions from proprietary catalogs, this little open-source app looks for tunes on the Web and on users’ own hard drives and pulls them together into a single jukebox.
Categories: News
Ticketfly + Billions = SXSW Day Party!
February 17, 2010
Exciting times! We are super stoked to present, along with The Billions Corporation: Fat, Crooked, Unwound – a SXSW day party on Thursday, March 18th at The Mohawk in Austin, TX.
This FREE day party will feature the musical stylings of Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, The Black Angels, Bowerbirds, Generationals, Bear in Heaven, The Cave Singers, Oh No Ono, Avi Buffalo, The Dutchess and the Duke, and Cate Le Bon playing live from noon to 6:00 pm. See full schedule of artist set times below:
12:00 – 12:30pm: Cate Le Bon
12:30 – 1:10 p.m.: Bear In Heaven
1:10 – 1:40 p.m.: The Cave Singers
1:40 – 2:20 p.m.: Bowerbirds
2:20 – 2:50 p.m.: Generationals
2:50 – 3:30 p.m.: Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings
3:30 – 4:00 p.m.: Oh No Ono
4:00 – 4:40 p.m.: The Dutchess and the Duke
4:40 – 5:10 p.m.: Avi Buffalo
5:10 – 5:50 p.m.: The Black Angels
We would like to thank Billions for its partnership, as well as Independence Brewing Company, Louie Mueller Barbecue, and CHIRP Radio for their sponsorship of this event! And don’t forget to check out the Billions official SXSW showcases too. Can’t wait to see you there!
Categories: News
This Bird Has Flown
February 04, 2010
We’re psyched to announce the newest addition to the ‘Fly family! The Social, downtown Orlando’s go-to spot for live music, welcomes both local musicians and national acts in a neighborly setting (love the exposed brick!). The venue cites lower fees and more control over their ticketing as the main reasons for leaving Ticketmaster. Be sure to check out their calendar for upcoming awesomeness, you may need to consider a slight detour during your next trip to Disney World!
Read the official announcement in the Orlando Sentinel below.
The Social to part ways with Ticketmaster, team with Ticketfly
February 3, 2010, 2:53pm
Good news for fans of independent concert promotion: The Social is cutting its ties with Ticketmaster and moving to Ticketfly, a young company working to bring ticketing into the social networking age.
The company, recently profiled in the New York Times, has a client list that includes The Knitting Factory chain, The Double Door in Chicago and other theaters and clubs in markets such as San Francisco and Washington, D.C.
Here’s the announcement from the folks at the Social:
“The Social is leaving Ticketmaster. Although, we experienced a good working relationship with Ticketmaster, we decided it is time for us to move on to a new ticketing company. This transition will help us remain true to both the needs of you, our patrons, as well as of our business.
Moving forward, our new ticketing company is Ticketfly. We are excited about the new partnership as it will save you money with fewer fees and allow us more control over our own ticketing.
As we transition over the coming months, many of our currently announced shows will remain on sale with TicketMaster. However, ALL of our future shows will be sold through Ticketfly.
You can purchase tickets online at Ticketfly.com. As always, thank you for your business.
Categories: News, Ticketfly Clients
