Ticketfly Sponsors MWTX Party at SXSW!

Have you been counting down the days to SXSW like we have? Of course you have! Now we have another reason to be excited; we are a proud sponsor of a great SXSW event, the MWTX Party! Being held March 20 – 21, MWTX will feature awesome acts like GWAR, Andrew WK, Man Man, and many, many more! Even better, the event is FREE, all ages, and benefits Marbridge. So if you’re in town, come say hello! To find out more read below or visit MWTX.

MWTX

Categories: News

National Consumers League applauds I.M.P. and Ticketfly agreement to reduce service fees

The National Consumers League (NCL), the oldest consumer organization in the US, has said praised Ticketfly and I.M.P. for agreeing to a deal that promises to reduce ticket fees for I.M.P. events by up to 30%. We’re very happy to have the approval of the NCL, a group that tirelessly works to protect consumers! Sounds like an organization after our own hearts!

To read all of the details about what the NCL has to say about our deal with I.M.P., and ticket fees in general read below, or click here.

National Consumers League applauds I.M.P. and Ticketfly agreement to reduce service fees

Release Date: February 19, 2010
Contact: (202) 835-3323, media@nclnet.org

Washington, DC – The National Consumers League (NCL) today applauded the announcement by I.M.P. and Ticketfly that their agreement to offer primary ticketing services at the Merriweather Post Pavillion amphitheatre in Columbia, Maryland with result in up to 30 percent lower service fees on tickets.

NCL, the nation’s oldest consumer organization, has made the reduction in service fees a primary goal of its efforts to promote affordability and transparency for consumers in the live event marketplace. “At a time when consolidation in the industry leaves little hope for consumer benefit, it is encouraging to see independent venues and ticketing services working together to lower these service fees,” said NCL Executive Director Sally Greenberg. “Consumers are rightfully fed up with outrageously expensive fees that are all too often tacked on to the face value of a ticket. We are happy to see that I.M.P. and Ticketfly agree with the vast majority of consumers who think that being charged extra to print out a ticket on their own printer with their own ink is inexcusable.”

NCL and I.M.P. chairman Seth Hurwitz recently worked together with other consumer, antitrust, and industry groups to oppose the Ticketmaster-Live Nation merger. Despite a huge outpouring of consumer opposition, the U.S. Department of Justice ultimately approved that merger with conditions.

“If the DOJ is not going to stand in the way of the new live event industry colossus, consumers will increasingly look to creative arrangements between independent actors like I.M.P. and Ticketfly to put a check on the seemingly unstoppable increase in ticket prices,” said Greenberg.

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About the National Consumers League

Founded in 1899, the National Consumers League is America’s pioneer consumer organization. Its mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. NCL is a private, nonprofit membership organization. For more information, visit www.nclnet.org.

Categories: News

Merriweather Post Pavilion Comes to Ticketfly

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

fansatmerriweather.jpg

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

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:

Music

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!

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:

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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