Pandora has entered into an agreement to acquire live events technology company Ticketfly Inc.
According to a press release from Pandora, the transaction is valued at approximately $450 million, subject to certain purchase price adjustments, with a nearly equal balance of cash and stock.
The companies positioned it as a major announcement that “takes the company beyond its Internet radio roots.” In its phrase, it creates “the leading data-enabled marketplace for artists and fans.”
“Over the past 10 years, we have amassed the largest, most engaged audience in streaming music history,” said Pandora CEO Brian McAndrews. He said the acquisition will benefit music lovers as well as ticket sales for artists. The integration will more directly connect listeners to concerts and other artist events, as well provide “data to create new tools for music makers to increase their revenue and improve recommendations for fans,” the company said.
Ticketfly co-founder and CEO Andrew Dreskin was quoted calling Pandora’s entry into live events as a “watershed moment” for the music industry. “The combination of Ticketfly and Pandora will be a marketing and event discovery powerhouse, giving venues and promoters unprecedented access to a massive and targeted audience of nearly 80 million music fans,” he said.
Ticketfly was founded in 2008 and provides ticketing and marketing software for 1,200 venues and event promoters in North America; its platform supports 600 websites. In 2014, it sold 16 million tickets to 90,000 live events, generating some $500 million in transaction volume and crossing the $1 billion mark in cumulative transaction volume, the companies said.
This move comes a year after the streamer launched its Artist Marketing Platform, and earlier in 2015 the company enabled artists to address fans directly through recorded Artist Audio Messages. Pandora also recently acquired Next Big Sound to generate even more insights into artists, their fans and music trends.
