Ticketmaster acquires Eventjoy
Live Nation Entertainment announced yesterday its plans for subsidiary division Ticketmaster to buy the mobile-optimized ticketing service Eventjoy. The recently acquired company, which has been utilized by big names like TEDx, Target and The Home Depot, published an announcement on its blog expressing optimism for its future, post-merger:
"With this partnership, we'll have access to more resources so we can develop Eventjoy even faster and empower a larger number of people to put on their own events." The company also promised its users "more tools and an even better product."
Live Nation and Ticketmaster officially merged in 2010, becoming Live Nation Entertainment a year after the merger deal was proposed in February 2009. Ticketmaster's acquisition of Eventjoy is certainly in line with recent trends. According to Mashable, 17 percent of Ticketmaster's sales were purchased using a mobile device this year, up 3 percent from the end of last year.
Billboard reports that Live Nation's CEO, Michael Rapino, may be announcing more merger deals in the near future. Rapino was quoted as saying that Live Nation is "'looking for an easy entry into the do-it-yourself platform.'" He then went on to describe a scenario in which a user might put on a show or host a party via Eventjoy that could eventually be listed on Ticketmaster, increasing the event's reach.
Though Rapino is clearly eager to continue expanding Live Nation's assets and offerings through business mergers—the Tuesday before this proposed merger was announced, Ticketmaster acquired Belgian ticketing company Sherpa.be—he is not looking to grow arms in other industries. The CEO told investors at the Goldman Sachs Communicopia conference in New York on Thursday: "There's no AOL-Time Warner deals here. We don't need to do anything outside of our core lane to grow our business."