Songkick And CrowdSurge Merge, Raise $16M To Combine Concert Discovery And Ticketing

Half of concert tickets go unsold because fans don’t know the shows are happening. To fix that, 10 million user concert discovery app Songkick is merging with white-label artist-to-fan ticket seller CrowdSurge. Under the name Songkick they’ve also raised a $16 million Series B from Access, Sequoia, and Index to grow the team.

Together, they could help people find out about nearby shows and then buy tickets straight from the artist. That lets musicians earn a bigger cut than if concert junkies bought tickets through the venue or a traditional big seller like Ticketmaster. The added firepower will help Songkick battle its rival discovery app BandsInTown for concert dollars that are poised to grow as streaming makes it easier for casual listeners to become devout fans.

While the press and public focus on Spotify, YouTube, and iTunes, the concert industry is actually twice the size the recorded music business and how artists make 80% of their revenue. Yet despite an increase in demand amongst big fans for top acts leading to a 300% ticket price increase in the last 30 years, attendance rates haven’t increased. But Songkick co-founder Ian Hogarth and CrowdSurge founder Matt Jones, now co-CEOS, think they can get more people in front of the stage through technology.

The two halves of this newly forged music startup tackle the problem from different angles. Founded in 2007, Songkick’s app displays concerts in your city, and lets you track your favorite artists so you never miss a show. It had raised $16.6 million from Y Combinator, Betaworks, Sequoia, and Index, which helped it grow to 10 million monthly active users and begin selling tickets for the shows it promotes.

Meanwhile, CrowdSurge powers direct-to-fan ticket ecommerce storefronts for big artists. Starting in 2008, it began amassing a client base of 500 of the world’s top acts, including Paul McCartney, Tiësto, Jack White, Macklemore, Enrique Iglesias, and The xx. Artists typically have the right to take at least 8% (and up to 100% in some countries) of their shows’ ticket inventory and sell them straight to fans, which lets them earn a higher margin since they don’t have to share revenue with someone like Ticketmaster.

The merger is a 50-50 stock-for-stock split, and will let Songkick earn money not just referring ticket sales, but fully transacting them as well.

from TechCrunch http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/AoCjZXsGJOM/
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