LN Pacts With CTS Eventim For Global Ticketing – Positioning To Grapple With Ticketmaster

LOS ANGELES, (CelebrityAccess MediaWire) — Live Nation announced that it has entered into a long-term agreement with CTS Eventim which will enable Live Nation to launch its own ticketing business utilizing the most technologically advanced ticketing platform in the world. Live Nation will exclusively license the Eventim platform in North America, and Eventim will provide back office ticketing services in the UK and ticketing services across Europe. The new agreement will allow Live Nation to begin selling tickets on January 1st, 2009.

Live Nation President and Chief Executive Officer Michael Rapino commented, "This is a monumental step forward in the evolution of Live Nation into a next generation music company. Eventim is the most technologically sophisticated ticketing platform in the world. Live Nation will use its most important asset, the concert ticket, to build artist careers and customer relationships, forge innovative sponsorship deals, create a fan and artist friendly secondary ticketing platform and provide a ticketing alternative for third-party venues. We believe that our partnership with Eventim will allow us to execute on this transformational vision."

CTS Eventim Chief Executive Officer Klaus-Peter Schulenberg was, perhaps unsurprisingly, of a similar mind, stating, "Eventim is at the forefront of ticketing innovation across Europe, and we share Live Nation’s passion for enhancing the fan ticketing experience. We will provide the infrastructure and technology required to reshape how Live Nation consumers access ticket inventory and enable ancillary revenue opportunities, while vastly improving the overall fan ticketing experience."

The deal will give Live Nation a big leg up in ticketing. CTS Eventim has a strong infrastructure, including including interactive seating maps, mobile distribution, integrated primary and secondary ticketing, alternative access models (auctions, lottery, etc.), print-at-home, radio frequency identification (RFID) ticketing already in place and it should be readily deployable to North America as well. Live Nation is similarly situated, having spent considerable energy in deploying a strong web-based presence for itself in the last year. The new ticketing platform will allow Live Nation to control customer data, to push more elaborate ticket-based concert products and to capitalize on expanded distribution channels and sponsorship opportunities. – CelebrityAccess Staff Writers