Pandora Media Inc. acquired Ticketfly Inc. to fight against big music competitors like Apple Music and Spotify. The internet radio company announced the acquisition on Oct. 7, Wednesday, and the deal was worth $450 million.
According to Pandora, that the deal would be beneficial to the company especially if they introduce the 80 million free monthly subscribers to Ticketfly, which is just one of the thriving online ticketing and marketing software for event promoters and fans.
Pandora will be able to utilize the data generated from their fans to identify the bands they would like to be in a specific town. The company will provide $225 million in cash to Ticketfly investors while $224 million will go to Pandora stock.
"We believe this acquisition closes the loop for Pandora by creating a one-stop-shop for artist discovery, marketing, and concert ticket sales," Los Angeles Times quoted Stifel Nicolaus analyst John Egbert as saying. "Pandora can now share in the upside of live music industry growth that is undoubtedly being driven in large part by rapid growth in streaming music consumption."
In a blog, Pandora co-founder Tim Westergren wrote that this exciting new venture will enable Pandora to "create the world's most efficient platform for connecting listeners with live shows from their favorite bands."
Westergren added that this is just the perfect solution for listeners, artists and promoters. The scale is bigger and the fan base is more intact. This will also solve the problem of ticketing distribution. About 40 percent of tickets went unsold this year and one of the possible factors for this loss is the lack of connection of the promotion to the fans.