Sports Technology

SeatGeek’s recent US$56 million acquisition of Israeli ticketing software company TopTix looks set to have an impact on ticketing markets around the world.

With the acquisition seeing the US-based company gain TopTix’s ticketing platform and engineering team, as well as its clients, the combining company is set to become one of the largest primary ticketers in the world.

Prior to the acquisition, SeatGeek and TopTix had been technology partners for eight months in the US market, rolling out of SeatGeek’s primary ticketing platform, SeatGeek Open

Since being launched in 2009, SeatGeek has been focused on building fan-friendly features that has transformed the way fans find, buy, and sell tickets to their favourite events.

TopTix, meanwhile, has built the best technology in the world for powering the back-end of ticketing systems, setting the standard for modern primary ticketing with SRO processing 80 million tickets a year in 16 countries across the globe, including the Asia Pacific and through the TicketServ customer base. Their technology - a modern, web-based, API-driven platform - is widely acknowledged a massive step forward in ticketing technology.

In a recent message to stakeholders, SeatGeek co-founder Jack Groetzinger advised “with the union of our two companies, we are now able to provide both the best consumer-facing and client technology in ticketing, a full-stack combination that has never been seen before in our industry.”

SeatGeek’s acquisition of TopTix, has also seen it acquire TopTix’s six subsidiaries in Europe, the United States and Australia, including local partner TicketServ Asia Pacific.

Commenting on this, Groetzinger added “the top-notch level of service and technology you have come to expect from the TicketServ team will not be changing.

“Rather, the additional resources will help us, together, better develop the business and technology that can best serve your organisation.

“SeatGeek will be onboarding TicketServ employees in the coming months, and TopTix co-founder, Eli Dagan, will continue to lead the core engineering team in Israel.”

Ian English, who founded TicketServ, recently advised stakeholders “I started TicketServ back in late 2009 as a distributor for TopTix and the SRO product.

“This business has grown over the years and, along with the changes back in 2012 when I bought out the partners I originally started the business with and (with) TopTix investing in TicketServ, we have continued to build a solid business with a fantastic client base, an amazing product and an incredible team and I look forward to continuing this direction in years to come.

“In regards to TopTix, as the core developer and prime owner of the SRO software, they have continued to build the global businesses in multiple locations and, as a result of this growth, they have been recognised as both a very strong technology company as well as a great business.

“To that end, as a result of these two prime attributes, there was an approach to buy their business in total late last year and this deal has now been completed.

“This includes their own offices as well as partners such as TicketServ.”

Looking forward to “even better opportunity for expansion and growth”, English concluded “the SRO suite is heavily committed to globally and this new ownership direction is a great step in the global expansion of both the product and markets.”

Click here to contact TicketServ Asia Pacific via their entry in the Australasian Leisure Management Supplier Directory.

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