Eventbrite inks major deal with iconic live venues
Image: The Bennies at The Corner Hotel
Credit: Ian Laidlaw
Eventbrite, the world’s largest self-service ticketing platform, has inked a deal to become the ticketing partner for Melbourne institution The Corner Hotel, as well as Northcote Social Club and Sydney venue Newtown Social Club.
From October Eventbrite becomes the main ticketing partner for all three venues, taking over from Melbourne-based independent, Ticketscout.
Having only launched in Australia in 2014, the deal is a momentous step for the San Francisco-headquartered platform, which is headed up locally by Phil Silverstone.
The company’s innovative and technology-driven platform and localised approach has lead to the tripling of its team and has seen it become the preferred agency for national events like Tough Mudder and festivals including Beyond The Valley and Rainbow Serpent. In fact, in 2015 alone Eventbrite hosted over 150,000 events in Australia.
Phil Silverstone, General Manager Australia, Eventbrite, told TMN: “We launched a Melbourne office in 2014, and since then our presence in the local market has grown significantly. Although Australian organisers have used Eventbrite for 10 years, more than 40% of the total events ever in Australia were in 2015 alone. And momentum continues.”
Speaking of the partnership, Silverstone said: “The Corner Hotel is one of the most successful and well-loved music venues in Australia who are just as obsessed with delivering incredible live experiences to their customers as we are. This deal is further testament to our continued growth and shows our commitment to providing the best live music events to fans and attendees.”
Phil Silverstone
Hosting live music on up to seven nights a week, iconic Richmond venue The Corner Hotel has been the Melbourne live venue of choice for both local and international touring artists. Since the 1940s when the space hosted jazz bands on its rooftop, to its dabbling as a reggae-themed pub in the early ‘90s, to booking The Avalanches pre-Since I left You ubiquity, The Corner Hotel is undoubtedly one of Australia’s best-loved live music venues.
Eventbrite’s newest partners The Corner Hotel,Northcote Social Club, and Newtown Social Club all continually rank inPollstar’s Top 200 ‘most successful club venues in the world’list. In 2015, The Corner Hotel came in at #26,Northcote Social Club at #96, and Newtown Social Club at #103.
The partnership has a hint of serendipity about it. The Corner Hotel celebrated its 20th year in July following its purchase by Tim Northeast and Matt Everitt in 1995. Since then, the artists to grace its stage include Tim Rogers, The Dandy Warhols, Queens of the Stoneage, The White Stripes, The Bennies, Rodriguez, Midnight Oil and Blink182.
Rod Smith, Group General Manager at The Corner Hotel, said: “We are excited to partner with Eventbrite to be our primary ticketing platform. It was Eventbrite’s progressive technology that drew us to them. Their tech-forward solution will streamline our ticketing process, enabling us to keep our offering competitive for both the artists and our punters.”
Eventbrite has integrations with over 140 partners, including Facebook, SurveyMonkey, MailChimp, and Salesforce. Among its investors are Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global and T. Rowe Price. This latest client partnership further places the well-funded US platform as a healthy threat to market competitors.
Since inception, Eventbrite has processed over $5 billion in gross ticket sales. It powers more than 2 million events around the world each year.
Silverstone told TMN the platform is expanding its local presence:
“We’re hiring and continuing to invest in the Australian market which we believe presents significant opportunities,” he said. “We are committed to growing our local presence and providing Aussies with the best platform to host and experience live events. We’re continuously growing our local team of Britelings and our available roles in Australia can be found on eventbrite.com.au/jobs.”