Eventbrite continues APAC expansion by opening New Zealand office

Event ticketing platform Eventbrite continues its expansion in the Asia-Pacific region by officially launching in New Zealand.

It has opened an office in Auckland, which will be led by Eventbrite Australia and New Zealand Marketing Manager Brad McIntyre, a New Zealand native.

Reporting to Phil Silverstone, Australia and New Zealand General Manager, McIntyre will also be hiring local talent for the new office over the next 12 months.

Silverstone said, “We’re incredibly excited to be launching into our second APAC market.

“The New Zealand office deepens our regional expansion and continues our mission of bringing people together through the power of live experiences.

“New Zealand may have a small population, but Kiwis have a huge appetite for live experiences, making it the perfect market for Eventbrite.”

Research conducted by Eventbrite with CrowdDNA showed that proportionally, New Zealanders attend the most events in the Western world, with 93% of them having attended an event in the past 12 months—more than the US, UK, Europe, and Australia.

“What’s also great is that we have a number of key Australian customers that have been able to expand into the New Zealand market with us, following their successes and business growth using Eventbrite,” said Silverstone.

“Brad has a proven track record delivering leading technology products to market with long tenures at Microsoft and Samsung in New Zealand, which adds to his deep understanding of the unique needs of New Zealand entrepreneurs.

“It’s his expertise in connecting events with technology that has significantly improved the attendee experience of event organisers’ customers and performance of their businesses.”

Eventbrite has powered more than 70,000 events in New Zealand since inception. Of these, 34,000 were in the last 18 months.

More than 13,000 New Zealand event organisers are on the platform.

One of them is Rhythm and Vines, a three-day international music festival held in Gisborne on December 29-31 each year. It is the first festival in the world to welcome in the first sunrise of the new year.

Since its first event in 2003 to an audience of 1,800, this year it drew 15,000.

“Eventbrite has been integral to the success of our festival over the past 18 months,” the festival’s Marketing and Partnerships Manager, Kyle Bell says.

“As they formally launch their New Zealand office, we’re excited to partner even more closely with their team to continue to grow the Rhythm and Vines brand.”

In the wake of building an Australia-based customer service team to service the region, Eventbrite plans to set up a similar operation in New Zealand down the track.