Pandora branches out to buy Ticketfly

The $450 million deal, announced today (Oct. 7), expands the way Pandora connects artists with listeners by tapping into the growing live music business.

“There is a disconnect right now between music discovery online with streaming sites and discovery of events”.

Pandora is huge, with more than 80 million monthly active users, but is yet to turn a profit. In this new, rapidly-changing landscape of music, most revenue for most bands and artists will come from touring and their live concerts.

“We will talk to you personally, we will message with you personally, and we will take your personal interests into account”, said Brian McAndrews, CEO of Oakland, California-based Pandora.

“Pandora’s entry into live events is a watershed moment for the music industry”. This year, Ticketfly was named one of Fast Company’s “Most Innovative Companies in Music”. That screams ticketing integration and diversification, with Ticketfly overseeing 1,200 different venue relationships and sales of more than 16 million tickets across 90,000 events in 2014 alone. Pandora touts a daily user count of around 80 million people and a high-traffic mobile app. Recently, Pandora has been progressing beyond its internet radio roots to become a data-rich resource for music makers.

Ticketfly works with a marquee roster of tastemaker venues and promoters, including: the famed 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C., the 19,000-capacity Merriweather Post Pavilion in Maryland, Burning Man and the Pitchfork Music Festival.

That’s what the acquisition of Ticketfly-and its streamlined tools for ticket-selling and self-promotion-is all about.

Last year it launched a marketing platform for artists, followed this year by an audio messaging service artists can use to deliver messages to fans.

Despite claims that the debut of Apple Music had no impact on its listenership, Pandora is not sitting still in the hyper-competitive streaming music segment.

“The deal provides a way for Pandora to appeal to its most valuable listeners, as streamers who buy tickets spend more time listening”, said Russ Crupnick, managing partner of MusicWatch. Later in San Francisco, ODESZA sold out two 17,000-cap shows at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium minutes after going on sale.

As the world moves closer to single companies running (and ruining) entire industries, Pandora has made it clear they see the long-rumored “Spotify Concerts” system as the future of the music business. Per capita spending has also grown by 65% since 2008.

North American ticket sales for major concerts were up 20% previous year, reaching .2 billion (pdf), Pollstar estimates.