Online ticketing agency Ticketfly announced today it has acquired WillCall, a concert discovery, ticketing and in-venue commerce application for iOS and Android. The two companies operate in the same industry, and combining will help Ticketfly continue to gain ground against larger competition like Ticketmaster and Eventbrite.
WillCall was founded in 2010 with the goal of helping people discover and attend more live events, focusing their work on curated lists of events in three cities—New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco—with the intention of expanding in the near future, after all parts of the two companies have been fully integrated. These curated lists are compiled by an internal team which looks at everything from a band’s social stats to their following, and who also do their best to pick which artists are of the highest quality.
The WillCall app. (Ticketfly/WillCall)
In addition to their intelligently-curated event listings, WillCall recently launched a frictionless payment functionality called BarTab, which lets fans easily open tabs from their phones and close out at the end of the night by simply walking out the door. The feature leverages beacon technology (powered by iBeacon and Bluetooth) and interfaces with a simple and intuitive iPad-based point of sale system developed specifically for live events. So far, the beacon-push technology is only available on WillCall-specific iPad POS systems.
Currently, over 1,300 venues (higher-profile customers include New York City’s Brooklyn Bowl and Washington, DC’s 9:30 Club) use Ticketfly for everything from simple ticketing to online marketing and sales analytics. With the acquisition of WillCall, the company can now provide it’s users (mostly promoters and venues themselves) data that incorporates a whole range of show-related transactions including tickets, concessions and merchandise sales. From this, both Ticketfly and its customers can examine purchasing behaviors, which can later help both parties tailor the live music experience on an individual level.
Ticketfly was among the first integrated technology platforms for event promoters, designed to streamline operations and increase ticket sales. The company was also a pioneer in mobile ticketing, offering mobile-optimized websites, along with mobile ticket delivery. In fact, Ticketfly CEO Andrew Dreskin previously co-founded a company called TicketWeb, which was the first company to sell tickets online in 1995.
