Ticketfly to Challenge Ticketmaster in Canada

TORONTO - Ticketfly is expanding to Canada to take on Ticketmaster and its local dominance of concert and sports ticket sales.

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The U.S.-based indie ticketing and marketing platform has already signed up local indie concert promoters Union Events and Collective Concerts.

“Ticketfly, as they have in the U.S., is offering (Canadian) venues and promoters who need a ticketing system another alternative to what has been until now a closed system,” said Bruce Morrison, the newly-installed general manager of Ticketfly Canada.

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Morrison, former head of ticket sales at the Sony Center for the Performing Arts in Toronto, said Ticketfly’s social tools for marketing tickets on Facebook and Twitter now available to Canadian concert halls, arenas, and sports stadiums will reduce the cost of service fees for venues and promoters.

“Ticketfly is better suited to their audiences and how their audiences buy tickets and Ticketfly can react quickly to change in the marketplace,” he added.

The Canadian expansion follows Ticketfly in July 2012 raising $22 million in new venture capital to move into new vertical and international markets.

The U.S.-based player also launched a reserved seating ticketing service to compete against Ticketmaster, Tickets.com and other industry rivals.

To back its Canadian expansion, Ticketfly has acquired Prime Box Office, a Calgary-based ticket company.

Morrison and his field sales team will be based in Toronto, while Greg Stephenson, president of Prime Box Office, will serve as sales director for western Canada, based in Calgary.