Ticketing Startup Ticketfly Acquires WillCall

Ticketing startup Ticketfly today announced the acquisition of events app WillCall. Ticketfly has shown impressive growth for their ticketing service which features a lot of music events but isn't limited to music. WillCall was focused on a mobile app for music events with a difficult-to-scale combination of discovery, ticketing, merch and drink sales.

Neither the official announcement of the acquisition nor the blog post from Ticketfly CEO Andrew Dreskin say anything about the price.

WillCall is said to have raised $2.1 million over their lifetime while Ticketfly has raised $37 million.

From the official announcement:

"WillCall's technology will enhance Ticketfly's mobile offering and provide a springboard for moving beyond the ticket and inside the venue. The integration of WillCall's technology into Ticketfly's platform will provide promoters with new tools and valuable data to better understand their customers and reward loyalty."

From Dreskin's post:

"WillCall has some great tools for venues and event promoters as well, including a simple and intuitive iPad-based point of sale system, which integrates seamlessly with its bar tab functionality. Over time the WillCall POS will integrate tightly with the Ticketfly platform. We believe that the melding of concessions and ticketing data is crucial to helping promoters better understand their customers and reward loyalty."

"The way people experience live events in the future will be very different than in the past. The phone will play a big part in that…Nearly half of the traffic to Ticketfly.com and the 500 mobile-optimized websites we power on behalf of our partners originates from mobile devices. WillCall will be yet another tool in our mobile arsenal."

Also from the announcement:

"WillCall CEO Donnie Dinch will lead Ticketfly's consumer-facing and in-venue technology development as GM, Consumer Experience.'

Hard to know from outside but it sounds like a good match. Ticketfly appears to be well aware of what they acquired and plan to make full use of what Donnie Dinch and team developed at WillCall though they are talking bar tabs and not mentioning merch. But this could be the combination that allows Ticketfly to move beyond an alt ticket provider identity to something that's potentially much bigger.

More:

• Ticketfly Sold 11.2 Million Tickets Last Year
• WillCall Launches BarTab, Opens Venue Pilot Program In Quest For "End-to-End Solution"
• WillCall Concert Discovery App Raises $1.2 Million In New Funding Round

Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (@fluxresearch) recently launched DanceLand. Send news about music tech startups and services, DIY music biz and music marketing to: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.