With Merger and Big-Name Backers, Tickets.com Wants More of the Market

Pop star Michael Jackson and the world’s largest sports marketing agency are among the investors putting an additional $30 million into Newport Beach-based Tickets.com Inc., the online event-ticketing company said Monday.

The latest infusion of cash brings to $73 million the amount of venture capital financing the 14-year-old ticket agency has raised and comes as the company tries to carve out its place in a field dominated by Ticketmaster Corp.

Tickets.com also announced it had acquired two other companies that develop ticketing technology.

“This continues our roll-up of ticketing software companies and helps us gain the critical mass of venues signed up,” said James Caccavo, president of Internet operations at Tickets.com.

The acquisitions of TicketsLive Corp. of Syracuse, N.Y., and TicketStop Inc. of Bellevue, Wash., brings Tickets.com’s number of employees to 760 from just over 600. None of the employees will move to Southern California. It is unclear if there will be any subsequent layoffs because of the acquisitions, the company said.

The new funding comes from investors such as Jackson’s Jackson International LLC and IMG/Chase Sports Capital Partners, which is backed by sports marketing titan International Management Group. Its clients, which include golfer Tiger Woods and figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi, are the primary investors in IMG/Chase. Other investors include General Atlantic Partners LLC; Attractor; Moore Capital Management Inc.; idealab Capital Partners; and Bayview Investors, all of whom have invested in Tickets.com before.

Jackson International officials could not be reached for comment.

So far, Tickets.com has concentrated on enlarging the market of arts and entertainment venues that use ticketing agencies, signing up small- and medium-sized facilities and leaving the Madison Square Gardens of the world to Ticketmaster.

“Our primary focus today is not to go after Ticketmaster venues,” said Caccavo, who sees a larger market in fine-arts arenas, universities, minor league sports and family attractions such as zoos and museums.

The acquisitions come at a time when Tickets.com itself is still a merger in progress with Newport Beach-based Advantix Inc. and Tickets.com of Los Angeles. In January, Advantix announced it was merging with Tickets.com as part of an all-stock deal, with the emerging company keeping Advantix’s headquarters and its chief executive and president, W. Thomas Gimple, but taking on the Tickets.com name.

That merger is due to be completed in May.

Rapid-fire acquisitions are not new for Tickets.com. Aside from TicketsLive and TicketStop, the company has bought five companies since 1996.

It still has a long way to go before it loosens Ticketmaster’s grip on the industry, which has led several performers to complain about high service fees.

Ticketmaster has only slightly more venues under contract, but they are the largest venues that bring in the biggest and most lucrative shows.

While Tickets.com’s Web presence may be attractive, Ticketmaster has a Web presence of its own as well as a strong brand, long-term contracts with its vendors and an extensive ticketing infrastructure that includes thousands of retail ticket outlets, telephone salespeople and wide-ranging marketing agreements.

“As far as scale and access, you’re going to have a difficult time trying to match what Ticketmaster can do in terms of outlets and size of venues,” said Mark Hardy, an analyst with Forrester Research Inc. in Cambridge, Mass.

Although Jackson International and IMG/Chase Sports Capital Partners will give Tickets.com connections to performers and events, that may have little sway over the venues, which generally control the ticketing of events, Hardy said.

The affiliations may, however, give Tickets.com access to a small number of tickets allotted to those companies for events that they arrange, which tend to be premium seats, Hardy said.