CTS To Challenge Ticketmaster

German ticketing giant CTS Eventim has purchased a majority stake in Lippupiste in a bid to challenge Ticketmaster for dominance of the Finnish market.

The Munich-based company has paid euro 5 million for a 70 percent stake in the Tampere-based firm and will acquire the remainder in 2012, according to a statement.

Apart from more than 400 promoters, theatres and concert halls, Lippupiste’s customers include numerous Finnish sports clubs including HJK Helsinki – one of the country’s top soccer outfits – and various ice hockey, basketball, handball and volleyball teams.

The move comes on the back of Eventim setting up an office in Stockholm to help service the worldwide ticketing deal the company made with Live Nation at the beginning of the year.

Rainer Appel, CTS vice president for legal and business affairs, said it will also set up shop in Norway and Denmark in 2009.

The Finnish acquisition appears to place CTS in a strong position to challenge Ticketmaster in the Nordic region and provide a platform for further expansion in the Baltics.

In 2004, Ticketmaster became the dominant player in Scandinavia with the purchase of Lippupalvelu and BiljettDirekt Ticnet, the market leaders in Finland and Sweden respectively.

Helsinki-based Lippupalvelu, which was founded in 1945 and sells in excess of 4 million tickets per year, is still in pole position but sales haven’t risen from the 4.5 million it was doing in 2003.

Lippupiste, which started in 2002, has made rapid progress and sold more than 3 million tickets in 2007.
CTS chief exec Klaus-Peter Schulenberg said he expects it to increase this year and that the company – buoyed by the LN deal – will be the market leader by the end of 2009.

It’s the second change in the Finnish ticketing market in the last month. Primary ticketing operation Menolippu recently joined forces with U.K.-based resale Web site viagogo to launch the country’s first official secondary ticket exchange.