Seatwave To Move In?

Seatwave chief Joe Cohen said his leading secondary ticket firm is opening up in the Turkish market, although Portland – its PR company – says it’s “highly confidential” where and when it will happen.

Cohen told The Times May 11 he’s excited by the move because the country has “the three demographic advantages of a relatively large middle class, a young population and a keenness for sport.”

The major primary ticket sellers in the region are Biletix – owned by Ticketmaster and with more than 75 percent of the market – and TicketTurk, once an acquisition target for German ticket giant CTS Eventim but now damaged by its court appearances for failing to pay money owed to U.S. rock acts Megadeth and Garbage.

The paper interviewed Cohen after Internet market research company ComScore confirmed his company is Europe’s largest ticket exchange, with sales up 287 percent since last year.

Seatwave, which has denied accusations that it is bulk-buying tickets and re-selling them for huge profits, says its Q1 gross margin grew 301 percent compared with the same period last year. In March, 1.9 million people visited its Web site.

“Seatwave’s exponential growth shows that our focus on helping fans buy and sell tickets is the winning approach in this space,” Cohen claimed in a May 5 statement.
“The recent Michael Jackson and Bruce Springsteen ticket scandals underscore the moral failings of the live event industry and reinforce our commitment to make sure fans are properly protected and get the best prices in the secondary market,” he said, apparently drawing attention back to the recent bad publicity that Viagogo and Ticketmaster received from their respective work for the two major U.S. acts.

Seatwave’s exceptional growth trend is mirrored across Europe, where the company has reported ticket sales in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain are up 401 percent over the past year.

Seatwave does about 70 percent of its business in music and has seen brisk trade for tours by the likes of U2, AC/DC, Pink and Girls Aloud.

Cohen believes that the consumer view of sites such as his and rivals like Viagogo is changing and earlier disapproval has waned.

“When Mr. [Charles] Saatchi buys a painting for £1 million and sells it for £2 million, no one calls him an art tout,” he explained. “The world is moving on. Lots of people understand that for a whole bunch of reasons there is inefficiency in the pricing of tickets.”