2024 Impact 50 Honoree: Marla Ostroff

MANAGING DIRECTOR, NORTH AMERICA
Ticketmaster

FAVORITE MEETING PLACE: My beautiful Meatpacking District office
BIZ PHILOSOPHY: Listen before you react

Ticketing, it has been said many times, is hard. Managing Ticketmaster: no picnic either, certainly not these days. If anybody can do it, it’s Marla Ostroff.

The ticketing lifer has navigated through all the perilous rapids that have been part and parcel of Ticketmaster’s lifespan and there’s no reason to bet against her this time, because she uniquely understands the challenges and opportunities around the company. It’s all about education and it’s a task she relishes.

“We’re working hard to close the gap between the public’s understanding of ticketing and the nuances of how ticketing really works. It can be a challenge to communicate the complexities of our business but it’s a vital and rewarding one,” she says. “Our ultimate goal is to set clients up for success while minimizing fan friction, and we can help achieve that goal by demystifying ticketing and building innovative, reliable products.”

Truly, a quick 10 minutes with Ostroff can deliver a semester’s worth of knowledge in the sector of the live business that is both fundamental to its existence and bamboozle-seeming to many of the people outside of it.

Ostroff has been the consigliere to Barry Diller, Paul Allen, Fred Rosen and now to Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino since starting at Ticketmaster more than 35 years ago. She’s seen it all, she’s known it all and she’s still eager to see what’s coming next.

“We’re always looking around corners for new ways to improve ticketing through emerging technology. Top of mind for me is our work with Inuit Dome to identify ways to simplify event access, such as leveraging technology to create frictionless entry,” she says. “The Intuit Dome team had a dream to build the venue of the future, and we’re helping them bring that vision to life. The fact that we’ve worked with the Intuit Dome to identify and tailor build a frictionless fan experience is a huge testament to our ability to work collaboratively with clients and execute their big ideas, without being hindered by the status quo.”