Songkick

Songkick is an U.S.-based concert discovery service owned by Warner Music Group. The service allows users to search for upcoming concert events in their area, and also track individual artists to receive notifications of upcoming shows in their area.

Songkick
TypePrivate
IndustryMusic event discovery
Founded2007
Founders
  • Matt Jones (CEO)
Headquarters
New York
,
United States
Area served
Global
Key people
Roger Denys Booker[1]
BrandsSongkick, Tourbox
ParentWarner Music Group
Websitesongkick.com

The company was first established in 2007 as a Y Combinator-backed startup. In 2015, it merged with CrowdSurge—a company that provided services for running and managing ticket sales on behalf of artists. In 2017, the Songkick concert discovery service and brand was sold to WMG, while the ticketing assets were sold to Live Nation Entertainment in 2018 to settle a lawsuit with the company.

History

Songkick was founded in 2007 by Ian Hogarth, Michelle You and Pete Smith[2] as part of the 2007 Y Combinator program, a seed accelerator that focuses on technology start-ups. Songkick's initial business model, based on its concert discovery service, was based on referral fees from ticketing companies.[3] The company launched its first mobile application in 2011. In June 2015, Songkick merged with CrowdSurge, an artist ticketing services provider, with the combined company operating under the Songkick name.[4]

CrowdSurge was founded by Matt Jones in 2008,[5] and he and Hogarth said they decided to merge the two companies to correct “a massive inefficiency in the market.”[6] Songkick had systems to detect ticket resellers, reduce the incentive for reselling (e.g., by creating general admissions areas, rather than assigned seats) and make it easier for regular fans to buy tickets (e.g., by having multiple releases of tickets, not just one release) that have reduced the percentage of concert tickets that end up in the secondary market to 1.5 percent of the total.[7] Jones and Hogarth served as co-CEOs of Songkick until Jones took on the role of CEO in January 2016.[8][9]

In December 2016, Songkick filed an antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation Entertainment and its Ticketmaster division.[10] The lawsuit was later amended to accuse it of stealing trade secrets, by means of former Songkick employees who had joined the company.[11][12]

In July 2017, Warner Music Group acquired Songkick, including its concert discovery service and brand, but excluding its ticketing business and associated "pending litigation".[13][11][14] Songkick shuttered its ticketing business in October;[15] Jones described Live Nation as having "effectively blocked our U.S. ticketing business".[14] In January 2018, shortly prior to a pending trial, Live Nation settled the lawsuit for $110 million, and also acquired the remaining intellectual property not sold to WMG for an undisclosed amount.[16][12]

In December 2020, Live Nation agreed to pay a $10 million fine for violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit wire fraud, after admitting that an employee from an unspecified competitor to Ticketmaster had used stolen credentials to obtain information on ticket presales, instructed them on how to exploit the competitor's URL generation system to view details on concerts that had not yet been announced, and was promoted by the company after presenting said information.[17]

Awards and recognition
  • 2017: Webby Awards Honoree for Best Music Mobile Site/App[18]
  • 2017: Fast Company - Fifth Most Innovative Company in Music, 2017[19]
  • 2017: Music Week Awards - Nominated for Best Ticketing Company[20]
  • 2014: Winner, Best Technology for Marketing an Event / Building Event Attendance[21]
  • 2012: Webby Awards Honoree for Best Music Mobile Site/App[22]
  • 2011: Music Week Consumer-Facing Digital Music Service of the Year[23]
  • 2010: #3 on Billboard Magazine's 10 Best Digital Music Startups of 2010[24]
  • 2010: Best Innovation Award at the 2010 BT Digital Music Awards[25]

References
  1. "SK Acquisition Ltd key data". endole.co.uk. Retrieved February 19, 2019.
  2. Ben Sisario (1 May 2011). "A Go-to Site for Tracking Music Acts".
  3. Dave Lee (16 May 2013). "Songkick Detour 'Kickstarter for gigs' is launched in London".
  4. Josh Constine (4 June 2015). "Songkick And CrowdSurge Merge, Raise $16M To Combine Concert Discovery And Ticketing".
  5. Christine Lagorio-Chafkin (25 June 2014). "A Music Startup's New Brooklyn Home".
  6. Elizabeth Segran (17 November 2015). "How Songkick 2.0 Is Merging The Needs Of Fans And Artists".
  7. Horowitz, Steven (2 May 2017). "The Concert Ticket Industry Is Still Broken". www.vulture.com. Vulture. Retrieved 3 August 2019.
  8. Biz Carson (28 December 2015). "How having two CEOs taught one startup a valuable lesson".
  9. IQ (7 January 2016). "Songkick Loses a CEO, Gains a Chairman".
  10. Sisario, Ben (2015-12-22). "Songkick Sues Live Nation, Saying It Abuses Its Market Power". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-04-25.
  11. Sisario, Ben (2017-07-14). "Songkick Sells Concert-Recommending Service to Warner". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-04-25.
  12. "Dissecting the Songkick Settlement: Why did Live Nation Wait?". TicketNews. 2018-01-15. Retrieved 2020-04-25.
  13. "Warner Music Acquires Songkick, the Concert Discovery App". Billboard. 2017-07-14. Retrieved 2020-04-25.
  14. Chapple, Jon. "Songkick to shutter ticketing division". IQ. Retrieved 13 October 2017.
  15. Aswad, Jem (2017-10-12). "Songkick Ticketing Operations to Shut Down (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety. Retrieved 2020-04-25.
  16. Sisario, Ben (2018-01-12). "Live Nation Settles Suit With Ticketing Start-Up, Buying Its Assets". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-04-25.
  17. Goodin, Dan (2021-01-04). "Ticketmaster admits it hacked rival company before it went out of business". Ars Technica. Retrieved 2021-01-06.
  18. "Webby Awards Honoree, Best Music Mobile Site/App".
  19. "Fast Company Most Innovative Companies".
  20. "Music Week Awards".
  21. "Event Technology Awards".
  22. "Webby Awards Honoree, Best Music Mobile Site/App".
  23. "Music Week Consumer-Facing Digital Music Service of the Year". Archived from the original on 2017-10-13.
  24. "Billboard 10 Best Digital Music Startups".
  25. "Best Innovation Award".
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