Eventbrite Makes Much-Needed Progress on Ticketfly Integration

Eventbrite has had a rough time adjusting to life as a public company since its initial public offering in September, but the future is starting to look hopeful for the events platform.

Eventbrite posted strong results for the second quarter of 2019, driven by increased ticket sales. Net revenue grew to $80.8 million in the quarter, a 19.6 percent increase from the same period a year earlier, according to an earnings release Wednesday. Perhaps more important, the company is making solid progress on its integration of Ticketfly, a task that has contributed to ongoing losses for the platform.

“We have a clear line of sight to moving beyond the migration phase of the Ticketfly integration,” said Eventbrite CEO Julia Hartz on an earnings call, adding that the goal was to have all music tickets sold on the Eventbrite platform by October.

“The team continues their work to ship critical product capabilities and provide support to both migrated and yet-to-be-migrated clients in order to ensure their ongoing success on the Eventbrite platform,” she said. “We’re encouraged by the progress made in the second quarter and now have fewer than 100 clients to migrate.”

Of the Ticketfly clients that have yet to move over, the company admitted that they were some of its largest, and that it still had “work to do.” However, the shrinking number of leftover clients is encouraging. The company acquired the ticket distribution service over two years ago — and has seen major delays in its attempts at integration.

Eventbrite reported ticket sales growth of nearly 15 percent year-over-year, with much of this growth coming from its self sign-on service. This service allows clients to register themselves on the Eventbrite platform in order to host their events, and it has been a big driver of revenue for the company over the past year. In particular, the company saw strong performance in both Spain and Australia.

With the company’s core business continuing to grow, and losses from its Ticketfly integration starting to mitigate, there may be reason to be optimistic, despite the challenges of creating a single platform for all its tech and ticketing offerings.

One damper on this quarter’s outlook, however, was the company’s issues with the Roxodus music festival in Canada, which was abruptly canceled just days before it was due to take place in mid-July.  Eventbrite will be giving back $4 million to the event creators, potentially dragging down margins nearly 10 percent for the upcoming quarter.

“In terms of adjusted [guidance] for the third quarter, there are some costs around Roxodus that are the bulk of it,” said Eventbrite Chief Financial Officer Randy Befumo.