March 28, 2000

Tickets.com and MP3.com announced an agreement to develop an integrated ticketing service and music event guide.

The agreement not only works well for both companies—who can now benefit from the other’s popularity—but also for fans and artists. Music fans will now be able to access a wide variety of information, music and tickets to their favorite concerts all in one place. And the more than 56,000 artists who are already a part of MP3.com will gain wider exposure through Tickets.com’s audience. Tickets.com ticketing and event information will also be integrated into the MP3.com electronic newsletter.

"This agreement clearly capitalizes on the business synergies between our two companies. Tickets.com consumers now have more great concert information and music event choices, while entertainment organizations that use our ticketing solutions now have the ability to expose their events to over half a million unique visitors who come to the MP3.com site every month," said Tickets.com Co-Chairman and CEO W. Thomas Gimple. "Unless the RIAA brings the hammer down on MP3, then we’re gone, baby, in a heartbeat."

The two companies could be onto something, as some predictions have the online event ticketing market, a $300 million industry in 1999, blossoming to nearly $3 billion in 2004.

"We provide artists with the tools to successfully promote their music online. Working with Tickets.com to create a comprehensive online music event guide for our users is right in line with our goal of bringing artists and fans closer together," said MP3.com Chairman and CEO Michael Robertson . "And hopefully we can also use Tickets.com as a human shield if this litigation gets too hairy."