Amazon: Primed For Ticketing Success?

While the heat continues around secondary ticketing, one major tech company is starting to seriously play the primary game.

Amazon recently hired former Warner Music Group executive Lawrence Peryer to lead its tickets operations. Peryer joins the tech giant as director, tickets, where he will help expand ticketing operations in the US, with Amazon expressing the typically humble aspiration of “Becoming Earth’s most customer-centric ticketing company. A place where event-goers can come to find and discover any ticket they might want to buy online”.

Following a soft launch in the UK last year, Amazon are ramping up their efforts around the platform- There are currently 19 jobs listed on Amazon’s job site for its tickets division, covering software development, strategy and business planning, based in the UK and US.

This should cause current major players some sleepless nights- Amazon already has a huge user base of customers globally and its web services power the likes of Netflix and Air bnb. Amazon has diversified way beyond its core retail business to develop smart speakers and launch its own streaming service alongside other digital content- could ticketing be the company’s next major play?

There is also the case for consumer confidence. Speaking at AIM’s Indie-Con conference earlier this week, Media Insight Consulting CEO Chris Carey revealed that based on new research involving 2,000 respondents, 30% of those asked who they would like to buy tickets from in the future replied Amazon.

Of course, it isn’t as simple as just jumping into the space and seeking to dominate- but with last year’s Waterson report highlighting the various failings of the primary market and ticketing largely regarded to be one of the most opaque aspects of the live industry, could Amazon be set to make a serious impact?