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When Jody Mulkey began his career at Ticketmaster nearly three years ago, he knew he was walking into an archaic system.
Founded in 1976, the primary ticket selling platform is one of the oldest SaaS companies in the world and was widely regarded as a tech dinosaur. With a straightforward business model, Ticketmaster had never been forced to significantly upgrade their technology.
Mulkey had spent nearly 15 years at Connexity (formerly Shopzilla)— where he was one of the first 10 employees— and saw an opportunity to resuscitate the platform in the wake of the Live Nation and Ticketmaster merger in 2011.
“The leadership had the foresight and the guts to reinvest in the tech platform,” said Mulkey. “It was about reinvigorating the technology DNA that’s in the company. We’re basically rebooting the whole thing and we have been rebuilding a big part of the ticketing platform over the past few years with a huge focus in mobile.”
Ticketmaster no longer wants to be a ticket selling company — they want to deliver every aspect of the experience, from a concert recommendation to an Uber home after the show.
With their redesigned Live Nation app, users can find their seat, order a beer, check the bathroom lines, find nearby restaurants, see a band’s set list, and find a ride home all within their app. It’s a revitalizing step that Mulkey defines as a “pivot from a transaction company to a relationship company.”
But they're not the only company trying to focus on the entire experience. Creative primary ticket platforms like Jukely and ScoreBig have entered the market, but for Ticketmaster, the old adage stands true: with age comes wisdom.
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“Nowadays people don’t really discriminate between primary and secondary tickets — it’s just a ticket,” explained Mulkey. “But we’re sitting on top of the largest live-event data set on the planet. Even my grandma has a Ticketmaster account. We really know what buyers like and we’ve invested a lot in our data science team to build recommendations and personalized experiences.”
This is the first time in 15 years that Ticketmaster is rolling out a new customer experience and their changes within the company have been just as significant. Mulkey has seen the company culture shift from a team of people simply maintaining a ticket selling platform to a team that is driven by a passion for providing exceptional experiences.
“I tell my team all the time, we don’t sell tickets, we power these experiences. We connect people with unforgettable moments of joy and the opportunity to do that is really incredible. From a purpose perspective, that’s what hooks people when they come to the company because everyone remembers their first live event.”
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