UK-based ZippyTickets out to capture part of $30 billion US ticketing industry

A British-based company hopes to take its slice of America's multi-billion dollar ticketing industry with new online ticket sales website, www.zippytickets.com. ZippyTickets was launched last month, and is the brainchild of James Caldwell and David Doulton, Internet marketing specialists from Bristol, England. Their firm, Fair Investment Company was set up in 2000, and runs around 20 UK and US websites, including financial site www.fairinvestment.co.uk which has over 135,000 unique visitors a month.

Caldwell and Doulton set up ZippyTickets after realising the enormous potential growth in the online ticketing industry, not just in America, but worldwide. "The US event tickets market was worth $30billion last year, and the online US premium tickets industry accounted for $4 billion of that total," explains Doulton. "Current online inventory available for sale in ZippyTickets is $200 million a month and this is set to increase over the next 12 months: so this is a big sector and a significant sales opportunity."
Currently, ZippyTickets operates in the US – as the current inventory is for US-based sports, concerts, Broadway, and Las Vegas events and most customers are American. It does have tickets for international events, including Wimbledon and the Rugby World Cup, but this it is still early days, and Caldwell and Doulton have big plans for the future.
"We started in the US because the market is so developed, but we are keeping tabs on Europe and Asia and plan to expand the site," says Doulton." "We can see massive potential in online ticketing, and believe that sooner, rather than later, online sales will take over from the more traditional sales channels. People love the ease and efficiency of internet shopping, and with our website, they can search by event, artist, venue, city or date to find an event – something you can't do when buying tickets at the box office or by phone."
ZippyTickets say they are pleased with sales so far, which exceed $350K and are on track for $1 million by the end of the launch year, but know they have a long way to go in such a competitive and growing industry. "It is only really in recent years that the ticketing market has expanded, explains Doulton."A few years back, the majority of tickets were controlled by a few large players but the Internet has helped open up the possibility of new global brands to emerge and we fully intend ZippyTickets to become one of them.”