Songkick is a

concert A concert, often known informally as a gig or show, is a live performance of music in front of an audience. The performance may be carried by a single musician, in which case it is sometimes called a recital, or by a musical ensemble such as an ...

discovery service owned by

Warner Music Group Warner Music Group Corp., commonly abbreviated as WMG, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational entertainment and record label Conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered in New York City. It is one of the "Record label#M ...

. The service allows users to search for upcoming concert events in their area, and also track individual artists to receive notifications of upcoming shows in their area. It also provides services for artist teams to manage and promote tour dates globally. The company was first established in 2007 as a

Y Combinator Y Combinator, LLC (YC) is an American technology startup accelerator and venture capital firm launched in March 2005 which has been used to launch more than 5,000 companies. The accelerator program started in Boston and Mountain View, Californi ...

-backed

startup A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship includes all new businesses including self-employment and businesses that do not intend to ...

. In 2015, it merged with CrowdSurge—a company that provided services for running and managing ticket sales on behalf of artists. In 2017, the Songkick concert discovery service and brand was sold to WMG, while the ticketing assets were sold to

Live Nation Entertainment Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. is an American multinational entertainment company that was founded in 2010 following the merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster. It promotes, operates and manages ticket sales for live entertainment internation ...

in 2018 to settle a lawsuit with the company. In 2012, Songkick launched Tourbox, a tool for artists or artist teams to manage and distribute their live event dates worldwide, across multiple digital platforms.

History

Songkick was founded in 2007 by Ian Hogarth, Michelle You and Pete Smith as part of the 2007

program, a seed accelerator that focuses on technology start-ups. Songkick's initial business model, based on its concert discovery service, was based on referral fees from ticketing companies. The company launched its first mobile application in 2011. In June 2015, Songkick merged with CrowdSurge, an artist ticketing services provider, with the combined company operating under the Songkick name. CrowdSurge was founded by Matt Jones in 2008, and he and Hogarth said they decided to merge the two companies to correct “a massive inefficiency in the market.” Songkick had systems to detect ticket resellers, reduce the incentive for reselling (e.g., by creating general admissions areas, rather than assigned seats) and make it easier for regular fans to buy tickets (e.g., by having multiple releases of tickets, not just one release) that have reduced the percentage of concert tickets that end up in the secondary market to 1.5 percent of the total. Jones and Hogarth served as co-CEOs of Songkick until Jones took on the role of CEO in January 2016. In December 2016, Songkick filed an

antitrust Competition law is the field of law that promotes or seeks to maintain market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct by companies. Competition law is implemented through public and private enforcement. It is also known as antitrust l ...

lawsuit against

and its

Ticketmaster Ticketmaster Entertainment, LLC is an American ticket sales and distribution company based in Beverly Hills, California, with operations in many countries around the world. In 2010, it merged with Live Nation under the name Live Nation Ente ...

division. The lawsuit was later amended to accuse it of stealing trade secrets, by means of former Songkick employees who had joined the company. In July 2017,

acquired Songkick, including its concert discovery service and brand, but excluding its ticketing business and associated "pending litigation". Songkick shuttered its ticketing business in October; Jones described Live Nation as having "effectively blocked our U.S. ticketing business". In January 2018, shortly prior to a pending trial, Live Nation settled the lawsuit for $110 million, and also acquired the remaining intellectual property not sold to WMG for an undisclosed amount. In December 2020, Live Nation agreed to pay a $10 million fine for violations of the

Computer Fraud and Abuse Act The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 (CFAA) is a United States cybersecurity bill that was enacted in 1986 as an amendment to existing computer fraud law (), which had been included in the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984. Prior ...

wire fraud Mail fraud and wire fraud are terms used in the United States to describe the use of a physical (e.g., the U.S. Postal Service) or electronic (e.g., a phone, a telegram, a fax, or the Internet) mail system to defraud another, and are U.S. fede ...

, and conspiracy to commit wire fraud, after admitting that an employee from an unspecified competitor to Ticketmaster had used stolen credentials to obtain information on ticket presales, instructed them on how to exploit the competitor's URL generation system to view details on concerts that had not yet been announced, and was promoted by the company after presenting said information.

API

Songkick launched their new API in 2009 at the inaugural Music Hack Day. In the past they encouraged developers to build things on top of it, however they are no longer approving API requests for educational or hobbyist purposes and have a standard license fee starting from $500 per month.

Awards and recognition

* 2017: Webby Awards Honoree for Best Music Mobile Site/App * 2017: Fast Company - Fifth Most Innovative Company in Music, 2017 * 2017: Music Week Awards - Nominated for Best Ticketing Company * 2014: Winner, Best Technology for Marketing an Event / Building Event Attendance * 2012: Webby Awards Honoree for Best Music Mobile Site/App * 2011: Music Week Consumer-Facing Digital Music Service of the Year * 2010: #3 on Billboard Magazine's 10 Best Digital Music Startups of 2010 * 2010: Best Innovation Award at the 2010 BT Digital Music Awards

References

External links

* {{Warner Music Group American music websites Ticket sales companies 2007 software Internet properties established in 2007 Android (operating system) software IOS software Companies based in Brooklyn Y Combinator companies 2015 mergers and acquisitions 2017 mergers and acquisitions