We announced some pretty cool news this morning. We’ve joined forces via a strategic partnership with Knoxville-based Eventbooking.com to offer an integrated event management, booking, and ticketing solution to venues nationwide.

What really excites me about this news is that this is, I feel, an example of how the industry will eventually displace Ticketmaster’s stronghold:  smaller, more innovative (and hungrier) companies uniting to deliver compelling value via integrated solutions.

As for EventBooking.com, our strengths are 100% complimentary. No one does venue management and booking better than they do, and no one does ticketing better than we do. What is ultra cool is the way this partnership came about – the EventBooking CEO actually bought a ticket to a TicketBiscuit powered event, and was so impressed with the experience that he contacted us and made it happen.

The full release is below, just in case you’re interested. Can I get a “hell yeah”?

October 15, 2009

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

EVENTBOOKING.COM ADDS TICKETING THROUGH PARTNERSHIP WITH TICKETBISCUIT

EventBooking.com signed a partnership contract with TicketBiscuit this month that will add a robust ticketing capability to EventBooking’s industry-leading event management and booking software solution.

TicketBiscuit serves more than 250 clients in 400+ venues across the United States with a web-based solution that lets the venue control the fees and own the ticketing process. CEO Jeff Gale says TicketBiscuit’s mission is to provide “the most flexible, powerful, and user-friendly ticketing solution on the planet.”

The software integration of EventBooking.com and TicketBiscuit allows participating venues to track real-time ticket sales while logged in to their booking calendar.

President and CEO of EventBooking.com John Platillero said that offering clients an integrated solution is part of the EventBooking.com strategy.

“EventBooking.com wants to offer a ‘dashboard’ of information from all different areas of the venue. Integrating a ticketing solution makes sense so that in real-time, from the calendar itself, a venue can know how ticket sales are doing for each show.”

Platillero added that the ticketing software from TicketBiscuit can be private-labeled “however the venue wants to brand their ticketing system,” giving more control to the venue.

Both EventBooking.com and TicketBiscuit are excited about the value that the partnership can bring to one another’s clients.

EventBooking.com’s booking software scales from one-stage clubs to entire city entertainment districts using a single booking account. EventBooking.com’s flexible new program accommodates the different booking styles of single-stage arenas and multiplex convention centers.

TicketBiscuit‘s full-service ticketing solution combines box office software with a comprehensive package of ticket sales and marketing services. Since their inception in 2001, the company has pioneered several innovations in ticketing, including client-controlled fees, client-branded call centers, full website integration, mobile ticketing, and social media marketing.

“TicketBiscuit itself is a company that has proven technology and is excited about working with us to develop an integrated solution for their clients and ours,” Platillero said.

The partnership between EventBooking.com and TicketBiscuit began with a good experience. Platillero purchased tickets online for a benefit dinner at a local comedy club in Knoxville using TicketBiscuit. The ticket purchase went smoothly, and after reading about the company at http://www.TicketBiscuit.com Platillero contacted them as a potential partner.

TicketBiscuit has submitted an idea for a panel at The SXSW 2010 Music Conference. We’ve got some very cool research, ideas, and technology behind our discounting methodology and we’re wanting to share it with the rest of the music industry.

Please visit http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/3336?return=/ideas/index/music/q:ticketbiscuit and give us the “thumbs up”. You may have to create an account first, but trust me, it’s worth it.

New program from BattlePass.com offers up-to-date event listings and money for MMA bloggers and website owners.

(OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE) BattlePass.com today announced the launch of a new affiliate marketing program that pays website publishers for referring ticket-buying visitors to the BattlePass.com website. Under the program, affiliates will be paid 35% of all net revenues collected by BattlePass.com for events ticketed through the BattlePass web site.

The program, the first of its kind for combat sports and MMA events, is also one of the first affiliate marketing programs to make real time RSS feeds available to website owners. By signing up with the affiliate program and implementing the BattlePass FightFeed®code, website owners can benefit from valuable, dynamic, and accurate content – the most comprehensive list of MMA fights and combat events on the internet – and make money for click-throughs that result in ticket sales. Publishers may also choose to carry provided graphic banners or text links to refer traffic to the BattlePass.com web site.

Signing up for the BattlePass affiliate program is free.

“The BattlePass affiliate program is going to be a win for everyone,” CEO Jeff Gale commented, “Website owners now have an easy way to monetize their sites and add a great section of relevant and updated MMA and combat events from the BattlePass FightFeed. MMA fans get better awareness of fights and events in their area.  And promoters can now instantly list their fights on BattlePass.com and have them spread across the BattlePass network of affiliates, exponentially increasing the exposure and credibility of their events.”

For details on the BattlePass Affiliate Program and instructions on how to sign up, please visit http://www.battlepass.com/battlepass/affiliate.aspx

About BattlePass.com: BattlePass.com carries the most extensive list of combat and MMA events and ticket information on the web today. Promoters can list their fights on BattlePass.com and the BattlePass affiliate network for free.  Additionally, promoters can get free ticketing and event marketing by signing up with BattlePass Pro, the only ticketing system custom built for MMA and combat events.

RSS Feeds are now active on all accounts!

This week we activated RSS feeds for all client accounts. You can access the RSS feed for your account by customizing the following address:

http://www.ticketbiscuit.com/eventlist.rss?ack=ACCOUNTKEY where ACCOUNTKEY is the part of your TicketBiscuit URL immediately following www.ticketbiscuit.com. The TicketBiscuit URL can be found in the backend under Account > Account Details at the bottom right of the page. 

For instance, if the ticketbiscuit URL is www.ticketbiscuit.com/workplay, the correctly formed RSS address is http://www.ticketbiscuit.com/eventlist.rss?ack=workplay

For those of you who are new to RSS, it’s basically a simple way for your ticket buyers to subscribe to your upcoming shows as they are activated in the system – they can be automatically notified whenever you put tickets on sale. Learn more about RSS by watching this video, it does a pretty good job explaining the benefits.

Some tips:

• Put an RSS icon in the header of your website and link it to your RSS feed. Savvy web surfers will know what to do. You can find some RSS icons here.
• Publicize the availability and address of your RSS feed via your newsletter.
• Use services like rss2twitter , twitterfeed, and ping.fm to automatically update your twitter or myspace pages with your new events.
• Sign up for a feedburner account at www.feedburner.com and import your RSS feed into it. Then, you can get detailed statistics on how many people are reading your feed.

For help or questions about RSS, contact our support team.

Wow. As we took the covers off of BattlePass Pro, our newest MMA Ticketing product earlier this week, we’ve seen the combat sports community react in an overwhelmingly positive way. It feels cool to launch a new product built specifically to the needs of the community of fight and combat event promoters, and we’re excited about the new partnerships and relationships we’ll form as a result of it. If you haven’t checked out BattlePass Pro yet, read the press release here and check out product details here.

Oh, and we’re offering free hard tickets to all promoters who sign up with BattlePass Pro this year, so if you’re in the market for a ticketing solution, check it out.

Because the TicketBiscuit core audience differs somewhat from the BattlePass core audience, we’ve decided to give BattlePass it’s very own blog. Starting now, we’ll carry all BattlePass-related news on http://buzz.battlepass.com. Not only will we feature product news and updates, but we’ll also feature in depth reviews and previews of fights that we ticket. It should be a very cool platform to expand the audience and awareness of our promoter clients,  so be sure to check it out.

Buzz.battlepass.com will carry all BattlePass related news from now on. Check it out!

Through the Music Liberation Fund, a TicketBiscuit initiative promoting music independence and diversity, TicketBiscuit will make a donation equal to all ticket fees from Georgia Theatre booked shows.

TicketBiscuit CEO Jeff Gale commented,”Wil [Greene] has been a great client, and we have enjoyed the privilege of working with the Georgia Theatre. The Music Liberation Fund exists to preserve independent venues like this, and we’re happy to help; we look forward to the day when the doors reopen.”

In addition to the benefit show on the 23rd, TicketBiscuit will donate ticket fee proceeds from the Perpetual Groove show on June 20 at the Classic Center, the upcoming  Very Disco  and Jenny Lewis shows on June 25 and July 1 at the 40 Watt, and The AthFest Shows at the Morton Theatre June 26 and 27.

 More Information on these upcoming shows can be found at http://www.georgiatheatre.com.
For More Information on TicketBiscuit, visit www.ticketbiscuit.com or www.musicliberationfund.org  .
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Friday of last week was a sad day for us and the music world in general. The historic Georgia Theatre, an Athens icon since the 1800s, and a crucible of rock since the 70s, burned to the ground in an early morning blaze. The Georgia Theatre  has hosted REM, the B52s, and many other legends of music through its decades of existence. Owner Wil Greene had put a lot of money and sweat equity into restoring the Theatre, and has indicated that he plans to eventually rebuild.

For those in Athens, you should make it out to the Melting Point tonight for the Benefit Concert- all proceeds will benefit the staff of the Georgia Theatre.

From the Melting Point Athens website:

“We were saddened to hear the loss of the Georgia Theatre in a fire Friday, the loss of this Athens landmark is enormous. But the musical community is a family at heart, and we want to help our own. In that vein, The Melting Point is hosting a benefit for the Georgia Theatre staff the only way we know how, with a live show featuring three of the South’s rising musical stars!

Doors 6 p.m. $10 Cover- All proceeds benefit the staff of the Georgia Theatre
The New Familiars will hit the outdoor stage at 7 p.m. Dead Confederate will hit the main stage at 9:30 p.m. followed by at The Whigs at approximately 10:45.

For those of you NOT in the Athens area but wanting to contribute to the cause, pick up one of the previously unreleased Georgia Theatre T Shirts from Old Guard Graphics:

http://www.oldguardgraphics.com/fulfillment.html

What a way to kick off the week! BattlePass.com is proud to announce a new strategic partnership with The International MMA Expo (IMMAE). Under the partnership, BattlePass will be the exclusive provider of electronic ticketing systems and online floor plan management services for all IMMAE events. In addition, the IMMAE sales force will be exclusively selling BattlePass.com ticketing and event marketing services to its network of contacts.

You can check out the full release here. The next two IMMAE events are in Hawaii June 26-28 and Los Angeles August 28-30. IMMAE plans to have other regional events across the US in the upcoming year. For more info on IMMAE, visit www.immae.tv.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 28, 2009 – LOS ANGELES, CA, – The Jon Lovitz Comedy Club opens its doors this weekend, and Co-Owner Frank Kelley isn’t shy about his aspirations – he wants to have the top club in Los Angeles. The idea, according to Kelley and Lovitz, is to offer an alternative to the dimly lit showroom and common black-box stage – “the club will be bright and tropical,” according to their website.

But building a unique club with marquee talent is only part of the equation when the pockets of Americans are feeling the pinch, and most are making cuts to their discretionary expenses like live entertainment. Clubs like Lovitz’s may be competing with literally hundreds of other entertainment events on any given night. To get and keep the attention of potential ticket buyers, Comedy Club owners like Lovitz and Kelley are increasingly turning to Social Media. From Twitter to Facebook and YouTube, the comedy industry is realizing that the online space is a fertile environment for nurturing their fan base.

TicketBiscuit , a ticketing system provider headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama, offers several features that help comedy clubs promote their events via popular social networks. Lovitz and Kelley became TicketBiscuit clients earlier this year.”When Jon and I decided to open our own club, I knew what I needed my ticketing system to do to help run the business. TicketBiscuit is perfect for us.” One of the most popular features of TicketBiscuit is the ability of the system to instantly post event details to a client’s Facebook Page and keep them updated. Another feature, Promotozoa, enables web visitors and ticket buyers to share event information quickly across over 30 popular social networks and web sites.

TicketBiscuit CEO Jeff Gale says that the company will continue to find ways to make its ticketing system help clients sell more tickets and foster online fan interaction. “Businesses are beginning to learn more and more about the importance of social networks and how to build community – our system makes that process much easier.”

Another Los Angeles club, the World Famous Comedy Store, recently became a TicketBiscuit client as well. Marketing Director Alf LaMont says of the relationship: “TicketBiscuit blew us away. The marketing tools they provide really help us sell more tickets. From Facebook integration, to the automatic website updates, to the built- in email blast engine, to the mobile phone ticketing– TicketBiscuit was the obvious choice for us.”

About TicketBiscuit: TicketBiscuit, founded in 2001, provides proprietary, web-based ticketing systems and box office software to over 400 venues and 200 clients nationwide, including over 20 of the nation’s top comedy clubs. Learn more at www.ticketbiscuit.com.