Mark Tacchi
Vendini is a San Francisco-based ticketing company that provides software and services for live events and has found a niche serving midsized venues. The company received $20 million in June, its first out-of-house funding. Venues Today spoke with Vendini founder and CEO Mark Tacchi.
Let's talk about your recent cash infusion. What have you done with the money?
Before we got this funding we did a number of acquisitions. Dataflow was the first. They're in festival logistics software. We pulled them in to get into the festival space. Then we did another acquisition; we bought a company called In Ticketing. And that got us even further into the music space. In December (2015) we bought the CrowdTorch platform, which got us into electronic dance music and comedy. All these pieces have come together and now we've aligned with CHARGED.fm, which gets us into the B2C (business to consumer) space. That progression of acquisitions got us entrenched in the live music vertical. We've put resources behind sales and specialized support and product solutions that fit the market.
How does this play into your core solutions product?
We're really building upon our all-in-one system. The older acquisitions and the recent acquisitions go hand-in-hand. As Vendini has grown, one thing has remained constant: there is still a massive number of small to midsized venues that have gone completely underserved. We want to step in to give these live music venues the solutions they need, from marketing to Customer Revenue Management (CRM) and reporting features, to mobile applications.
Where do you see Vendini's place in the market?
The way we see it, there's Ticketmaster, which is a branch of Live Nation which owns and runs venues. They are the top tier serving big venues. Then there is EventBrite, and they've done an amazing job of carving out the bottom smaller tier market venues. By centering on the SMB (small-medium sized venues), we have created a solution that focuses on the solution and not just being a ticket commodity company. We have marketing components, fundraising components for the nonprofits and we have season subscriptions for the universities and theaters. As we continue to grow, we will continue to grow for the different verticals in that same way.
You also recently announced the formation of a Strategic Business Unit for Live Music. Can you explain why you formed the new unit?
It wasn't until we did the CrowdTorch deal that we realized we had significant momentum in terms of all the pieces. We brought in the general manager of CrowdTorch, Mark Meyerson, and made him the GM of our Live Music division. He got his start with Bill Graham Presents right out of high school and worked with the legend himself. He moved to LA to help grow the House of Blues into a national brand. As an executive he has innovated with industry heavyweights like Ticketmaster, Musictoday and AEG Live. Mark’s expansive experience and passion for the industry makes him the perfect person to lead Vendini’s Strategic Business Unit for Live Music. He has a deep understanding of the music industry. We work really well together, and I love his rhythm. He can pull in product, support and sales people to support our music sales space. The team will focus on bringing Vendini’s all-in-one solution to live music venues and festivals across North America with solutions needed to sell more tickets, improve event promotion, gain deeper customer insight, manage patrons and more.
It sounds like Vendini is focusing on the live music space. Is this to the exclusion of other areas of ticketing like sports and nonconcert events?
We're not just a music company. But music is very, very important to us.
Who are some of your customers?
The Villages Entertainment (Lady Lake, Fla.); Dublin Irish Festival; Bristol (Tenn.) Rhythm & Roots Festival; Santa Clara (Calif.) University Athletics; SCU Presents at Santa Clara University; Midland (Texas) Community Theatre; Thalian Hall (Wilmington N.C.); Soho Playhouse (New York City); Mercury Theater, Chicago and Xerox Rochester (N.Y.) International Jazz Festival.
You recently worked a new deal with CHARGED.fm. Can you explain the relationship between Vendini and CHARGED.fm?
We met with these guys in New York City and were looking to do an acquisition. We really liked the team; they are smart and talented guys. We thought about rolling the companies together, but in the end we did an acqui-hire, which means we didn't buy CHARGED.fm, we absorbed their talent. It fits in nicely with the other pieces and, put altogether, it gives us talent, venues, revenue and that B2C component we've never had before.
This gives Vendini the opportunity to go straight to consumers?
Yes. Vendini has never done direct-to-consumers and now with the CHARGED.fm guys on board, ElectroStub for the dance community, and LaughStub, which is a comedy-focused vertical, we're moving into it. We get all the expertise of the CHARGED.fm team and with the other platforms we can take their extensive experience in the ticketing industry to enhance patron-facing products and combine this with our building out of internal infrastructure.
The whole strategy is to create a path to sell tickets and get to the consumer?
Yes. But that's part of the equation. We've been working the last couple years to build the next-generation platform. Basically, creating a platform that allows us to scale and gets us further in truly creating an all encompassing all-in-one solution. You have one log-in and access to all these different functions. This will be a powerful tool to help run those businesses. Coupling that with the consumer piece will sell more tickets for the venues.
Patron Connect
Any other plans for the funding?
We're building other solution suites for the other verticals. One example is a product called Patron Connect. The nonprofits love this platform. It's a day-of-show application that gives the venues insight as to who is coming to their event. When one of their top donors arrives and is scanned at the door, the venue gets a notification. The Arts love it but imagine a casino uses it. One of their top whales walks in; the casino knows right away. The same with music vendors; if a VIP comes in, the venue will know. The application acts as en extension of the CRM. This elevates the fan experience and takes it to a new level.
Interviewed for this story: Mark Tacchi, (415) 693-9146