Pandora just dropped $450 million on a startup called Ticketfly

It’s a little known fact that the rise of music streaming has actually had a significant impact on concert ticket sales, especially for lesser known artists, and being a music streaming service, this is obviously the something that Pandora would take notice of. That’s probably why the company just spent $450 million to acquire an innovative and popular ticketing startup by the name of Ticketfly, which I’m sire Pandora hopes will be able to further bridge the gap between concerts and streaming, not to mention introducing a new revenue stream that should help the company have an easier time turning a profit. 

Pandora’s acquisition of ticketing company Ticketfly, announced today, marks a seismic shift in the way digital music companies serve artists. While artists and labels continue to publicly debate streaming royalties and harbor great uncertainty about their future, the leading Internet radio service made a move that will strengthen the link between listening and live events, and provide a potential financial boon for artists. Rights holders will still push for higher royalties, but artists will push for tools that help their careers in other ways. This acquisition is the centerpiece of the Brian McAndrews era. The CEO arrived two years ago to find a bitter relationship with the creative community. The company had, the year prior, sought to ease its royalty burden through its support of the Internet Radio Freedom Act, legislation which drew battle lines between digital radio services on one side and rights owners and artists on the other. McAdrews quickly sought to improve the company’s relationships with creators, building an artist relations team and creating a portal for artists called Artist Marketing Platform, or AMP. Last year’s deal with independent rights organization Merlin was the first time Pandora negotiated royalty rates directly with record labels. A similar deal with classical music label Naxos followed.