SeatGeek Co-Founder & CEO Jack Groetzinger joins Yahoo Finance Live to discuss demand for live entertainment, going public via RedBall SPAC merger, the Coachella music festival lineup, and the state of the ticketing industry.
JULIE HYMAN: Ticket platform SeatGeek announced a record fourth quarter as the company saw net revenue growth of 45% compared to its previous quarter. For more on this growth and the state of the ticketing industry and live events industry, let's bring in SeatGeek Co-Founder and CEO Jack Groetzinger. Jack, thanks for being here. I wanted to talk through a little bit where the growth is coming from-- how much of a contribution you're getting from, say, sporting events versus music events and other types of events, and where the demand is coming from right now.
JACK GROETZINGER: Great question. We've seen demand really swelling across the board. It's not limited to music or sports. It's a broad desire of people that have been trapped up in their homes for a while and are just eager to get back out there and do stuff again. And on top of that, I think the part that might be a little less obvious is there's also a lot of supply-- meaning artists that want to tour-- who have not been able to for a while and are finally able to announce tours, get on the road, get back in touch with fans. So it's this perfect storm of both sides of the market wanting more live events as COVID recedes that is making up for just an incredible year for live entertainment.
BRIAN SOZZI: Jack, we are seeing-- just speaking of COVID-- an uptick in cases. We're very much still in the middle of a pandemic here. Have you seen any cancelations?
JACK GROETZINGER: There's not been widespread cancelations. We increasingly see artists, and promoters, and other people putting on events, really setting up infrastructure such that if people don't feel comfortable going, they're able to not go. But unlike last year, there have not been widespread cancelations of entire tours.
JULIE HYMAN: Yeah, it seems like at this point if people are canceling things, it's because they get sick themselves-- the artist, perhaps, or people in their crew and whatnot. You guys were in business pre-pandemic. Obviously, things are coming back now. I'm curious for you what the biggest change has been in sort of your business and how you think about live events.
JACK GROETZINGER: SeatGeek is a business that was growing considerably pre-pandemic. We were growing about 70% annually. And we've been the fastest grower at scale in our space. We took a pretty specific approach during COVID.
Rather than going into hibernation, which some companies did, we doubled down. We raised some money, and we kept building, and tried to improve our product, signed more deals, all with an eye towards the post-pandemic future, and being able to capitalize on market share dislocation, and knowing that ultimately if we could improve our product further and capture more market share during the pandemic, we would be an even stronger company on the other side of this.
And I think that's what you see in the results that we released last week. And in our expectations for the coming years, we've built a very strong business all on the backbone of our product and building a platform that fans, promoters, artists, teams are all really eager to be a part of.
BRIAN SOZZI: Yeah, we were showing some of the competitors up there-- a good many of them we have talked to. Do you think there's going to be consolidation in this space, Jack?
JACK GROETZINGER: I don't have a firm stance on that. I think we as a company are ultimately focused on the fan and creating the best experiences for fans. There may be some opportunities for other companies to do that more effectively if they combine. But ultimately, our North Star is, how do we get people going to more events? How do we now allow rightsholders, teams, promoters to put on more events?
If consolidation were something that helped facilitate that, we'd be absolutely open to it. But it's not a necessary part of our plan.
JULIE HYMAN: And, Jack, again, as we showed those various competitors, I've been trying to understand how SeatGeek is trying to distinguish itself from those competitors. I mean, what makes you guys different from the Ticketmasters and StubHubs of the world?
JACK GROETZINGER: Ticketing is this industry that, on one hand, I think delivers some of the best, most life-affirming moments that you can have and yet historically has been a big pain for a lot of people to actually buy tickets to-- you get hidden fees, you don't know exactly what you're getting, you're often asked to buy way in advance. SeatGeek exists to solve all that.
And we specifically do that via technology. SeatGeek, unlike other companies out there, is vertically integrated front to back-- meaning we have a robust consumer marketplace, we also have a really powerful piece of software that venues used to operate their business. And that's all part of a single platform, which means that we can just deliver a much more seamless user experience than those companies which are really just playing one of the many roles in that value chain.
BRIAN SOZZI: Jack, you're merging with a SPAC. Now, there's been a lot of scrutiny on the SPAC space and how some of these companies have come to market. From a leadership and an executive team standpoint, how are you preparing to become a public company and avoid, really, a lot of these pitfalls that have befallen on many SPAC companies?
JACK GROETZINGER: We've been preparing this for a long time. And we're really excited to be close to the finish line. We are partnered with a SPAC, RedBall, that we have incredible esteem for. They've got a really deep track record in entertainment, in sports, and actually owning and operating companies and making them successful. And they've been tremendous partners throughout this.
This is ultimately a way for us to get public. We see it as a financing event. And we see it as an incredible milestone for our company. I believe that in three years, no one will remember if SeatGeek went public via SPAC or IPO, they will remember if we have built something iconic that is changing the industry. And that is what we are focused on.
JULIE HYMAN: That makes sense, I would say. Coachella is going on, so I want to ask you about that specific event-- Billie Eilish, Harry Styles are headlining, I'm told, because I didn't know. But I'm just curious when you look at an event like that how the distribution is going for something like that versus-- I mean, it did happen last year, I believe, but what is now-- I imagine there's more demand this year than there was last year.
JACK GROETZINGER: It's been extremely popular. It's something that we also have a lot of focus on because SeatGeek disproportionately skews towards younger Gen Z buyers. We have meaningfully more of our user base composed of Gen Z than other ticketing companies out there. Coachella, perhaps unsurprisingly, tends to have a lot of younger fans. So it's a really big event for us. And it's been great to see it back out there.
JULIE HYMAN: And finally, I got to ask what the last thing you've been to was as you get back out there, presumably, and go to events.
JACK GROETZINGER: Good question. We are very proud to have the Brooklyn Nets as one of our major clients here in New York. And I was at the Nets versus Cavs game last week as they were in the game to get into the playoffs, which they won, and now they're in the first round. And I will be rooting for them next week when they are back in Brooklyn.