Toronto’s Universe Acquired by Ticketmaster

Ticketmaster announced today that it is continuing to expand its ticketing offerings in the festival and DIY verticals through two separate transactions to acquire festival ticketer Front Gate Tickets and ticketing platform Universe.

Formally known as Uniiverse, Toronto’s Universe is a DIY ticketing company that provides event organizers with powerful and easy-to-use marketing and management tools. Its ticket-sales platform allows event organizers to embed a customizable Buy Now button to sell tickets on any website with no redirect to Universe.

Universe was started 4 years ago with the “dream of creating a platform that connects people through shared offline experiences.” Since then, they’ve grown to a team of 30 people, with offices in 2 countries, working with over 28,000 event organizers around the world.

Today’s strategic acquisitions will allow Live Nation to expand its services in the rapidly growing festival and DIY event markets, while accelerating its strategy to provide its clients across all verticals with the largest and most flexible distribution network through which to engage fans and sell tickets.

“We are dedicated to maintaining Front Gate’s fan-focused philosophy and targeted festival-specific functionality. Universe’s advanced DIY ticketing and event marketing platform will not only provide event organizers with amazing tools to manage their events, but their plug-and-play distributed commerce and analytics products will also benefit clients across the entire Ticketmaster portfolio, including festivals,” said Jared Smith, President of Ticketmaster North America.