Pandora gets into concert ticket sales with Ticketfly acquisition

Pandora, the largest music streaming site, has acquired Ticketfly today which means it’s now getting into the ticketing business.

The company announced the acquisition on its blog today saying that the move will allow the creation of the ” most powerful fan analytics platform in the world for venues, promoters, and artists.”

For you, it likely means that you’ll start seeing Pandora selling more tickets directly when you’re using the service. It was already testing the ability — a recent test saw Pandora sell 55,000 tickets for a Rolling Stones tour in 24 hours and 25,000 tickets for ODESZA.

Pandora is huge, with more than 80 million monthly active users, but is yet to turn a profit. The acquisition today marks a big push toward doing that, as concert ticket sales have much higher margins than showing ads to users.

The company was reportedly acquired for a staggering $450 million, but given that Pandora’s calling it a “game changer” it likely means there’s much more up the company’s sleeves.

➤ Pandora and Ticketfly join forces to create the world’s most powerful music platform [TicketFly]