Coast to Coast Tickets

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Coast to Coast Tickets is an online marketer of event tickets, also known as a ticket broker, operating in the secondary ticket market. The company operates the website www.coasttocoasttickets.com, and is a member in good standing with the Better Business Bureau[1].

Coast to Coast Tickets has been steadily gaining ground in a field of notable names[2] such as Ticketmaster, Stubhub, Ticketsnow, eBay and Craigslist, entering the Ticket News Top 20 Secondary Ticket Sellers list at #13 in March of 2007, and holding the #4 position as of July 3, 2007.[3]

Contents

[edit] History

Coast to Coast’s founder, Mike Randall, first began selling tickets in the late nineties while studying at the University of Missouri, a community with a strong local market for tickets, but without the size and population to attract established brokers.[4]

In 2000, Mike, with the help of with his fiancee Alison, officially founded Coast to Coast Tickets, trademarking the name in 2001.[5] The business expanded over the next few years, occupying a small home-based office before moving to an old church building, then finally converting to a larger office building in Austin, TX.[6] Sales grew as well, grossing $2.6 million in revenue in 2004[7], and $8.7 million in 2005, for a 3-year growth rate of 915.4%.[8]

In 2004, the Coast to Coast website went through a significant redesign, its goal to add an elevated level of customer service to the secondary ticket market by including concert and sports schedules, artist and team biographies, and event guides for cities and venues throughout the world. Over the same period, Mike tripled the size of the team, bringing in full and part-time help to provide telephone support.[9] In 2005, the company grew again when Mike’s brother Jason Randall (formerly of the Boston Consulting Group, Goldman Sachs and Deloitte & Touche) left his position as Director of Brand Marketing at Maritz Inc. to join Coast to Coast as CEO.[10]

The company website adopted its current look and slogan (great tickets from nice people) in early 2006.[11]

[edit] Services

Coast to Coast to Coast Tickets has marketed tickets to sports, concert and theater events since its inception. In 2007, Coast to Coast added two additional services relatively new to the secondary ticket market: a ticket insurance option, allowing customers to obtain refunds should they be unable to attend an event[12], and a ticket-selling marketplace, where customers can add their own tickets to the ticket listings displayed on www.coasttocoasttickets.com.[13]

[edit] Awards

In November of 2005, Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal ranked Coast to Coast as #7 out of the top 10 sports ticket brokers (based on Coast to Coast’s 748,000 unique visitors to the site the previous month – a figure that had risen 469.9% from the same publication’s list the previous year).[14]

The Austin Business Journal also noted Coast to Coast’s rapid growth by including the company in their 2005 and 2006 "Fast 50" lists for the fastest-growing Austin companies grossing under $10 million in revenue.[15][16]

Coast to Coast Tickets has also been recognized three years running in the Inc. 500, a list of the 500 fastest-growing privately-held US companies published annually by Inc. Magazine. In 2005, Coast to Coast held the #359 spot.[7] The company was recognized again the following year, in 2006, when they became the 6th fastest-growing retailer on the Inc. 500 list, jumping 273 spots to #86.[8] In 2007, Coast to Coast secured the #323 spot with a 3-year growth rate of 831.7%.[17]

In addition to being noted in top seller lists, publications across the country have looked to Coast to Coast Tickets as a reference in stories and articles about the secondary ticket market, including Bloomberg.com[18], Red Herring[19], GQ Magazine[20], American Way[21], the Miami Herald[22], Elite Traveler Magazine[23], the Austin Business Journal[24], the Chicago Tribune[25], the Boston Globe[26] and the San Francisco Chronicle[27].

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ * "Central Texas Better Business Bureau Member Report: Coast to Coast Tickets", Better Business Bureau. Retrieved on 2007-06-28. 
  2. ^ * "Scalping Goes Upscale: The secondary ticket market’s online revolution", W.P Carey. Retrieved on 2007-06-28. 
  3. ^ * "Ticket Industry Resources", TicketNews.com, 2007-07-03. Retrieved on June 28, 2007. (TicketNews seller rankings calculated based upon a combination of market share data, the number of unique visitors a website receives, and the average number of pages viewed for the previous week. This information can be found here.)
  4. ^ * Freedman, David. "Siblings Rivalry", Inc. Magazine, 2005-11-01. Retrieved on 2007-06-28. 
  5. ^ United States Patent and Trademark Office. Reg. No. 2,694,940. Registration complete March 11, 2003.
  6. ^ * "About Us", Coast to Coast Tickets. Retrieved on 2007-06-28. 
  7. ^ a b * "Inc. 500 – 2005 List", Inc. Magazine, 2005. Retrieved on 2007-06-28. 
  8. ^ a b * "Inc. 500 – 2006 List", Inc. Magazine, 2006. Retrieved on 2007-06-28. 
  9. ^ * "Coast to Coast Announces Expansion of Entertainment Ticket Website and Customer Support Center", PRWeb, 2004-07-28. Retrieved on 2007-06-28. 
  10. ^ * "ZoomInfo.com Web Profile: Jason Randall", ZoomInfo.com, 2007-06-28. Retrieved on 2007-07-09. 
  11. ^ * "Archived version of Coast to Coast Tickets' website", WebArchive.org. Retrieved on June 28, 2007. (Archived October 2005, before the 2006 version became live.)
  12. ^ * Jones, Preston. "Can’t Make the Big Show?", Dallas Star-Telegram, 2007-06-06. Retrieved on 2007-06-28. 
  13. ^ * "Sell Your Tickets on Coast to Coast", Coast to Coast Tickets. Retrieved on 2007-06-28. 
  14. ^ "Top Sports Ticket Brokers." Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal. Oct 31-Nov 6, 2005: Volume 8, Issue 26 (List compiled by internet monitoring company Score Media Metrix. Coast to Coast was listed #7 out of the top 10 ticket brokers whose revenues were largely dependent on sales of tickets to sporting events.)
  15. ^ * "Search results – Austin Business Journal Fast 50-Less than $10 Million", Austin Business Journal. Retrieved on June 28, 2007. (The actual list is not available online, but searching for "Coast to Coast" on the Austin Business Journal Website does list the company as being found in the January 2007 version of the Fast 50 list.)
  16. ^ "Fast 50 - Growing Companies with revenue of under $10 million." Austin Business Journal. Oct 21-27, 2005: p. B15
  17. ^ * "Inc. 500 – 2007 List", Inc. Magazine, 2007. Retrieved on 2007-09-12. 
  18. ^ * Matuszewski, Erik. "Options for Super Bowl Tickets Get Fans Into the NFL's Big Game", Bloomberg.com, 2005-02-02. Retrieved on 2007-07-10. 
  19. ^ * Schachter, Ken. "eBay Scoops up StubHub: $310M", Red Herring, 2007-01-11. Retrieved on 2007-07-10. 
  20. ^ * "Leave the Foam Finger at Home", GQ Magazine, Feb. 2007: p. 70.
  21. ^ * Kaplan, Michael. "The Best Time to Buy (Nearly) Everything", American Way, 1 Nov. 2007: p. 87.
  22. ^ * Emanuel, Bob Jr.. "When Drawing Fans, O’Neal is Tested (subscription)", Miami Herald, 2004-07-18. Retrieved on 2007-07-10. 
  23. ^ * "Recommended New York Theatre Ticket Brokers", Elite Traveler Magazine, Nov/Dec 2007: p. 118.
  24. ^ * Outon, Chantal. "Ticket Brokers Benefited From Winning Season, Hope For Repeat This Year", Austin Business Journal, 2006-01-27. Retrieved on 2007-06-28. 
  25. ^ * Benderoff, Eric. "New tricks for ticket sellers: Online broker offers dining suggestions, event reviews to clients (subscription)", Chicago Tribune, 2006-07-31. Retrieved on 2007-07-10. 
  26. ^ * Mohl, Bruce. "The Boston Globe Consumer Beat column (subscription)", Boston Globe, 2005-05-01. Retrieved on 2007-07-10. 
  27. ^ * Perkins, Ed. "To Bet or Not to Bet on Beijing Games", San Francisco Chronicle, 2006-09-17. Retrieved on 2007-07-10. 

[edit] External links