Eventbrite is a website that allows event organizers to plan, set up ticket sales and promote events of any size and publicize them acrossFacebook, Twitter and other social-networking tools directly from the site's interface. It also enables attendees to find and purchase tickets to these events. Founded in 2006 by Kevin Hartz, Julia Hartz and Renaud Visage, Eventbrite is headquartered in San Francisco, CA. According to an article in the New York Times, the company planned to sell $400 million worth of tickets in 2011, almost double the amount sold in 2010. The company generates revenue by charging organizers a fee of 2.5% of the ticket price plus $0.99 cents per ticket sold, but does not charge any fee for free events. 

 

Founders

Eventbrite was founded by its CEO Kevin Hartz, its President Julia Hartz and CTO Renaud Visage. Prior to his position at the company, Kevin Hartz was involved with Paypal and the Co-Founder and CEO of Xoom Corporation, an international money transfer company.[4] Julia Hartz, wife of Kevin, was raised in Santa Cruz, CA. After studying broadcasting at Pepperdine University, she became a creative executive at FX Network in Los Angeles. Soon after the two became engaged, she moved to the Bay Area and helped co-found Eventbrite. Renaud Visage built the Eventbrite site platform. Visage started his career as a consultant with Geomatrix Consultants. He later became the Director of Engineering with Zing Networks. He has a Master of Engineering from Cornell University and from École centrale de Lyon in France.

 

Social commerce

A study conducted by Eventbrite examining the monetary impact of sharing events on social networking platforms concluded that one "like" of an event on Facebook drove $1.34 of ticket sales. One share of an event on LinkedIn drove $0.90 and one share on Twitter drove $0.43. The study also analyzed when sharing and "liking" events proved most profitable, finding that a "post-purchase" share on Facebook drives 20% more ticket sales per share than a pre-purchase share”. Furthermore, 60% of those in the study shared an event post-purchase, while only 40% did before the purchase. 

 

Funding

On March 18, 2011 Eventbrite raised $50 million in Series E Financing led by Tiger Global. On April 22, 2013, Eventbrite raised another $60 million in growth capital financing led by Tiger Global, and including T. Rowe Price. This brought their total funding to $140 million. Previous funding involved firms including Sequoia Capital, DAG Ventures and Tenaya Capital. 

 

Products

Eventbrite has developed two applications targeted towards event organizers. The mobile app, “Entry Manager", is available for both iPhone and Android. “Entry Manager” allows organizers of live events to see the number of tickets sold to a particular event and the number in attendance. It offers several ways to check in attendees: scrolling through a list of registered attendees, searching by name and by scanning the barcode of the attendee’s ticket. The mobile app also links back to the user’s page on Eventbrite, providing post-event details and an attendee summary report. The newest application called "At The Door" is described as a mobile box office. It allows the user to check in attendees, as well as purchase tickets and process credit cards on-site. 

 

Partnerships

Eventbrite’s API allows for the development of widgets and apps to be utilized alongside of the company's core product. Currently, the company has partnerships with Salesforce, MailChimp, Wordpress and others. The company also allows third party developers to monetize using their API key.