Y Combinator startup TicketStumbler has launched today. The Boston based company is an aggregator for the secondary ticket market, collecting tickets from brokers like Stubhub and Razorgator into one searchable database. Think of a kayak.com for sports tickets. The service essentially aims to spare users the trouble of searching through different secondary ticketing sites to find specific seats and prices. TicketStumbler has landed partnerships with several ticket brokers, and is working to expand their repository. They currently have 1.5 million listings representing 7 million total tickets.
TicketStumbler, founded by Dan Haubert and Tom Davis, is looking to take the forefront of the market by providing precise search options and solid user experience. The company’s main competition comes from Tickex, who also extends their service to concerts, but for the most part the space has relatively few contenders.
When comparing search results between the two sites it is clear that TicketStumbler provides a less cluttered interface without ads, ebay listings, and extraneous add-ons. Search results can also be viewed by seating location, allowing users to navigate through different sections to find the prime combination of price and location.
TicketStumbler hopes that by aggregating ticket listings they will spur competition between brokers and decrease transaction prices. They believe the service can further drop prices by driving traffic to brokers’ web sites, making them more willing to sell cheaper tickets. Depending on the broker, they will be taking 6-15% of the ticket sales that are conducted through their site.
The founders claim that the next steps involve pulling from more brokers and extending the service to cover more professional and college sports, with concerts and other types of events in the distant future. Secondary ticketing is a multi-billion dollar industry, so the revenue source is clearly there. Attracting users may well come down to having the most extensive ticket listings rather than the most user friendly service.