Support to headliner: event tech marketplaces
With the World Cup underway, it serves as a reminder of the role of marketplaces in event tech, including:
- Ticket marketplaces (Live Nation, DICE and SeatGeek)
- Venue marketplaces (Event Inc., VenueE and PeerSpace)
- Planning, financing and execution marketplaces (HoneyBook, Maroo and Platerrz)
Event tech is still a small segment within marketplaces, with event marketplace startups worth a combined $25.4B. This value has doubled since 2017, but is still less than 1% of total marketplace value. Similarly, VC funding at $770M so far this year, is marginally above 1% of total marketplace funding.
But events are still big business. The entertainment industry has long been looking for ways to make events more scaleable and productive, to find ways of making more money per seat in ways other than ever increasing ticket prices. And the changing nature of events (physical to virtual to hybrid), makes them an area of opportunity.
Looking forward, investment in event tech is expected to go specialized and to go interactive, from attendees connection and live assertive panel recommendations, to live streaming, financial needs, and even niche needs like endurance events (Let’s do This).
Check out more than 3,000 event tech marketplaces on Dealroom.
Our latest marketplaces report, in partnership with Adevinta Ventures, explores B2B marketplaces, an underfunded an emerging opportunity within digital marketplaces, within which event tech largely sits.
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