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As part of a strategic move to continue strengthening its focus on offering financial technology in the Puerto Rico and Latin American markets, Evertec announced the sale of its box office division, Ticketpop, to rival Ticketera, which specializes in online event ticket sales.
The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
“It hasn’t been easy for us to decide to let go of Ticketpop, which has been a source of pride for us given its important role in the entertainment world during the last two decades, becoming one of the leading players in offering electronic ticketing services in Puerto Rico,” said Mike Vizcarrondo, executive vice president of Puerto Rico and Caribbean Payment Services at Evertec.
“That said, given our decision, what better than to sell it to Ticketera given that part of its owners were in turn the creators of Ticketpop. This gives us the confidence that the merger between Ticketpop and Ticketera will be successful and that the electronic ticketing business will be in excellent hands,” he said.
Ticketpop was established in San Juan in the late 90’s and now has a client base of more than 290,000 consumers. Ticketpop processes thousands of tickets for concerts, sports events, theater productions and other entertainment activities.
Ticketpop and Ticketera have a common thread: Manuel “Manny” Morales. He was the developer of the Ticketpop platform when it launched in 1999. He sold the business in 2003 to Banco Popular and remained part of the executive team until 2015. He and two partners launched Ticketera, which he presides, in 2016.
In 2019, Ticketera landed a major contract with the Coliseo de Puerto Rico, becoming its new box office service, a contract that Ticketpop had previously held for 15 years, as News is my Business reported.
Ricardo Aponte-Yunqué, managing member of Ticketera, said, “with this acquisition, the entertainment offer in Puerto Rico is strengthened, since it will provide a broader and richer range of services for the management of events, both to show promoters and to the general public.”
“Integrating Ticketpop with Ticketera is a great satisfaction, since we will be able to merge two businesses whose success we have seen grow and that have contributed to the progress of entertainment on the island. Today, we welcome all Ticketpop customers to our family and we assure them that they will be well cared-for during this integration,” he said.
Event producers and box offices have taken a crippling blow from the COVID-19 pandemic, which for more than a year has shutdown the industries. While Ticketpop diversified to selling tickets for drive-in movies and other accepted events, Ticketera recently expanded its reach to the US mainland, selling events in Florida and Texas, among other jurisdictions.
As originally reported by: News is My Business
