Mobile ticketing app TodayTix is getting into the show production business with the launch of a new program called TodayTix Presents.While TodayTix is sometimes described as the mobile version of the TKTS booth where you can pick up last-minute tickets to Broadway shows, CEO Brian Fenty said that he sees the services real competitors as anything you can do with your night, outside of work thats Netflix and Orange is the New Black, thats post-season baseball, thats a pitcher of margarita.At the same time, Fenty said after driving a total of $250 million in sales and to 4.6 million customers, the company has built a rich trove of data about peoples cultural interests.
So with that in mind, it made sense for TodayTix to follow Netflixs footsteps with the same ethos that they had, to develop and to nurture programming and content thats intimately connected to what users and what customers want to see.This doesnt mean TodayTix is going to be producing spectacular Broadway productions.
Instead, Fenty pointed to the TodayTix Live concert in Brooklyn last month as the first of these shows.That concert, which celebrated TodayTixs five-year anniversary andwas hosted by Darren Criss, featured (mostly) Broadway stars like Matthew Morrison and Ariana Debose, who (mostly) performed pop standards.Fenty said future TodayTix Live events wont follow the exact same format, but the idea is to continue featuring popular artists in intimate settings he compared it to MTV Unplugged.
In fact, he suggested that with 300 attendees, last months concert was about as big as these shows will get.And because these are small, one-off events, Fenty said theyre notcompetitive with the big shows that TodayTix works with.[Our partners] are doing longform, high-budget, highly developed shows that take years to develop and are fully baked, he said.
Really what TodayTix Presents is supposed to be is a work-in-progress, an intimate way to see an artist.TodayTix already has plans for another New York City event in November, and then two in December.
Fenty said the cadence should roughly be a few events per quarter to start, and that there will be shows across the services 13 markets.