Pandora snatches up Ticketfly to become a one-stop shop for music

Pandora has been providing artists with tools to connect with fans and understand their audience for a while now, but the company is getting serious about event promotion, too. The internet radio service announced that it's purchasing Ticketfly, a company that offers ticketing and other marketing tools for live gigs. Ticketfly currently works with 1,200 venues and promoters to help folks like you and I find and purchase tickets to catch a live show. The acquisition means that Pandora will have a way for artists to sell tickets in addition to its AMP (Artist Marketing Platform) feature that provides audience info and Artist Audio Messages that help them directly connect with fans. It also recently purchased Next Big Sound to help with listener insights and trends. This deal for Ticketfly is worth around $450 million and it's said to be "a nearly equal mix" of cash and stock.