Summary:

Breaking into a market controlled by prominent players can be daunting, but competition breeds innovation and when newcomers are successful it usually means big benefits for consumers and investors. Vivid Seats (online ticket marketplace), led by CEO Stan Chia, is one of those success stories.

Vivid Seats has carved out a space for themselves in an industry that has historically been dominated by big names like TicketMaster and StubHub by focusing on customer service and consumer engagement. Despite the hit live events and ticketing took from cancellations and postponements brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, they recently went public, and acquired sports gaming app “Betcha” soon after, showing no signs of slowing down their impressive growth anytime soon.

In this episode, Stan Chia shares what Vivid Seats is doing differently than the other profitable players in the ticketing space, he breaks down how Vivid Seats was able to maintain customer trust throughout the pandemic, and he explains why they're a great example of a how a SPAC transaction can go right.

Highlights:

• Introduction to Stan Chia and Vivid Seats (2:16)
• What going public means for Vivid Seats (5:16)
• Vivid Seats’ acquisition of Betcha (6:36)
• The Vivid Seats team and workplace culture (8:11)
• How Vivid Seats differentiates itself in the industry (10:03)
• Why user engagement is important to Vivid Seats (14:07)
• How Vivid Seats is investing in technology (15:00)
• How Vivid Seats is moving forward after the pandemic (17:06)
• Why going public via SPAC was the right move for Vivid Seats (20:30)
• Long-term growth and diversification (24:28)

Links:

ICR Twitter

ICR LinkedIn

ICR Website

Vivid Seat Website

Stan Chia LinkedIn

Vivid Seats LinkedIn

Vivid Seats Twitter

Feedback:

If you have questions about the show, or have a topic in mind you'd like discussed in future episodes, email our producer, andrew@lowerstreet.co.