Australian independent ticketing company Oztix acquires rival Local Tickets

Major independent Australian ticketing company, Oztix, has today announced the acquisition of rival local/regional events ticketer Local Tickets.

Oztix celebrates 20 years in the ticketing industry this year, leading the market in venue, festival and expo ticketing for events such as Big Red Bash, Crafted Beer & Cider Festival, Good Things Festival, and Summernats. Local Tickets counts a wide range of agricultural shows, rodeos, turf clubs, and hospitality events among its client base, with a large number of events taking place in regional Australia.

Local Tickets has been rebranded to Localtix, effectively immediately, and all Local Tickets clients will automatically have access to an expanded suite of Oztix product features as part of the companies coming together. Additionally, Oztix events will now be populated across 70 local ticket marketplaces, greatly expanding the marketing potential for events ticketed by Oztix.

The acquisition will see events in Australia's regions served with both a premium ticketing option in Oztix or lower cost access to a set of premium Oztix ticketing tech. Both options offer world-class experience in marketing of shows, selling tickets and bringing in different kinds of attendees from all around Australia.

In addition to a growth in regional routing of gigs (think Peking Duk, Spacey Jane, The Waifs), events are often the lifeblood of rural communities and have played an important role the last couple of years as they served to raise much-needed funds and rally community spirit during/post-COVID and in response to inclement weather and disasters.

There’s also a growing trend of rural events adding music acts to the bill to draw in more diverse, younger crowds. “Just adding music” isn’t as easy as it sounds. Part of the value of these regional organisers working with Oztix is that they have music experts that help advise/guide customers on these kinds of things.

Oztix co-founder and Managing Director, Stuart Field, said the acquisition is a ‘two-brand’ market strategy, poised to cover the entire breadth of ticketing, from major venues, festivals, and expos, right through to hyper-local events and experiences.

Field notes “this acquisition reflects our 20-year leadership and investment in the Australian events industry.  Local Tickets is a well-respected ticketing agency with over a decade of regional event experience.   They are agile and innovative and offer one of the best ticket-selling apps on the market.  Together the two brands will service both big and smaller events, in urban hotspots and regional corners of the country.

Local Tickets Founder and Chief Executive Kristen Goldup joins as Brand Director across Oztix and Localtix and shares "our brands and product offerings are entirely complimentary, and after just one meeting with Oztix, it was clear that we had great synergy and shared a mutual culture of putting our clients first. My Local Tickets clients will benefit greatly from access to a new collaborative platform, and even more eyeballs will be on our local tickets marketplace websites with Oztix events being listed.”

In continued service of existing clients, ticket buyers and the wider regional event industry, All Local Tickets employees will join Oztix. Together the businesses employ over 50 Australian-based staff and hundreds of contractors each year, and are expected to inject over $350 million into the Australian economy this year.

Oztix Co-founder and Director, Brian Chladil added “Both of our businesses compete with foreign-owned ticketing agencies in our respective market spaces.  It’s been inspiring to see such a strong conscious shift by consumers, businesses and the government to proactively support the Aussie companies and entrepreneurs who are doing their part to help our country financially recover and grow, post-COVID.”

Image (from left) Oztix Founders Brian Chladil and Stuart Field with Local Tickets Founder Kristen Goldup