US ticketing giant to open first European development center in Madrid

Eventbrite, one of the world’s largest ticketing and event organization platforms, will open its first development center in Europe in Madrid in May. The move comes after the US multinational acquired Ticketea, the Spanish leader in the ticketing sector, last year.

Eventbrite was founded in 2006 and currently has a thousand employees across 14 countries

The company currently has 80 employees in Spain but it hopes to triple its workforce to more than 200 people – mostly computer engineers and product developers – over the next three years.

Eventbrite’s new headquarters will be located on La Habana avenue in Madrid. Eventbrite currently has two offices in Spain, one in Madrid and another in Villena in Alicante, both of which belonged to Ticketea. The 65 employees in Madrid will be transferred to the new center in May, while those in Alicante will remain where they are.

“The commercial team, which is responsible for attracting clients, will stay the same and the technology team will grow,” explains Javier Andrés, co-founder of Ticketea and Eventbrite’s general director of Spain and Portugal, in a phone conversation with EL PAÍS.

“When the Eventbrite bosses came to Spain in 2018, before they bought Ticketea, they realized that the technical level was very good in the country. That’s why they decided to set up here, because there is less competition for talent than in Silicon Valley,” Andrés explains. The Spanish engineers will be tasked with developing different aspects of the website platform to help the company grow on an international level. When work on the four-story building finishes in May, it will be Eventbrite’s fourth development center in the world and its first in Europe.

The move comes after the company acquired Ticketea for €9.92 million

Eventbrite makes its technology available to event promoters who can sell tickets through the platform in exchange for a commission of between 6 and 10% on every ticket sold. The new headquarters will have work and leisure spaces for employees and an area where events such as book presentations or conferences can be organized. “It’s a way for our clients to be able to organize events in our own building,” says Andrés.

The multinational company was founded in 2006 in San Francisco and currently has a thousand employees in 14 countries. It entered the Spanish market in April 2018 with the purchase of Ticketea. According to documents sent to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Eventbrite bought Ticketea for $11.2 million (€9.92 million). It is the seventh company acquired by Eventbrite since they started looking for opportunities to expand globally in 2015.

English version by Asia London Palomba.