TicketBiscuit
TicketBiscuit LLC was an online event management and ticketing company founded in 2001 by Jeff Gale and located at 5120 Cyrus Circle off of Valleydale Road in Hoover. The company grew quickly, reaching more than $100 million in annual ticket sales, before it was acquired by Etix of Morrisville, North Carolina in late 2017.
Gale founded the platform as a direct competitor to Ticketmaster, focusing on flexibility and integration with client's web sites. Before its public launch, the system was tested at WorkPlay. Gale was part of the 2006 class of the Birmingham Venture Club's "Entrepreneur Accelerator" program.
By 2007 the company had tripled in size and opened a dedicated call center. It added specialty products for tourist railroads, social media event promotion, and integration with the Eventful and Facebook platforms. TicketBiscuit introduced mobile ticketing in January 2009 and overhauled its product as a dynamically scalable, cloud-based platform.
In 2010 TicketBiscuit took on an investment from Tuscaloosa's C&G Capital Partners to support business expansion. It began rewarding referrals with an affiliate program and introduced new customized ticketing programs for dance studio recitals. It also began publishing ticket scanner apps for handheld devices and integrated with Apple Passbook and Google PassWallet smart phone services. In 2013 the company expanded into casino reward systems and additional paperless ticketing products, including seat-selection functionality.
In 2015 TicketBiscuit launched its "StateChamps" division to provide online ticketing services for high school football programs. The company moved to Cyrus Circle from 1550 Woods of Riverchase Drive off of Riverchase Parkway in 2016, and received a $5 million investment from Ballast Point Ventures of Tampa, Florida in October of that year.
TicketBiscuit was sold to Etix in October 2017.
References
- Dugan, Kelli M. (November 19, 2006) "Ticket to profit." Birmingham Business Journal
- Brown, Melissa (October 17, 2016) "Birmingham tech company lands $5M investment." Birmingham Business Journal
- Patchen, Tyler (October 26, 2017) "High-growth Birmingham company acquired by Etix." Birmingham Business Journal