HMV & Ticketmaster UK Partner on hmvtickets

LONDON, May 15, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

HMV and Ticketmaster UK, a Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE:LYV) company, today announced that they have entered into a strategic partnership. The move will see the UK and Ireland's leading entertainment brand join with the world's biggest ticketing agent to further improve and extend the scope of its hmvtickets ticketing service.

Coming into effect over the next six to eight weeks as the service migrates to its new platform, hmvtickets will remain HMV branded but will now be operated by Ticketmaster. The arrangement will enable the multi-channel retailer to substantially broaden the inventory of events that it can offer its growing number of customers both online via hmv.com as well as through its high street chain, where an initial twenty stores around the country will feature an hmvtickets box office.

An hmvtickets team will remain in place at HMV to support established relationships and to work directly with its existing client base while also looking to develop new ones by providing a dedicated service to promoters, event organisers, artist management and venues and festivals. The retail specialist will also look to maintain its productive relationship with record labels and artist management by way of continuing to offer customers its popular ticket and product bundle combinations.

Significantly Ticketmaster.co.uk customers will now be able to purchase their Ticketmaster tickets in store from hmvtickets box offices. Ticketmaster will also be utilising HMV's established retail distribution services to provide its customer with non-ticket related purchases such as CDs, DVDs and technology products.

Simon Fox, HMV CEO, commented: "We remain committed to offering our customers a premium-quality ticketing service, and by partnering with the world's number one ticket agent we're now in a position to significantly expand the range and depth of events that we can make available to them, not just loads more gigs and festivals, but also across comedy, sport, theatre and many other attractions besides."

Chris Edmonds, Managing Director, Ticketmaster UK, said: "This partnership is bringing together two leaders in their field in the form of hmv as the leading entertainment retailer and Ticketmaster, the world's leading ticket provider.  Enabling our customers to buy tickets from HMV's network of stores is another great addition to our service we can now offer.  We are excited about the opportunity of using our combined experience to deliver ticket and music bundles."

About hmv

HMV is the UK and Ireland's leading entertainment brand, enabling specialist access to much of today's popular culture through its chain of stores and online and digital sites. Unique in its '360-style' offer, HMV enables choice through 240 stores offering a specialist selection of entertainment content and technology products; an online store at hmv.com and a download service at hmvdigital.com powered by 7digital.

About Ticketmaster:

With operations spanning 19 countries, Ticketmaster is the world leader in event ticketing and ranks among the top five eCommerce sites globally.  Ticketmaster is a division of Live Nation Entertainment. Live Nation Entertainment is the world's leading live entertainment and ecommerce company, comprised of four market leaders: Ticketmaster.com, Live Nation Concerts, Front Line Management Group and Live Nation Network. Ticketmaster.com is the global event-ticketing leader and one of the world's top five ecommerce sites, with almost 27 million monthly unique visitors. Live Nation Concerts produces over 22,000 shows annually for more than 2,300 artists globally. Front Line is the world's top artist management company, representing over 250 artists. These businesses power Live Nation Network, the leading provider of entertainment marketing solutions, enabling nearly 800 advertisers to tap into the 200 million consumers Live Nation delivers annually through its live event and digital platforms. For additional information, visit http://www.livenation.com/investors.

SOURCE HMV and Ticketmaster UK