Ticketmaster Jumps Ahead of Projections

Ticketmaster Online-CitySearch will announce today that its first-quarter online ticket sales surged 272% to 1.6 million from 430,000 a year earlier. The jump, which exceeds analysts’ expectations, propelled the firm’s first-quarter ticket sales--with a total value of about $60 million--to 10% of Ticketmaster Corp.’s total ticket sales. The pace of sales growth puts the company far ahead of analysts’ projections that it would take four years to make up about 20% of its parent’s revenue, said Charles Conn, chief executive of Ticketmaster Online-CitySearch. Conn attributed the jump to the increasing popularity of electronic commerce, an easier-to-use Web site, and a push by bands to sell millennium concerts through Ticketmaster. The firm also pushed significant traffic to the Ticketmaster site from CitySearch, Conn said.