Media giant Ekspress Grupp buys Latvian ticket agency

Pan-Baltic media group Ekspress Grupp has announced the acquisition of Biļešu Paradīze, the second-largest entertainment ticket agency in Latvia.

Biļešu Paradīze (‘Paradise Tickets’) operates an online ticketing platform, bilesuparadize.lv, and box offices across Latvia. In 2018, it sold tickets for more than 7,000 events, chiefly on behalf of cultural institutions and independent promoters.

Ekspress Grupp is the Baltics’ largest media and entertainment conglomerate, active in producing online content and publishing newspapers and magazines in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. It employs around 1,700 people.

As part of the acquisition, Biļešu Paradīze becomes part of A/S Delfi, the Ekspress subsidiary that operates delfi.lv, Latvia’s most popular news portal, which has 800,000 monthly users. The company’s founders, Jānis Daube and Ēriks Naļivaiko, remain in management positions.

According to the International Ticketing Yearbook 2018, Baltic Ticket Holdings (BTH) is the leading ticket seller in all three Baltic countries, with Biļešu Paradīze its main competitor in Latvia.

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