Ticketing company AXS has announced the addition of Marc Ruxin as chief strategy officer.

Ruxin, who will report directly to CEO Bryan Perez, will lead overall strategy and corporate development opportunities globally, working closely with business leaders around the world.

Before joining AXS, experienced entrepreneur and media executive Ruxin held positions as COO and CMO of music streaming service Rdio and chief innovation officer at Universal McCann and McCann Erikson.

“As the live event business continues to experience unprecedented global growth across sports, music, and festivals, AXS, and the AEG family, are perfectly positioned to become the most consumer-friendly and fan-forward business in the world,” says Ruxin.

“AXS is primed for the next growth stage and Marc will be a key player in our success”

“After a career in and around this industry, the opportunity to help AXS become the dominant global ticketing platform is the culmination of everything I have been working towards. What Bryan and the team have been able to build in a short time is an incredible accomplishment. I’m thrilled to be a part of it!”

Ruxin will take over corporate strategy and development responsibilities previously held by Blaine Legere, who transitioned to president – international late last year.

“Marc’s innate ability to successfully evaluate promising companies, his entrepreneurial prowess, and experience as an innovator and advisor in tech and live entertainment make Marc a great fit as we push our business forward,” adds Perez. “AXS is primed for the next growth stage and Marc will be a key player in our success.”

As well as upping Legere from his former role as SVP of corporate strategy & emerging markets, the AEG-owned ticketing company promoted COO Tom Andrus to president, North America at the end of 2023 to help manage its rapid growth.

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AEG-owned ticketing company AXS is opening an Australian office early in the new year, backed by Frontier Touring.

The firm will reportedly launch the operation next month, promising to shake up a domestic market currently dominated by Live Nation’s Ticketmaster and TEG’s Ticketek.

“We feel like there’s an opportunity for a third major player to come in, but we don’t want to just come in and do business the same old way,” US-based AXS CEO Bryan Perez tells The Australian.

“We think that there’s a new and better business model out there, where ticketing may be a little bit more non-exclusive and open.”

AEG announced a strategic JV with Australasia’s Frontier Touring in 2019, which saw the two companies merge their operations in Australia and New Zealand.

“We think the time is right to help AXS come into Australia and, if nothing else, shake it up”

“We’ve been frustrated by the ticketing landscape for probably five or six years,” adds Frontier CEO Dion Brant. “We think the time is right to help AXS come into Australia and, if nothing else, shake it up.”

LA-headquartered AXS is the official ticketing partner for over 350 premier venues, sports teams, event organisers around the world. It has additional offices in the US in Charlotte, Cleveland, Dallas and Denver, alongside European bases in London and Sweden.

AEG took full control of AXS from co-owners TPG Capital and Rockbridge Growth Equity in 2019 and rolled out its resale solution in the UK in April of the same year. It has been the official resale ticketing partner for AEG in North America since 2018.

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AXS is taking its US-based resale solution, AXS Marketplace, overseas for the first time, establishing its facilities in two iconic British venues – but potentially offering its services openly to primary ticketing operations across Europe.

AXS Marketplace has been operating in the United States for a number of years, where it has been extensively used by sports clients, but its launch in the UK will provide those visiting The O2 and the SSE Arena, Wembley, with a fair way to resell their event tickets. The Marketplace platform will provide the option to resell tickets at face value with a cap of no more than 10% above the price originally paid, thus allowing the original buyer to break even on a ticket’s resale.

Built-in controls also allow artists and promoters to manage restrictions on the resale of tickets to their shows as required. With the ability to provide better management over the resale market, AXS claims this will be the only ticketing solution that allows fans to buy and then resell through the same platform, meaning that both primary and secondary tickets for sale on AXS will be visible to consumers at the point of purchase in real time.

The method of delivery for AXS Marketplace – Flash Seats – is a mobile-friendly, identity based system, with tickets assigned directly to fans attending, replacing the standard PDF attached to an email. To alleviate the problems surrounding counterfeiting, all tickets are assigned to individuals via Flash Seats’ unique digital ID technology. This includes a dynamically changing barcode system, which ensures that the tickets cannot be copied or shared illegally, emphasising the company’s ongoing commitment to combatting fraud.

“We’re hoping other primary ticketing retailers will embrace Flash Seats”

“The ability to launch in these two iconic UK venues is pretty extraordinary,” AXS CEO Bryan Perez tells IQ. “We’re now working on getting the technology deployed and incorporating the tech into the AXS app: we need to set up accounting systems for the fans to include payment, for instance.”

Perez believes that because the problems associated with secondary ticketing affect the industry, the best way to resolve those issues is via an industry driven solution. “Our Flash Seats system is a very powerful anti-counterfeiting solution and we’re hoping that other primary ticketing retailers will embrace this,” he says, adding that the technology allows AXS to convert other tickets into Flash Tickets so that they can be resold via Marketplace.

The technology will be offered free of charge to the sellers of primary tickets for events at Wembley and The O2, but Perez reveals ambitions beyond those venues. “We’ll look to roll out Flash Seats in our AXS venues in Sweden, and will act otherwise on a market-by-market basis. But Flash Seats is built outside a ticketing system, so it can also be made available to other ticketing operations.”

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