Eventfinder Ends Watershed Year With Nomination

Press Release
18 January 2010

Eventfinder Ends Watershed Year With Award Nomination

Eventfinder.co.nz has been nominated as a finalist for Best User Experience in the Onyas, alongside Pocketsmith and NZX-listed Xero.

2009 proved to be a watershed year for Eventfinder, breaking into the Top 30 New Zealand websites. According to Nielsen, Eventfinder is ranked the 26th most popular New Zealand website measured by domestic traffic for December.

At the urging of NZ promoters of all sizes who were looking for competitive options, Eventfinder launched an online ticketing service in March aimed at filling a gap in a market dominated by two large multi-national companies. Over 200 events have used the ticketing service, including domestic artists The Black Seeds, The Phoenix Foundation, Anika Moa, Salmonella Dub and large scale festivals including The Food Show and the Liquorland NZ Beer Festival.

Eventfinder successfully struck its first overseas licensing deal with Austrian company Medienhaus which launched in October, expected to be the first of many exports of Eventfinder’s technology.

“Licensing the Eventfinder Platform overseas will be a big focus for us in 2010” says Eventfinder CEO Michael Turner. “This is a big opportunity for a small New Zealand company to export world-class, home-grown technology into other markets.”

Eventfinder provides exclusive event information to Yahoo!Xtra, NZ Herald, Stuff, MSN, AA Travel, Jasons, View New Zealand and more than 150 other websites and print publications through commercial syndication agreements.

In December, a partnership between Eventfinder and the Ministry of Culture and Heritage’s NZLive events site was announced, combining their respective audiences into one ‘super-site’ and a single syndication platform.

“To have achieved so much in a single calendar year on a shoestring budget during an economic downturn is a testament to the focus and dedication of my team. I’m very proud of them” says Turner.

The company was founded in 2005 by Michael Turner, and the website first launched in January 2006. Turner and business partner James McGlinn spent the first two years building the business literally from the kitchen table.

In December 2007 APN took an equity stake in the company, which now employs six staff. The website has grown from 46,000 unique visitors in November 2006 to more than 185,000 visitors viewing nearly one million pages of event information in December 2009.

ENDS

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