Industry News

Huddle acquires US high school ticket platform PrepMo

Huddle, a ticket operator for US high schools, has acquired California-based high school ticketing platform, PrepMo.

The deal will provide Huddle with an expanded West Coast presence, while offering high schools across the US access to its ticketing solutions.

The company’s services involve an integrated digital and paper ticketing solution for both state association high school post-season events and individual school regular season events.

“We are excited to add the PrepMo team to our rapidly expanding Huddle family. Justin’s vision, leadership and long-standing relationships make him the perfect person to lead our West Coast sales and operations,” said Joey Thacker, Huddle’s chief executive.

Since 2001, Georgia-based Huddle has provided over 1.3 billion event tickets to high schools.

For the 2017-18 school year, Huddle has expanded its free offerings to include the GoFan digital ticketing application. The mobile app provides high schools with digital ticketing capabilities at no cost to the schools.

Huddle raised $11m (£8.8m/€10.3m) in venture capital late last year to grow its GoFan platform.

The company, which merged with rival Preptix last year, shipped 140 million tickets in 2016 to more than 9,000 high schools in the US — or about 45 per cent of the nation’s senior academic institutions. Its total market could be worth $1bn when advertising revenue is taken into account.

Meanwhile, the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) recently partnered with Huddle and its GoFan app for a national expansion of digital ticketing for high school sports.

Justin Petersen, PrepMo’s founder and president, who will take on a lead role at Huddle said: “We are honoured to be joining such a terrific team at Huddle.

“The Huddle acquisition of PrepMo provides all of our customers with additional features and functionality, and provides high schools with a singular solution for ticketing and payment processing. This includes everything from sporting events and proms to event marketing and processing registration fees.”