Ticketfly has been sued by the owner of Florida’s Tortuga Music Festival over a contract dispute, which could disrupt the 2018 event, the lawsuit claims.
Ticketfly claims to have a contract to handle the ticketing for the country music festival that attracted 100,000 fans to Fort Lauderdale last year, the lawsuit states.
The owner of the festival sued Ticketfly after the ticketing company threated litigation.
Tortuga is owned by Rock the Ocean, whose sole member is Music Row veteran Chris Stacey, according to the lawsuit.
Rock the Ocean argued in its filing that Ticketfly’s deal was with Huka, the production firm behind the festival, however, there is no such contract between Ticketfly and itself.
Ticketfly is a subsidiary of Eventbrite and was purchased earlier this year after previously being owned by Internet radio company Pandora.
“Ticketfly is threatening to try to disrupt a major annual music festival based on the frivolous assertion that the owner of that festival, TMF2013, and its parent entity, Rock the Ocean, are contractually bound to sell tickets to the festival exclusively through Ticketfly,” the festival’s owner argue in the lawsuit.
The lawsuit also claims that Huka and Ticketfly shared a common executive – Jeff Kreinik – who worked at Huka until 2014 and then at Ticketfly until 2016.
“Ticketfly has at all times known that TMF2013 and Huka are distinct companies…” the lawsuit claims, adding that TMF2013 and not Huka owns the Tortuga festival.
An expedited hearing has been requested by Tortuga’s owner due to tickets already being on sale for the 2018 event through Front Gate Tickets.
Image: Marc Serota
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