Industry News

Face-value resale firm CashorTrade is on the rise

CashorTrade.org, the face-value resale platform, is on the rise and looking to get a foot in the door with primary ticketing for artists.

Labeled as the AirBnB of concert tickets, the firm currently boasts more than 132,000 members.

Cashortrade handled more than 50,000 ticket transactions on veteran rock band Phish’s 13-night run at Madison Square Garden this summer, Cash Or Trade founder and chief executive Brando Rich told Pollstar.

At an average ticket price of $66, that puts the face value of those tickets at more than $3.3m. The entire Baker’s Dozen run moved 227,385 tickets and grossed $15.04m, as reported to Pollstar.

“One of the things we could pride ourselves on mostly is that we have an amazing community of real fans,” Rich told Pollstar. “Nationwide and across the globe, they’re rising up to come together and create this movement, scoring tickets for face value or less, gaining reviews and building credibility. Because of that, we feel it is disrupting the current business model of primary ticketing.”

Phish was the inspiration for starting Cash Or Trade, after Rich and brother Dusty were frustrated at trying to purchase reunion show tickets, especially after seeing secondary ticketing sites listing the same seats listed for hundreds or even thousands more.

“In summer 2009 we went on tour with Phish and set up a trading tent,” Rich said. “It was kind of an easy-up with a banner, and we hung up a bulletin board. It was our low-tech version. We had fans just post up a slip of paper on the board saying what they had to trade or for cash. And we promoted the website. By the end of summer, we had 5,000 members.”

“Fast forward to a handful of years later and the site had over 100,000 members,” Rich said, adding that he and his brother sold their web design business and took Cashortrade full time.

The company is growing about 2,500 new users every month and processed nearly $9m in ticket transactions between members last year, according to Rich.

“We have members from every single state in the country and more than 20 countries around the globe. We’re expanding more on that every day,” Rich said. “We are still heavily in the jam-band community,” Rich said.

“And we’re looking to expand much further. We’ve had tickets for Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake, Bruce Springsteen and Pearl Jam, Dave Matthews.”