Global live entertainment company outsources their European and Asian IT infrastructure
Live Nation, the world’s largest producer of live concerts, has asked Telstra to host its entire IT infrastructure. This includes website, back office functions and connectivity to music venues across the UK, Europe and Asia.
Using Telstra solutions gives Live Nation the bandwidth capacity required to support the huge peaks in online traffic when events are taking place and tickets go on sale. By choosing Telstra, Live Nation can guarantee the high quality experience their customers expect.
Live Nation is rapidly becoming the world’s largest online concert search engine, with its websites receiving over 400 million hits per year. It runs over 40 music venues in the UK including Wembley Arena and the Carling Academies. In addition, it is responsible for numerous festivals including Download and the O2 Wireless Festival in the UK, and Rock Werchter and Lowlands in Europe.
Rob Mason, Senior Vice President of IT at Live Nation, states: “Our websites can be put under immense pressure when tickets go on sale – for instance this year there were 180,000 unique visitors in two hours when the Reading and Leeds tickets went on sale. As a global company the site must be available 24/7, and allow customers to buy tickets, and find information on artists and concerts. It is vital the underlying IT infrastructure is robust and reliable.”
Live Nation has taken a bespoke suite at Telstra’s London Data and Hosting Centre, which hosts the entire IT infrastructure for Europe and Asia including all back-office applications such as email, file sharing and the customer relationship management software. By working with Telstra, Live Nation can take advantage of global connectivity to ensure the availability of all IT functions, and also be confident its infrastructure is housed in a secure and reliable environment.
Mason comments: “We are also using a wide area network (WAN) to connect 40 of our music venues to guarantee the availability of the network for important events. These large venues, such as Wembley, will use Telstra’s Multi-Protocol Label Switched (MPLS) connection to prioritise traffic. We have been delighted with the level of service Telstra has provided and are considering extending this MPLS network to further venues.”
Simon Vye, CEO of Telstra International, EMEA commented: “For global companies such as Live Nation, it is vital to have a secure and reliable infrastructure in place to support online business. Telstra is ideally placed to deliver this by offering data and hosting centre facilities and unrivalled global connectivity. We are delighted Live Nation has chosen us to support their ongoing growth internationally.”
About Live Nation International
Live Nation is the largest producer of live concerts in the world, annually producing over 16,000 concerts for 1,500 artists in 57 countries. The company sells over 45 million concert tickets a year and drives many millions of unique visitors to their website search engines. Live Nation is revolutionizing the music industry: onstage and online. Headquartered in Los Angeles, California, Live Nation is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, trading under the symbol 'LYV.'