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Featuring Randy Nichols (Music Industry Strategist), Shaun Stewart (VP, Open Distribution at StubHub), David M. Mayeri (President, The UC Theatre), and Andrew Jensen (Opendate)
For years, the secondary ticket market has been something that happens to independent venues — not something they participate in. Brokers list tickets they don't own. Fans pay inflated prices. And the venue? Left out entirely.
With Opendate Distribution, that's starting to change.
In our latest Make More Money webinar, we brought together a panel of industry voices to unpack what it looks like when venues stop fighting the secondary market and start using it as a distribution channel. Here are five takeaways from the conversation.
StubHub sees 100 to 150 million monthly users. That's an enormous audience of ticket buyers who may never find your venue's website on their own. Opendate Distribution lets venues push inventory directly to that marketplace — on their own terms.
As Shaun Stewart put it:
"Opendate and StubHub built the tool, but the venue owner and operator gets to decide how to use the tool."
Venues choose which shows to list, set their own pricing, and can activate distribution with just two clicks per event. It's not about handing over control. It's about extending your reach.
One of the most compelling points from the panel: when venues distribute face-value tickets directly on StubHub, broker activity drops. Speculative listings — brokers selling tickets they don't actually own — lose their foothold when legitimate inventory is already available at face value.
Independent venues are able to reduce speculative listings by over 40% when they post inventory to the secondary market.
The takeaway is simple — when legitimate inventory is available, brokers lose their leverage.
Here's how the money works: venues set their ticket price, StubHub adds a booking fee (paid by the buyer), and the venue receives 100% of their set price within five days. StubHub absorbs credit card processing (roughly 2.2%), fraud protection, chargebacks, and customer support.
The net box office to the artist stays identical to a direct sale. For venues, it's incremental revenue from an audience they weren't reaching before — with zero additional operational cost.
The UC Theatre in Berkeley has been testing the integration across all of their shows for about five weeks. David Mayeri shared that StubHub is currently driving around 2% of their ticket sales, with expectations to grow that to roughly 10% over time.
Across all 10 pilot venues, 1,000+ tickets have sold through the StubHub channel in the first couple of weeks. That tells you something about the power of the platform's built-in trust and discovery.
What stood out most from the panel was David Mayeri's broader philosophy on pricing and fan relationships. The UC Theatre charges 30% less in convenience fees than other Bay Area venues, betting that affordable ticket pricing builds lifetime fan value. The real revenue comes from the full experience — merch, food and beverage, repeat visits.
That same thinking applies to distribution. Rather than viewing StubHub as the enemy, forward-thinking operators are treating it as another channel to get fans in the door — fans who might not have found the show otherwise.
The independent venue world has spent a long time feeling powerless against the secondary market. Tools like Opendate Distribution don't eliminate that tension entirely, but they do flip the script: venues become proactive participants rather than bystanders.
Want to learn more about distributing your tickets through StubHub? Talk to our team today.
