
In December 2016, Songkick filed an antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation Entertainment and its Ticketmaster division. Jones and Hogarth served as co-CEOs of Songkick until Jones took on the role of CEO in January 2016. ĬrowdSurge was founded by Matt Jones in 2008, and he and Hogarth said they decided to merge the two companies to correct “a massive inefficiency in the market.” Songkick had systems to detect ticket resellers, reduce the incentive for reselling (e.g., by creating general admissions areas, rather than assigned seats) and make it easier for regular fans to buy tickets (e.g., by having multiple releases of tickets, not just one release) that have reduced the percentage of concert tickets that end up in the secondary market to 1.5 percent of the total.


In June 2015, Songkick merged with CrowdSurge, an artist ticketing services provider, with the combined company operating under the Songkick name. The company launched its first mobile application in 2011. Songkick's initial business model, based on its concert discovery service, was based on referral fees from ticketing companies. Songkick was founded in 2007 by Ian Hogarth, Michelle You and Pete Smith as part of the 2007 Y Combinator program, a seed accelerator that focuses on technology start-ups.

In 2012, Songkick launched Tourbox, a tool for artists or artist teams to manage and distribute their live event dates worldwide, across multiple digital platforms. In 2017, the Songkick concert discovery service and brand was sold to WMG, while the ticketing assets were sold to Live Nation Entertainment in 2018 to settle a lawsuit with the company. In 2015, it merged with CrowdSurge-a company that provided services for running and managing ticket sales on behalf of artists. The company was first established in 2007 as a Y Combinator-backed startup. It also provides services for artist teams to manage and promote tour dates globally. The service allows users to search for upcoming concert events in their area, and also track individual artists to receive notifications of upcoming shows in their area. Songkick is a concert discovery service owned by Warner Music Group.
