HITWISE UK RETAIL UPDATE 

UK Internet traffic to Ticketing websites reaches highest level in over 12 months

London, 15 April 2008 Hitwise, the leading online competitive intelligence service, today reveals that UK Internet traffic to websites selling tickets for concerts, sporting events and the theatre increased by 49% for the week ending 5 April 2008, reaching its highest level in over 12 months. This increase in UK Internet visits to Hitwise's Shopping and Classifieds & Ticketing category has been driven by a number of factors, including the sale of tickets for popular music festivals such as Glastonbury, Reading and Leeds, the growth of ticket resale and exchange sites such as Viagogo, Seatwave and MyTicketMarket, and the increasingly popularity of online tickets sites with older UK Internet users.

Festivals drive traffic to ticketing sites, but Glastonbury less popular this year 

UK Internet visits to Shopping and Classifieds Ticketing websites increased 49% between the weeks ending 29 March and 5 April 2008, and much of this growth was due to people searching for tickets to the Reading and Leeds festivals. "reading festival" was the most popular non branded search sending traffic to ticketing websites during the 4 weeks ending 5 April 2008, while "leeds festival tickets", "leeds festival" and "reading festival tickets" were also amongst the 10 most popular terms sending traffic to the category over the same period.

The Reading Festival website (www.readingfestival.com) was the third most popular website sending traffic to ticketing websites last week, while the Leeds Festival site (www.leedsfestival.com) was the eighth. The release of tickets for the Glastonbury festival on Sunday also had an impact on traffic to ticketing websites, but less so than Leeds and Reading festivals. UK Internet traffic to the Glastonbury festival website (www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk) peaked on Sunday 6 April 2008, but was 51% lower than the equivalent day last year.

Ticket resale and exchange sites prove popular with gig-goers

Four of the top 10 most visited Shopping and Classifieds & Ticketing websites in the UK in March were ticket exchange / resale websites. These four sites (Viagogo, Seatwave, MyTicketMarket, and The Independent Ticket Exchange) allow users to legitimately buy tickets from other consumers, and their combined market share of the UK online ticket market has more than tripled to 10.9% over the last 12 months. "Legitimate ticket resale / exchange sites have gained significant market share on traditional players over the last year," commented Robin Goad, Hitwise's Research Director. "Users of such sites are younger than the industry average, and are most interested in tickets for music, comedy and sports events."

Online ticketing gaining popularity with older Internet users 

The last year has also seen a significant increase in the number of older UK Internet users visiting ticketing websites. 39.6% of UK Internet visitors to Hitwise's Shopping and Classifieds & Ticketing category during the 4 weeks ending 5 April 2008 were aged 45 or over, up from 30.9% a year earlier. "There are now more visitors aged 45+ to the ticketing category than the 18-34+ bracket," commented Goad. "However, unlike younger users they tend to prefer more traditional suppliers, and go for theatre tickets over music. The most visited ticketing websites for this age group are Ticketmaster and See Tickets, while Greenbee Freetime (www.greenbee.com ) a ticketing service from John Lewis) and the London Theatre Guide both significantly over-index in terms of older visitors."

About Hitwise:

Hitwise is the leading online competitive intelligence service. Only Hitwise provides its 1,400 clients around the world with daily insights on how their customers interact with a broad range of competitive websites, and how their competitors use different tactics to attract online customers.

Since 1997, Hitwise has pioneered a unique, network-based approach to Internet measurement. Through relationships with ISPs around the world, Hitwise's patented methodology anonymously captures the online usage, search and conversion behaviour of 25 million Internet users. This unprecedented volume of Internet usage data is seamlessly integrated into an easy to use, web-based service, designed to help marketers better plan, implement and report on a range of online marketing programs.

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