• by Karl Greenberg , December 15, 2015

Concerts and car service is a sensible partnership, as anyone knows who has had to contemplate the Kafka-esque nightmare looking for parking at a major event.

One of the major concert promoters, AEG Live, has partnered with ride sharing company Lyft in 15 U.S. venues in six markets. Lyft becomes “Preferred Transportation Network.” 

The first-ever program for AEG creates designated “Lyft Zones” for pick up and drop off, and offers discounts to riders and a chance to win an in-venue seat upgrade the night of the event. Among venues are 1STBANK Center in Denver, Colo. and Verizon Theatre at Grand Prairie in Dallas, Tex.

Guests who take Lyft to an event at participating AEG Live venues, can show their ride receipt to be automatically entered to win a seat upgrade for that event. Other venues include PlayStation Theater in New York; Shrine Auditorium, El Rey Theatre, The Fonda Theatre, and Roxy, all in L.A.; The Warfield and The Regency Ballroom in San Francisco; and The Joint at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino and The Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. 

Andrew Klein, SVP of global partnerships at AEG tells Marketing Daily that in each if the venues, there will be signage encouraging people to use Lyft, and in Denver and in Dallas, “We will have dedicated pickup and drop-off areas prior to the concert.” He adds that AEG will market through social media, in-venue media, and through AEG live emails for each market, venue and show. “It is very targeted marketing.” 

The markets in which the partnership is activated are both in key Lyft  markets and AEG's bigger markets, says Klein. “We are going to do a lot of the marketing because we have large databases of people who have bought event and show tickets, and we have had conversations with them already.” He adds that AEG has had one-off deals with Uber and Lyft around the country, “But it seems like a good idea to grow the relationship with one of the players, so Lyft is the one we will grow with.” 

As for expanding into other markets where AEG has venues, “We are going to look at how it goes and decide. This is about a relationship, not a one-off deal,” says Klein. More traditionally, AEG has venue partnerships with Red Bull, in most music clubs, and Anheuser Busch.