Brian Fenty Takes Over as CEO of TodayTix

There's a new CEO at TodayTix, though he's definitely not new to the company - Chairman Brian Fenty is becoming chief executive, while his co-founder (and the previous CEO) Merritt Baer is becoming the Head of Europe. TodayTix sells theater tickets in cities across the United States (including New York, Chicago and San Francisco), but its European presence is currently limited to London. Fenty said there's "a huge opportunity to go to some of the arts capitals of Europe - Paris, Hamburg, Vienna."

"Who better to lead that charge than my partner in crime?" he added. "This is just the beginning of our European chapter." Fenty also characterized the leadership change as an extension of his existing partnership with Baer, who he said has an "aggressive operational tenacity."

That operational focus was necessary to get TodayTix off the ground, and it's now needed for the European expansion. Meanwhile, Fenty said that as chairman, he spent more time on strategy and partnerships, and those will continue to be his focus as CEO. TodayTix has also been evolving as a business. Fenty said that while it was easy to describe the service as a mobile version of New York's TKTS booths, giving users access to last-minute, discounted theater tickets, it's actually expanded beyond that. Now it sells tickets up to 30 days in advance, with half of them sold at full price. (Fenty said that whether a ticket is sold at a discount or at full price, TodayTix is selling the most affordable tickets available: ("We will never be beat on price.")

In addition, TodayTix is no longer purely focused on theater. As Fenty put it, "We're still trying to connect global culture lovers to theater, but our definition of theater has expanded to include comedy, dance, philharmonic music, improv. That's come from our learnings launching in cities like Chicago, where if you don't have Second City, or in LA, if you don't have the Hollywood Bowl, you're not a culture app." Fenty said TodayTix now has 3.6 million users who have used the app to purchase $150 million in tickets. Looking ahead, he said the team is thinking about what else it can offer users either before or after going to the theater. TodayTix has made some other executive hires recently, including bringing on Jerrell Jimerson (formerly SVP of Digital at iHeartRadio and PayPal) as its first chief product officer, and Craig Coffman (previously CTO of Reserve) as its first CTO.