Inside the $112M Tickets For Less exit: Deal would tap live event tech, add sports verticals

A move to acquire Overland Park-built Tickets For Less for $112 million serves as a launching pad for Kustom Entertainment, said founder and CEO Stan Ross, giving the music industry veteran a tech boost in his bid to develop a fully integrated, end-to-end live entertainment ecosystem.

Stan Ross, Kustom Entertainment

“This will definitely be a pivotal chapter in the growth of Kustom Entertainment when we look back a decade from now,” Ross told Startland News. “I’ve got some pretty lofty expectations and goals, and this dramatically helps us get a very aggressive run at achieving those goals.”

The Olathe-based emerging leader in live music festival production — including the popular Country Stampede — and proprietary ticketing technology announced an agreement Tuesday to acquire Tickets For Less, a premier wholesale ticketing distribution and live event technology platform.

Because Kustom is a publicly-held company (NASDAQ: KUST) and Tickets For Less is private, Ross said, the acquisition deal could take anywhere from 30 to 45 days to be finalized. The two companies must jump through SEC-filing hoops and deal with NASDAQ, he noted.

Ross’ family has been in the music business since the 1960s, he said, with his father the founder of Kustom amps and Ross Musical Products and Road Electronics. Tickets For Less founder and CEO Dan Rouen is a friend who shares the same long-term vision, Ross added, emphasizing ways the acquisition will expand the previously music-focused Kustom’s reach into major collegiate and professional sports.

“There’s an opportunity to get in this business, especially with some of the turmoil that’s around Live Nation and some of the business practices they’re getting accused of doing,” he explained. “It gives someone that wants to come in and be very transparent and put on quality events with quality artists a great opportunity.”

“Over the past two decades, TFL has built a reputation on fee-transparent pricing, technology innovation, and deep partnerships across professional and collegiate sports,” added Rouen in a statement. “Joining forces with Kustom will provide us with the capital, public market platform, and strategic alignment to accelerate our expansion. We look forward to deploying our distribution infrastructure across Kustom’s growing footprint to deliver unmatched value to venues, teams, and fans.”

Country Stampede at the Azura Amphitheater in Bonner Springs; photo courtesy of Kustom Entertainment

Although Kustom already operates its own ticketing platform, TicketSmarter, Tickets For Less boasts a much larger operation — with more than $238 million in revenue in 2025, compared to TicketSmarter’s $10 million — and it already runs the software platform that many other industry leaders are using, Ross noted.

The TFLConnect platform will integrate across Kustom’s festival assets, unlocking broader distribution, dynamic pricing synergies, and direct cross selling opportunities.

“It’ll enhance our numbers and also get us in a position where we’re not duplicating some of the engineering efforts to try to stay ahead of the game a little bit,” he continued. “The volume that they do and the fact that they have their own back office will probably save TicketSmarter and Kustom Tickets, I want to say between five and eight percent on their margins.”

“They own a lot of rights to tickets at certain venues, whether it be professional teams for colleges or just arenas,” he added, noting Kustom already creates content like Country Stampede through its own internal business divisions. “So collectively, we will really be able to enhance each other dramatically.”

 

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Ross pivoted in recent years from his video company, Digital Ally, to focus on the entertainment business, he said. Between all his contacts from his family’s history in the music business (like Garth Brooks and Charlie Anderson), plus the work he’s done with the likes of NASCAR, Royals Caribbean Cruise Lines, and Arrowhead Stadium, the addition of a bigger ticketing entity will propel Kustom even further, he continued.

“When I go talk to X, Y, and Z and ask for permission to at least put our hat in the ring in regards to handling all their ticketing, now I’ve got an entity where I’m walking in there that we are absolutely as as strong as any of the others that are going in there knocking on the door,” Ross explained.

Kustom plans to transition the management team from Tickets For Less into the new operation, he noted.

“They do have an unbelievable management team and not a single one of them is leaving,” Ross said.

“My rolodex is pretty deep in regards to relationships,” he added. “So I think that with the talented team I have behind me, it’s really going to open up a lot more doors for us.”