Groupon, Ticketmaster team for bargain ticket site

The parent company of Ticketmaster and one of the hottest startups around have partnered together for a new site that will offer limited-time deals for concerts, theater and other live events.

Live Nation and Groupon today rolled out GrouponLive. The site will act much like the main Groupon service, offering bargain pricing on a variety of events, targeted near where customers live. The service will begin offering deals at some point before the summer concert season.

“With unprecedented access to Live Nation’s expansive roster of performers and events, GrouponLive will be the destination for exclusive live event deals,” said Andrew Mason, Groupon's founder and CEO, in a statement.

Both parties stand to benefit from the deal. LiveNation last week reported a $54 million net loss, but saw its ticket volume increase 11 percent. By partnering with Groupon, which saw its subscriber base grow by 2,500 percent last year, the company will be able to present offers to a significantly larger audience than it commands. Also, as concert attendance has fallen in recent years, offering special deals will help staunch that bleed.

For Groupon, it's a notable bragging point as competition increases rapidly. Facebook launched a competitor recently and several clone sites have emerged in the past couple of years.

That's hardly surprising. Deal-a-day revenue in the U.S. hit $873 million last year. By 2015, it's expected to top $4 billion.