Ticketmaster Lays Off 350 Employees, Primarily in Tech and Design Roles

Pollstar has learned that Ticketmaster earlier today cut 8% of its global staff — some 350 employees across 25 countries — primarily in its engineering, product and design divisions, along with reducing contractors. The ticketing company’s executive leadership team has not changed.

“The purpose of [these cuts] is stronger prioritization, especially in engineering product and design,” Saumil Mehta, Ticketmaster Global President, told Pollstar. “That comes with flattening layers, consolidating ownership, changing how teams are structured and ensuring that we put more energy behind specific initiatives. We’re going to keep investing in specific areas so that we can actually achieve the vision we laid out.”

Mehta, who came to Ticketmaster last October, presented his vision for Ticketmaster’s future on April 15 during a keynote address at the Pollstar Live! conference titled “From Big Tech To Box Office – AI’s Next Chapter In Live.” During the session he explained the importance of the ticketing platform “meeting fans where they are” and optimizing the ticket-buying experience through new technologies, including AI, which he called a “new utility” similar to electricity. one that changes how consumers buy, how organizations function, the way societies operate and what they value. The presentation included a deck showing a a more streamlined and customized ticket-purchasing experience with tools allowing consumers to more easily view ticket inventory, pricing and seat locations while improving mobile integration, search and discovery.

“What I learned over the last 10 years,” Mehta said during his Pollstar Live! presentation, “which I’m trying to apply to Ticketmaster, is how to engage with commerce at scale, how to move billions, tens of billions, hundreds of billions all over the world between buyers and sellers, how to fight bad actors, fraud … and, most importantly, how to take a technology-first approach to problem solving, especially in the age of AI.”

Mehta was formerly Chief Product Officer and Head of Business Org at Square, whose holdings include Cash App, Afterpay, TIDAL, Bitkey and Spiral.

The news of the staff cuts comes a day after Live Nation Entertainment, Ticketmaster’s parent company, posted its Q1 earnings , which showed strong year-over-year growth that nearly matched its record-setting Q1 2024. The report showed Ticketmaster revenues increasing 10% to $765 million, while gross ticket value on fee-bearing tickets rose 15% to $17 billion across 138 million fee-bearing tickets, up 9%.

When asked about the timing of the cuts, Mehta said his team is focused on future growth, not yesterday’s earnings. “To me the strong performance reflects the past and this is about what are we doing to set ourselves up for the earnings report 12 months from now, 18 months from now, 24 months from now. Because in my world, the decisions I make today have no real impact, at least not a month from now. The thinking is let’s do this so we are well positioned for two years down the road, one year down the road, or 18 months down the road. This is about, how do we prioritize? How do we invest? How do we simplify ownership? How do we have the right skill mix and how do we set ourselves up for the future?”

_Originally reported by [Pollstar](https://news.pollstar.com/2026/05/06/ticketmaster-cuts-8-of-staff-350-employees-primarily-in-engineering-product-design/)._