London, 16 July 2008: Live Nation, the future of the music business, has chosen Telstra International to host its entire IT infrastructure including website, back office functions and connectivity to music venues across the UK, Europe and Asia.

The agreement enables Live Nation to deliver a high quality of service to customers by providing the capacity to support huge peaks in traffic when events are taking place and tickets go on sale.

Live Nation is rapidly becoming the world’s largest online concert search engine, with its websites receiving over 400 million hits per year. It runs over 40 music venues in the UK including Wembley Arena and the Carling Academies. In addition, it is responsible for numerous festivals including Download and the O2 Wireless Festival in the UK, and Rock Werchter and Lowlands in Europe.

Rob Mason, Senior Vice President of IT at Live Nation, states: “Our websites can be put under immense pressure when tickets go on sale – for instance this year there were 180,000 unique visitors in two hours when the Reading and Leeds tickets went on sale. As a global company the site must be available 24/7, and allow customers to buy tickets, and find information on artists and concerts. It is vital the underlying IT infrastructure is robust and reliable.”

Live Nation has taken a bespoke suite at Telstra’s London data and hosting centre, which hosts the entire IT infrastructure for Europe and Asia including all back-office applications such as email, file sharing and the customer relationship management software. By working with Telstra, Live Nation can take advantage of global connectivity to ensure the availability of all IT functions, and also be confident its infrastructure is housed in a secure and reliable environment.

Mason comments: “We are also using a wide area network (WAN) to connect 40 of our music venues, the largest such as Wembley using Telstra’s Multi-Protocol Label Switched (MPLS) connection to prioritise traffic, to guarantee the availability of the network for important events. We have been delighted with the level of service Telstra has provided, and are considering extending this MPLS network to further venues.”

Simon Vye, CEO of Telstra International, EMEA commented: “For global companies such as Live Nation, it is vital to have a secure and reliable infrastructure in place to support online business. Telstra is ideally placed to deliver this by offering data and hosting centre facilities and unrivalled global connectivity. We are delighted Live Nation has chosen us to support their ongoing growth internationally.”
 
About Live Nation International

Live Nation is the future of the music business. With the most live concerts, music venues and festivals in the world and the most comprehensive concert search engine on the web, Live Nation is revolutionizing the music industry: onstage and online. Headquartered in Los Angeles, California, Live Nation is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, trading under the symbol "LYV."

About Telstra International

Telstra International is a leading global supplier of managed network services and a division of the leading Australian-based, tier 1 telecommunications and media services company, Telstra Corporation Limited.

Telstra provides global solutions to over half of the world's top 500 companies. Telstra owns one the most technologically advanced IP backbone global networks in the world, offering an extensive portfolio of state-of-the-art solutions. 

Telstra’s portfolio is complemented by its independently-owned and managed switched UK network. The network incorporates strategic Points of Presence (PoPs) across the UK, including two data centres located in London Docklands and Cambridge, and interlinks seamlessly with Telstra’s highly-advanced global network.

Visit www.telstra-international.co.uk for further information.

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