ROSTR Names Opendate its Exclusive Primary Ticketing 360 Partner

ROSTR has partnered with Opendate, the all-in-one platform powering hundreds of independent venues and promoters across the country — including Union Stage Presents, Lincoln Hall & Schubas, Ram's Head Presents, The Crocodile, and The UC Theatre — naming it its exclusive primary ticketing partner for the next 12 months. The announcement comes as ROSTR looks to open early access to its new venue-discovery product, ROSTR Venues, which will launch in full in the fall.

Why it matters:

• The partnership brings together complementary capabilities to support the independent venue sector: Opendate on the ticketing, booking, and marketing side, ROSTR on discovery, contacts, and intelligence.

The partnership:

• The 360 partnership spans content, product, data, and events.

• Opendate becomes the exclusive "Presented By" partner across ROSTR's two new venue discovery series: Trending Venues and Rooms You Oughta Know.

• Trending Venues spotlights the rooms breaking out with the ROSTR community and drops every Thursday.

• Rooms You Oughta Know celebrates the lesser-known independent venues doing exceptional work and drops the first Wednesday of every month.

• The series will run across email, social, the ROSTR newsfeed, and New Industry Focus.

• As the exclusive Primary Ticketing partner, Opendate is the only ticketing platform connected directly to the intelligence ROSTR provides on venues.

Exclusive category partners:

• Opendate is ROSTR's latest category-exclusive partner, following collaborations with Please & Thank You in VIP experiences, Hive in CRM, and Tixel in fan-to-fan resale.

• Opendate rounds out ROSTR's 360 partners for the 2026–2027 partnership season. ROSTR will reopen for additional category partners next year.

What they said:

• Eric Tobias, CEO, Opendate: "Independent venues have a reputation for booking on gut and relationships — and they're great at it. What they've never had is the industry's intelligence sitting right next to their calendar. This partnership puts ROSTR's view of who's touring and what's breaking directly into the booking workflow, so venues on Opendate can act on it first. That's not data for data's sake — it's a real competitive edge for the rooms that have been underestimated for too long."

• Mark Williamson, Co-Founder & CEO, ROSTR: "ROSTR has always been about using technology to make it easier for people in music to do their jobs. Having got to know the Opendate crew I know they share that mission. This integration helps us go a step further by putting the intel that venues and bookers need right inside Opendate, and closer to the action."

• Matthew Smith, Talent Buyer, The UC Theatre: "Our job is to believe in an artist before the rest of the room does. Watching who's starting to move on ROSTR and then being able to turn that into a booked, ticketed show in Opendate — that's the difference between catching a band on the way up and reading about the show we missed. For a nonprofit that lives on great programming, that's not a nice-to-have."

• Jon Weiss, Head Talent Buyer, Union Stage Presents: "Booking over a thousand shows a year with three talent buyers means every minute counts. Having ROSTR integrated with Opendate means faster access to the data we need and the market picture we've grown to depend on right in our dashboard."