Kustom Details Post-Merger TFL Roadmap Spanning Primary Tickets, Resale and Live Event Production

Kustom Entertainment is offering a clearer picture of what it plans to build if its pending $112 million acquisition of TFL closes, laying out a strategy that would bring primary ticketing, resale, wholesale distribution and live-event production under a more tightly integrated operation.

The roadmap, released Thursday, comes two days after the TicketSmarter owner announced an agreement to acquire TFL, the ticketing technology and distribution company behind Tickets For Less. Kustom said the combination is designed not only to expand its existing ticketing business but also to capture more of the revenue generated across events it produces itself.

Kustom CEO Stanton E. Ross said when the acquisition was announced that the deal would be “a transformational milestone for Kustom Entertainment as we build a fully integrated, end-to-end live entertainment ecosystem.”

Thursday’s roadmap provides considerably more detail about what that integration could look like, including plans to move Kustom-produced events onto TFL technology, capture revenue across both primary and secondary ticket sales and expand into hospitality and additional venue relationships.

Among the company’s plans are moving more of Kustom’s festivals and concerts onto TFL ticketing infrastructure, retaining a greater share of primary ticketing revenue, participating in secondary-market revenue generated around those events and using first-party ticket buyer data for marketing and cross-promotion.

Kustom also sees opportunities to expand TFL’s ticketing and hospitality technology into additional venues, resorts and casino properties, while using TFL’s existing relationships with teams, arenas and other rights holders to support Kustom’s live-event production business.

TicketSmarter Integration Targets Higher Margins

TFL and Kustom are already closely connected.

TFL’s proprietary website software serves as core backend infrastructure for TicketSmarter, Kustom’s existing secondary ticket marketplace. Kustom said bringing the technology provider inside the company would eliminate duplicated technology costs and is expected to improve gross margins.

The company also plans to combine TFL’s multi-feed inventory capabilities with TicketSmarter’s existing partner network in an effort to improve yield management and increase the margin retained across ticket transactions.

Kustom said the proposed combination would allow it to consolidate its technology stack, reduce third-party costs and expand the economics captured by its festival and ticketing businesses.

That offers additional context for a transaction that initially stood out partly because Kustom is buying a technology and distribution operation already powering its largest ticketing brand.

TFL’s business is also substantially broader than its consumer-facing Tickets For Less marketplace. Kustom described five primary sources of revenue at the company: direct-to-consumer ticket sales, official rights-holder partnerships, enterprise ticketing and software, B2B wholesale inventory distribution and corporate hospitality and VIP packages.

TFL’s TFLConnect platform allows participating rights holders to manage pricing and distribute inventory across primary and secondary channels, while its enterprise business provides private-label ticketing products for corporate loyalty, employee benefit and customer rewards programs.

The company reported more than $238 million in revenue during 2025, though detailed TFL financial statements have not yet been made public.

Kustom Wants More of Its Own Ticketing Economics

Perhaps the clearest new detail in Thursday’s roadmap concerns Kustom’s own concerts and festivals.

Kustom said it intends to replace outside ticketing dependencies across its live-music portfolio with TFL infrastructure. In addition to retaining more primary ticketing revenue, the company specifically identified an opportunity to capture revenue from subsequent resale activity surrounding its events.

TFL’s dynamic-pricing tools would also be deployed to manage ticket tiers and early-bird sales for Kustom-produced concerts and festivals, according to the company.

The integration would give Kustom direct access to more first-party information about attendees, including event and ticketing preferences. Kustom said that data could then support targeted marketing, regional event promotion and cross-selling between events.

The relationship is intended to work in the opposite direction as well. Kustom said events it produces could supply TFL platforms with exclusive primary inventory and more consistent access to secondary ticket supply.

Taken together, the roadmap describes a model in which Kustom could participate at several points in the same event’s lifecycle: producing the event, handling its primary ticketing, using pricing technology during the initial sale and retaining a share of subsequent resale economics.

Venue, Hospitality and Casino Expansion

Kustom also expects the acquisition to create opportunities beyond traditional ticket sales.

TFL’s relationships with venues, arenas, college athletics programs and professional sports organizations could potentially give Kustom access to additional locations for festivals, outdoor concerts and touring productions.

Meanwhile, Kustom plans to incorporate TFL’s white-label e-commerce technology, corporate hospitality products and VIP ticketing services into its existing relationship with Gilley’s Gambling Hall in Kansas.

Kustom announced a partnership earlier this year to produce live events at Gilley’s Park City, including its Country Stampede festival and a larger schedule of planned performances beginning in 2027.

Thursday’s release went further by identifying potential opportunities across other casino, hotel and commercial properties associated with gaming executive Phil Ruffin. Kustom said the relationship could provide pathways to explore ticketing, corporate access and live-entertainment distribution across those properties.

The company described TFL as positioned to potentially become an exclusive ticketing and VIP hospitality portal for events and guest programs across that portfolio. Kustom did not announce a new portfolio-wide exclusive ticketing agreement Thursday, however, and much of the casino and resort expansion described in the roadmap remains prospective.

$112 Million Deal Still Requires Financing

The broader plans remain contingent on Kustom completing the TFL acquisition.

Under the agreement announced September 1, Kustom would pay $89.6 million in cash and $22.4 million in stock for TFL and separately repay $35 million of TFL debt at closing.

As TicketNews previously reported, Kustom disclosed in SEC filings that it does not currently have sufficient immediately available funds to complete the transaction and intends to raise additional capital, including through a public offering. Obtaining sufficient financing is among the deal’s closing conditions.

Either party can terminate the agreement if the acquisition has not closed by October 15, although the deadline automatically extends by 15 days if Kustom files an S-1 registration statement for the contemplated financing before then.

Thursday’s roadmap did not provide new information about the size or timing of that capital raise.

Instead, Kustom used the update to make its post-acquisition ambitions substantially clearer: combining TFL’s distribution and ticketing infrastructure with TicketSmarter and Kustom’s event-production assets in an effort to capture more revenue across the primary sale, resale and production of live events.