Music

Welcome inside Ticketmaster HQ

Today, the Ticketmaster International office has featured in a news piece by BBC News Magazine about ‘cool’ offices and it’s currently the second most read piece on the site so hopefully the whole world will now know what a great place it is to work, and not only because we have a slide.

In Spring 2013, the doors opened to Ticketmaster’s new International Head Office in London, in the heart of Tech City. After a year of careful planning and with input from everyone across the business, the company wanted to move to a space that met the needs of our 450+ employees better.

Designed specifically for boosting creativity and encouraging socialising, the office includes many communal areas that allow our folk to work, rest and play. We have a large open plan eating, dining and chatting space called the Hub. There are distinct dining areas, less formal picnic-style seated areas and a lounge, complete with a popular pool and foosball table for when employees need a little bit of time out. There are shelves full of books, magazines and board games (Connect 4 a firm favourite), as well as a large projector where staff are able to take advantage of broadcasted live summer sports and festive movies (tomorrow we’ll be screening Elf during lunch).

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The Imperial, is a multi-functional space which can be used by employees to relax and socialise after office hours, with a bar, jukebox and classic pinball machines. It can also be used for client gatherings and technology events like hackathons. This is where our now infamous slide is, and you can use it to travel from the ground floor into this area.

Slides are now considered pieces of art and became main stream news when Belgian artist Carsten Hӧller exhibited great big slides at the Tate a couple of years ago. The artist was inspired by the theories of sliding best summed up by the French writer Roger Caillois as a ‘voluptuous panic upon an otherwise lucid mind’. What interests Höller too is the visual spectacle of watching people sliding and the ‘inner spectacle’ experienced by the sliders themselves, the state of simultaneous delight and anxiety that you enter as you descend. And if you don’t fancy coming down the slide, it acts as a pretty impressive sculpture in its own right.

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And finally, there are spaces that allow our people to look after their fitness and wellbeing and these include a Fitness Studio where we have a dedicated programme of exercise classes, from yoga and circuit training to boxercise. And there’s also The Sanctuary where those who aren’t feeling well or who need a space for personal contemplation can chill out. Recently we’ve been able to have 20 minute massages which is a welcome break during all this festive season madness.

We’re a fun, dynamic and passionate company and it’s great to work within an office space that reflects this – somewhere that we really do think is pretty cool.