Refinery29 is expanding its live events business as it tries to grow in a tough ad climate
- Refinery29 is expanding its 29Rooms events overseas in 2019.
- The pop-up events have grown to four from two in the US and are key to the company's diversification strategy.
- The venture-backed company has had layoffs in the past two years but hopes to get to profitability in 2020.
Refinery29 is betting big on its pop-up event series, 29Rooms, as it tries to diversify its revenue and grow in a tough digital advertising environment.
The women's lifestyle publisher plans to announce this week that it will expand 29Rooms internationally this year through a partnership, Philippe von Borries, co-founder and co-CEO of the company, told Business Insider.
29Rooms is a made-for-Instagram event. The pop-up comprises 29 rooms designed by brands, artists, celebrities, and other creative types. It started in 2015 to mark the company's 10th anniversary year and has grown into a series of four events in 2018, in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago.
"Our 29Rooms franchise is one of the most significant successes in the past 18 months," von Borries said. "We'll expand that this year."
The company also sees growth coming from its international operations, where it more than doubled revenue last year and expects to more than double it again in 2019, through advertising and marketing services.
The venture-backed company has raised $125 million from investors including Turner Broadcasting, Scripps Networks, and WPP Ventures. Like other venture-backed media companies, it's had to adjust its growth expectations. Refinery29 laid off staff in 2017 and 2018, when it moved away from short videos to longer, higher-quality video that it hopes to sell to TV and streaming video companies.
The events space is getting more crowded as publishers look to live experiences to make money outside of digital advertising. The 29Rooms events aren't cheap; they went for $40 apiece in 2018. Still, the company sold 90,000 tickets to the events in 2018. The series also makes money from sponsorships.
Whereas other digital media companies have started dabbling in paywalls and membership programs, events are Refinery29's form of direct-to-consumer revenue and key to its goal of reducing its reliance on advertising.
Today, 70% of company revenue comes from advertising, 30% from other sources, including tickets to 29Rooms. Von Borries said the plan is to increase the non-advertising portion of the revenue and to get to profitability in 2020.