Calgary’s Showpass has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Bounce, a campus life platform built to help students discover events, connect with clubs, and build stronger campus communities.
If completed, the acquisition would significantly expand Showpass’s reach in the university market, bringing its event technology to more than 70 per cent of Canada’s top-ranked university campuses.
For Showpass, the deal represents a push deeper into an event category the company says has long been underserved: campus life. While universities host a wide range of events across athletics, arts, theatre, administration, clubs, and student unions, those groups often operate with different tools, budgets, approval processes, and reporting needs.
Showpass says combining its event operating system with Bounce’s campus engagement platform would give universities a more connected way to promote events, sell tickets, manage entry, understand attendance, and support the student experiences that help build school spirit and belonging.
“This is a huge step forward for campus life,” said Lucas McCarthy, Founder and CEO of Showpass.
McCarthy said university events are rarely managed by one centralized team, with athletics, theatre, arts, student unions, clubs, and campus programming often working across separate systems. With Bounce, he said Showpass can help bring those worlds together into a more connected student experience.
Founded by students at Queen’s University in 2020, Bounce has grown into a campus engagement platform used by nearly one in two Canadian university students. The company works with student unions, campus organizers, and local venues to give students a single place to discover what is happening around them.
Bounce founder Sean Monteiro said the company was created to address the challenge many students face when arriving on campus without an established community. He said partnering with Showpass would help Bounce further its mission of “helping students find their people.”
Showpass describes itself as an operating system for independent live events, connecting ticketing, marketing, operations, analytics, and financing in one platform. The company says more than 175 million tickets have been issued through Showpass across music, sports, festivals, venues, cultural events, and other live experiences across North America.
The proposed acquisition would mark another growth move for one of Calgary’s most prominent event technology companies, as Showpass looks to bring more sophisticated infrastructure to the university ecosystem and extend its platform into the daily rhythms of campus life.
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