Joe GallopLive Nation‘s (LN) Q2 2022 results have revealed its highest quarterly attendance ever with more than 12,500 events promoted for 33.5m fans, each up over 20% relative to the second quarter of 2019.
LN president and CEO Michael Rapino (pictured) said the promoter saw a 40% increase in revenue over the same period in 2019 to $4.4bn (£3.6bn), an 86% increase in operating income to $319m (£262m) and a 50% increase in adjusted operating income to $480m (£395m).
Of the more than 6m additional fans attending LN events this quarter, 5m of the growth came from international markets. It said this was driven by the addition of Mexican concert promoter OCESA and the re-opening of most global markets with particularly strong fan demand through Europe and Latin America.
LN has an active pipeline of almost 30 new venues globally, with the number of fans who attended shows in its owned or operated venues during the quarter up 13% to more than 14m fans. It expects that figure to reach over 50m fans for the full year.
LN said its ticketing business Ticketmaster also demonstrated strong growth in the quarter. Transacted fee-bearing ticket volume was up 48% to 77m tickets and transacted gross transaction value (GTV) was up 76% to $7.3bn (£6bn), both relative to Q2 2019.
This was LN’s highest fee-bearing GTV quarter ever. April, May and June account for three of its five top all-time months for fee-bearing GTV months, with 75% of this growth coming from concerts.
LN said festival sponsorship has performed well during the first half of the year, more than doubling from 2019, led by nine new festivals in its Mexico and Latin American businesses that accounted for roughly half this increase, along with growth in sponsorship levels across most of its North America festivals.
As LN looks forward to the second half of 2022 and into 2023, it has sold more than 100m tickets for its concerts this year, more than it sold for the entire year in 2019.