Christopher BarrettLive Nation Entertainment (LNE) said that festivals selling out in record time, an average ticket price rise of 10%, and huge sales for 2022 events have helped boost the world’s largest promoter’s second-quarter earnings.
The promoter, venue operator and ticketing giant reported a 677% rise in year-on-year Q2 revenue to $575.9 million (£413.5m), up from $74.1m (£53.2m) last year, but considerably less than the $3.15 billion (£2.26bn) the company reported for Q2 2019.
Some $287m (£206m) of its Q2 2021 revenue derived from LNE’s concert’s business, while ticketing and sponsorships contributed $272.3m (£195.5m) and $67.2m (£48.2m) respectively.
LNE said event-related deferred revenue was $2.1bn (£1.5bn) as of 30 June this year, compared to $0.9bn (£0.6bn) at the same point last year. It reported long-term deferred revenue of $381m (£273m) for events that have been rescheduled by more than one year, as of 30 June 2021.
Meanwhile, LNE CEO Michael Rapino said Ticketmaster had enjoyed one of its best months in its history, with 14m tickets sold in North America for 2022, and 11m fee-bearing tickets added so far this year from new clients.
He suggested the results were early indicators of a strong recovery: “As we put more shows on-sale this year and next, ticket sales are the best early indicator for concerts and our overall business. To that end, June was Ticketmaster North America’s fourth best month in history for transacted ticket volume driven in part by our US concerts division putting the highest number of shows on sale ever during a single month – 50% more than the next highest month back in March 2019.”
Rapino said the recovery of its events business was being led by outdoor shows and festivals: “We expect to have over six million fans attend our festivals during the second half of the year, with about two-thirds of our festivals increasing their attendance compared to 2019. Most of our festivals sold out in record time while average ticket process have been 10% higher than 2019. While still early, we have delivered a strong double-digit increase in average per-fan revenue and in on-site spending versus 2019 at our amphitheater shows over the past few weeks.”