Concerts “flywheel” pushes LN revenue to $3.2bn

Live Nation’s president and CEO, Michael Rapino, yesterday hailed the company’s “concerts flywheel” as it celebrated another record-breaking quarter.

Speaking at Live Nation’s third-quarter (Q3) earnings call, Rapino told investors: “Our concerts business is our flywheel” – the persistent, margin-generating heart of the business – “attracting 28 million fans to shows globally in the quarter, which drove record results in our ticketing, advertising and on-site businesses. Our performance demonstrates how Live Nation has created the most unparallelled live platform, leveraging concert scale to drive growth across the full live ecosystem.”

He continued: “Looking at the concerts flywheel in the third quarter, we had 16% more fans attend over 6,000 shows, growing revenue by 27% and AOI [adjusted operating income] by 38% year-on-year at a constant currency. Year to date, we have grown our fan base by 16% to 56 million [and] expect to [see] a record-setting 70 million fans attending Live Nation concerts in 2016.”

Operating income from the concerts sector – or earnings before interest and taxes – grew 94% to £86.5 million.

“Our performance demonstrates how Live Nation has created the most unparallelled live platform, leveraging concert scale to drive growth across the full live ecosystem”

As a whole, Live Nation’s turnover grew to a record US$3.2 billion in Q3 2016 – up 21% year on year – outstripping quarters one (10% growth) and two (14%).

In addition to the concerts sector, the company also saw strong growth in ticketing (Ticketmaster) and sponsorship/advertising, which were up 14% and 11%, respectively. Within Ticketmaster, the gross transaction value (GTV) of its secondary-market platforms – such as Ticketmaster Resale, TicketsNow, Seatwave and Get Me In! – grew 33%, to more than $1bn for the three months ending 30 September.

“We now have good visibility into our full-year 2016 performance, and are confident we will deliver another year of record revenue, AOI and free cash flow,” concluded Rapino. “We continue to rapidly grow our concert fan base, which is demonstrating the effectiveness of our flywheel, driving anticipated double-digit growth in sponsorship AOI and ticketing GTV.

“As we look forward, we see tremendous opportunities to continue global consolidation of our concerts and ticketing businesses, with further growth in advertising and ticketing from the concerts flywheel.”

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