Schulenberg hails ‘extremely positive’ CTS results

CTS Eventim CEO Klaus-Peter Schulenberg has spoken out in the wake of the company’s record 2022 financial results.

As reported last month, consolidated sales soared by 372% year-on-year to €1.926 billion, compared to €408 million generated in the Covid-impacted 2021, and 33% up on CTS’ previous record year of 2019.

The Munich-headquartered firm says the near €2bn haul is supported by strong growth in both the ticketing and live entertainment segments.

“We are very pleased with the extremely positive development of our two main segments in the national and international core markets,” says Schulenberg. “The dynamic, ongoing trend of people everywhere wanting to go to live events again is reflected in our consolidated earnings.

“The fact that we were able to significantly increase our sales in 2022 was initially not a matter of course due to the pandemic and is accompanied by a number of successful developments. This includes expanding digital ticket sales, investing in systemic innovations and our global expansion strategy. We assume that we will consistently continue on our strong course of profitable growth and further expand our market position.”

The main drivers for growth in the ticketing segment – where revenue reached €541m – were the German, Swiss, Italian and Brazilian markets. Normalised EBITDA was €263m, which represented a 20% increase on 2019. In 2022, 69 million internet tickets were sold via CTS Group’s web shops – growth of 116% on the previous year and 21% on 2019.

“We will open up new business areas and continuously develop our range and our technologies”

CTS has also praised the introduction of Eventim.Pass digital tickets, which resulted in more than two million tickets sold when it was first used for Ed Sheeran’s tour and has gone on to be utilised successfully by acts such as Pink, the Rolling Stones, Rammstein and Roland Kaiser.

The pan-European ticketing giant, promoter and venue operator’s revenues in live entertainment, meanwhile, climbed to €1.409m, up 43% on 2019.

Earlier this week, CTS announced it was expanding its North American interests through a joint venture with US promoters Mammoth Inc and AG Entertainment Touring.

“As an integrated live entertainment group, we continue to consistently use opportunities to grow nationally and internationally with and in the markets,” adds Schulenberg. “We will open up new business areas and continuously develop our range and our technologies.”

Despite the figures, CTS’ share price, which opened at €58.10, had dropped by more than 4% at press time.

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