CTS Eventim revenues hit €1.75bn for year-to-date

Tours by superstars including Taylor Swift, Paul McCartney and Coldplay helped drive CTS Eventim to strong growth in the first nine months of 2023.

The Munich-headquartered pan-European giant’s latest financial results showed revenues of €729.3 million for Q3 2023 – up 5% year-on-year – and €1.75 billion for the year to date, which marks 23% increase on the same period last year.

The group’s normalised EBITDA advanced to €172.5m for the quarter (up 29%) and €343.3m for January to September 2023 (up 34%), with “prudent cost management and significant agility” also contributing to the “excellent results”.

“CTS Eventim offers extremely attractive content in almost all live entertainment segments and has unparalleled reach among fans of music, sport, edutainment and other live formats in Europe and beyond,” says CTS CEO Klaus-Peter Schulenberg. ‘Thanks to the global integration of our technologies and marketing platforms, we’re ideally positioned to monetise both our content and reach while offering fans a unique live experience that starts with their ticket purchase.”

Ticketing revenue for the nine-month period leapt 36% year-on-year to €459.3m, with the number of online tickets sold rising by 11.6 million compared with the previous year. The figures do not yet include the revenue of France Billet, which is due to be fully consolidated at the start of 2024. CTS increased its stake in the French market leader earlier this year.

“France Billet is a strong player and once it has been fully consolidated, we expect that it will provide another boost to our business”

“As part of our strategy of international expansion, we have already integrated the French market leader, France Billet, into our operations,” adds Schulenberg. “France Billet is a strong player and once it has been fully consolidated, we expect that it will provide another boost to our business. And once again, Christmas trade will also have a positive impact on our net profit for the year.”

Revenue for the live entertainment segment also jumped, increasing by 19% to €1.315bn in the first three quarters of 2023. CTS considers that result a “particular success” as the figures for the equivalent period of 2022 were boosted by government subsidies “running into the mid-double-digit millions”.

The executive board still expects the group’s overall revenue for 2023 to be “significantly higher” than €2bn, with normalised EBITDA at well above €400m.

“CTS Eventim has an excellent line-up of concerts and events for the fourth quarter, which will again generate a healthy level of revenue, especially in the context of Christmas trade,” concludes the firm.

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