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CTS on course for bumper 2018 as revenues up 24%

German live entertainment giant CTS Eventim is confident of a record-breaking 2018, after growing turnover by nearly 24% in the first nine months of 2018.

Both ticketing and live entertainment revenues contributed to the Bremen company’s healthy balance sheet, though the latter did the bulk of the heavy lifting, growing 34.9% to €656.6 million.

Total group revenues were €922.5 – up 23.9% from €744.8m in Qs 1–3 2017 – while normalised EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) increased 17.1%, to €114m.

Ticketing revenues increased by 4% organically, reaching €276.5m. This, says the company, was largely attributable to a significant increase in online ticketing volume, with no fewer than 33.7m tickets (+8.7%) sold via the company’s web portals. Normalised EBITDA exceeded the €100m mark for the first time – despite expenses incurred by implementing the new EU General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR).

In live entertainment, meanwhile, normalised EBITDA climbed by a huge 78.8%, to €37.9m, up from €21.2m in the first nine months of 2017.

“The fact that we have ramped up our dynamic growth in recent months shows that we can be confident about the fourth quarter”

Key drivers of that growth included the Holiday on Ice tour; the second edition of the New Horizons dance music festival, a co-pro with Alda Events, which grew attendance by 30%; and a successful summer season for Lanxess Arena in Cologne, as well as “a greater number of tours with particularly large audiences and high sales revenue” among its promoter partners.

As with US rival Live Nation, Eventim expects 2018 to be a record year, according to CEO Klaus-Peter Schulenberg.

“CTS Eventim is on course for another record year. We improved our online ticketing volume by almost 9%, even though in many countries – also due to the football [World Cup] – fewer highly profitable tours commanding higher price levels went on sale than the year before. The fact that we have ramped up our dynamic growth in recent months shows that we can be confident about the fourth quarter.

“We are looking forward to our Christmas business, which has been, and will be, featuring a lot of presales for many attractive events.”

The full nine-month report will be available from the Eventim website as of 20 November.

 


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