CTS boosts revenue, earnings for another record year
German live entertainment powerhouse CTS Eventim reported record revenue and earnings for the 2019 financial year.
Group revenue rose by 16.2% in 2019 to a total of €1.44 billion. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) also grew substantially, increasing 25.6% from €228.1 million in 2018 to €286.5m in 2019.
Ticketing and live entertainment both contributed to the growth, with live entertainment revenue increasing 21.3% to 985.8m – over €170m more than in 2018 – and ticketing growing 7.7% from the year before to €481.6m.
Earnings in both sectors saw strong growth, with EBITDA more than doubling in live entertainment, increasing from €32.3m in 2018 to €66.1m last year. In ticketing, EBITDA increased 12.6% to €220.4m.
The company puts its growth down to major tours by the likes of Ed Sheeran and to the activities of those in its fast-expanding Eventim Live promoter network, which has grown from an initial 26 promoters across 9 countries to 34 tour operators in 15 markets.
Most recently, Eventim partnered with global touring pioneer Michael Cohl, signalling its intention to expand outside of Europe.
“We continued to grow significantly over 2019, while at the same time enhancing our market position at both national and international level”
Improvements to the company’s ecommerce operations facilitated a 5.6% increase in the number of tickets sold by webshops operated by the CTS Group, with 57.3m tickets sold over the year.
“In 2019 we delivered impressive proof of the successfulness and profitability of our integrated business model comprising ticketing services, live entertainment and content,” comments CTS Eventim CEO Klaus-Peter Schulenberg.
“We continued to grow significantly over 2019, while at the same time enhancing our market position at both national and international level. The venues we operate also showed encouraging growth and are among the best in the world.”
Eventim’s venue portfolio includes the 18,000-capacity Lanxess Arena in Cologne, the 22,000-capacity Waldbühne in Berlin and the 5,000-capacity Eventim Apollo in London.
“CTS Eventim has long been an integrated entertainment corporation that offers its customers a full and highly diversified range of live events,” adds Schulenberg. “The company is constantly developing and changing, adapting itself to the needs and requirements of new markets and a new age.”
The full CTS Eventim annual report will be published on 17 March 2020 and will be available for download here.
Photo: GEDANKENtanken GmbH/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0) (cropped)
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World-beating Waldbühne breaks attendance record
Performers at CTS Eventim’s Waldbühne amphitheatre played to more than 350,000 people during the 2017 concert season, recording the open-air Berlin venue’s highest yearly attendance to date.
A total of 22 events, eight of them sold-out, also pushed the Waldbühne (‘Woodland Stage’) to the top of Pollstar’s 200 leading amphitheatres by ticket sales in Q3 2017, up from fifth place in Q3 2016.
Summer 2017 highlights included sold-out shows by Robbie Williams, Pink and Udo Lindenberg, along with performances by Aerosmith, Kings of Leon and Andreas Gabalier and classical concerts by Ludovico Einaudi, Anna Netrebko and Yusif Eyvazov (newly exclusive to DEAG) and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. The successful Peace x Peace charity festival, meanwhile, raised nearly €414,000 for children living in war zones.
“It’s great how the Waldbühne Berlin has developed over the past nine years”
The season closed with Rumpelstil’s now-traditional Taschenlampenkonzert (‘torch concert’), which for the 19th time saw attendees “dance, sing and celebrate in an ocean of light”, says CTS, which has operated the 22,000-cap. venue (pictured), built for the infamous 1936 Olympic Games, since 2009.
“It’s great how the Waldbühne Berlin has developed over the past [nine] years,” says CTS Eventim executive vice-president Rainer Appel. “By now it is not just the leading European open-air location, but also a frontrunner worldwide. Once again, we’d like to thank the artists, promoters and visitors who together with us made 2017 another record year for the Waldbühne.”
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