Surging Ticket Prices Continue to Fuel Record Live Nation Earnings

Live Nation Entertainment reported its earnings and financial outlook for the fourth quarter and full year of 2022, and it’s safe to say that things are booming for the California entertainment giant. With ticket surge pricing systems like “dynamic” pricing during periods of high demand and “platinum” pricing charging customers far above any semblance of a face value for tickets, the company saw revenue soar to $16.7 billion over the year, a 44 percent increase over 2019.

“In 2022, we saw fans around the world continue to prioritize their spending on attending live events, particularly concerts,” reads the summary of the report on Live Nation’s website, signed by Chairman Michael Rapino. “Our research consistently tells us that concerts are a top priority for discretionary spending, and one of the last experiences fans will cut back on – and we are seeing this play out in both our results for 2022 and early indicators for 2023.”

Earnings are high all across the board for the company, with sponsorship alone reaching $1 billion in revenue over the year. Surging ticket prices, however, are also continuing to be a major driver for the company’s fat bottom line. It reports that the volume of tickets sold is up by 28 percent compared to 2019 – but gross ticket value is up by nearly double that – 50 percent, totalling $28 billion across 38 countries. That translated to ticketing revenue of $2.2 billion, up 45% compared with 2019.

Things don’t look likely to change much for 2023, according to the company. It claims its four key indicators point to another record year.

First, our deferred revenue at the end of 2022 was $2.7 billion, up 125% from 2019 and up 18% from 2021 which benefited from a high volume of rescheduled shows. Next, as of mid-February, ticket sales for our shows this year exceed 50 million fans, up 20% from this point last year, with international growth at 25%. Then, our global ticketing fee-bearing gross transaction value is up 33% to $9.8 billion through the same period. Finally, over 70% of our planned sponsorship activity for the year is confirmed, again up double-digits relative to this time last year.

The earnings report did also address in a very minor fashion the massive amount of regulatory scrutiny the company has faced throughout much of the last year and into 2023. It says that the ticketing industry is more competitive than ever (despite regular allegations that it operates as a monopoly) and that it remains in constant contact with the Department of Justice since its being forced to extend its consent decree after an investigation found multiple violations just before the pandemic.

It also touched on the company’s hopes of pinning the blame for all of the consumer anger in ticketing on ticket resale, mentioning its pitch for comprehensive legislation that would effectively make Ticketmaster and Live Nation in charge of regulating the secondary ticketing marketplace itself, while removing any consumer rights to tickets they’ve purchased. More on that here.

The full earnings report is available here: https://www.livenationentertainment.com/2023/02/live-nation-entertainment-reports-fourth-quarter-full-year-2022-results/