Q4 2021 Live Nation Entertainment Inc Earnings Call
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Good day, everyone. My name is Diego and I will be your conference operator on today's call at this time I would like to welcome everyone to live nation Entertainment's fourth quarter and full year 2021 earnings conference call.
Today's conference is being recorded.
Following managements prepared remarks, we will open the call for Q&A instructions will be given at that time.
Before we begin live nation has asked me to remind you that this afternoon's call will contain certain forward looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ including statements related to the company's anticipated financial performance business prospects, new developments and similar matters. Please refer to live nation.
<unk> SEC filings, including the risk factors and cautionary statements included in the company's most recent filings on Form 10-K , 10-Q, and 8-K for a description of risks and uncertainties that could impact the actual results.
Live nation will also refer to some non-GAAP measures on this call in accordance with the SEC regulation G. Live nation has provided definitions of these measures and a full reconciliation to the most comparable GAAP measures in their earnings release or website supplement.
Which also contains other financial or statistical information to be discussed on this call.
The release reconciliation and website supplement can be found under the financial information section on live nation's website at investors that live nation Entertainment Dotcom.
It is now my pleasure to turn the conference over to Michael Rapino, President and Chief Executive Officer of live Nation Entertainment. Please go ahead Sir.
Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us the past few years has only reinforced the power of live music and it has been.
Great to see artists and fans reconnecting that scale around the world.
Over the course of 2021, we saw the strength of blogger events.
<unk> started in the midst of the pandemic by summer fans were returned to shows by the end of the year, we had a record pipeline of concert ticket sales and advertising commitments for 2022.
Restarting our concert business in the second half of the year, we put up for 17000 concerts for 35 million fans in 2021, mainly in the U S U K markets.
The final five months of the year in the U S and U K.
Had over 15 million fans attend our outdoor events festivals stadiums amphitheaters, nearly 25% higher than during the same period in 2019.
Through the ramp up we saw demand drive price increases, particularly with platinum another front of the house ticket pricing.
Fans continue to seek the best tickets and the ongoing rapid growth of the secondary market indicates there's more room to grow.
Fans on site also continued spending more with average per fan revenue up double digits for the year relative to 2019 levels across each amphitheater festival theaters and clubs.
And it shows come back so does the desire for brands to connect to our fans as a result sponsorship and advertising AOI.
It was roughly the same for the second half of 2021 as it was in 2019, which was a record level.
This interest came from the mix of expanded long term relationships with brands, such as Bacardi, Heineken and O two as well as adding new partners, including Coinbase, Hulu and Fitch.
Our ticketing business have the dual benefit of strong ticket sales for events in 2021 will also be in the first of our business to benefit from our 2022 pipeline.
Ticket sales were at record pace across every metric.
Cobra November December being our top three months ever for ticketing GTD excluding refunds.
The fourth quarter and the second half of the year also set records for a quarter that six month period.
At the same time, we continue to reorganize our business globally and improve our operations establish a more nimble cost company.
Looking at 2022 and beyond.
Strength in ticket sales and not surprisingly, we're seeing every leading indicator for 2022 up relative to 2019.
Reinforcing our confidence that we will have a record year in 2022.
Sets us up for growth over the next several years.
Helping accelerate our growth this year with the acquisition of assessor, which gives us immediate scale in Mexico and establishes another path into a broader Latin American market.
Looking at the leading indicators starting with show count through February we were up 30% relative to 2019 across our large vendor shows for stadium arena and festivals.
Ticket sales through mid February we have sold 45 million tickets for shows this year up 45% from 2019.
We already have eight artists selling over 500000 tickets for tours this year, including bad Bunny do a LUPA and belly Irish.
And fans are coming to our shows our most recent data over the past months indicates no show rates are conscious U S or back to 2019 levels.
Any lingering questions on the resilience of the fan demand.
Along with our fan growth, we continue building our portfolio of venues. We operate now with 320 globally as we net added 31 additional venues in 2021, approximately half of which came through the <unk> acquisition building our venue portfolio enables us to more rapidly grow our show count and fan base in 2022 and over the next.
A few years and positions us to drive onsite spending more widely while also providing additional assets to brand partners.
Our sponsorship and advertising pipeline is similarly set for a strong 2022 up double digits through mid February relative to 2019 with 80% of our planned revenue for the year committed.
<unk> taken a strong activity pipeline combining it with our more efficient cost structure I expect 2020 to deliver record financial performance overall for each division.
The two year wait for artists and fans is over.
Never have the tailwind for our business has been so strong and I believe this is just the start will be the strongest multiyear period for the concert industry.
With that I will let Joe take you through more details on our results.
Thanks, Michael and good afternoon, everyone given the unique seasonality, we experienced last year I'll provide an overview of our annual results.
But also give some specifics on the fourth quarter as we believe that is a better indicator of what lies ahead for 2022 and beyond.
Overall, our Oi of $324 million for the year was $1 $3 billion better than 2020 led by an improvement of $800 million in ticketing over $400 million in concert and $150 million in sponsorship.
For the fourth quarter, we delivered a oh I have $160 million led by record quarterly AOI results in ticketing and strong performance in sponsorship.
On the balance sheet, we ended the year with $1 5 billion in free cash and $2 $3 billion in event related deferred revenue. This deferred revenue is almost twice the level of Q4 2019.
That's one of several leading indicators for how strong 2022 o'clock.
Let me give a bit more color on each division and then I will give you more on the 2022 leading indicators.
First in concerts, we had 16 million fans attend 9300 events in the quarter continuing to be led by the U S and the U K, which accounted for almost 90% of these fan.
The strength of fan spending we discussed in Q3 continued through Q4 with consistent increases in ticket pricing and average per fan spending.
Our ticket pricing was up 11% overall for the year relative to 2019, 14% in North America as demand in many major venue types amphitheater stadiums and festivals.
<unk> strong increases as we put more tickets and market based platinum.
N VIP pricing offers.
Similarly average fan spending at our amphitheaters ended up in line with last quarter's commentary at $37 for the year up 25% from 2019.
This was helped by a fewer promotions it was largely driven by higher purchases.
Average fan spending increased across the board from food and beverage pick it add ons VIP and parking.
For our major festivals average spending per fan also rose double digits, largely as a result of higher food and beverage and VIP sale.
Finally, as we also noted last quarter operating costs per fan.
Due to lower operating scale from fewer shows per venue along with labor cost increases.
But overall our contribution margin per fan was up double digits as pricing onsite spending and other revenue more than covered any incremental costs.
Next sponsorship.
We followed concerts returned activity over the course of the year and into the fourth quarter. As a result, 2021 sponsorship and advertising AOI of $242 million was about two thirds of 2019 levels, while Q4 AOI of $115 million was 39% higher.
2019 in Q4.
This strength comes across onsite and online is both parts of the business delivered record Q4.
Again, our large festivals were a standout performer increasing sponsorship revenue per fan by over 10% versus the same festivals in 2019.
Finally, ticketing was clearly the star of the quarter delivering $212 million of AOE, which surpassed our previous best quarter Q3 of this year by over 20% and was 60% higher than Q4, 2019, which was our previous past Q4.
<unk> success was across the board, let me give you a few key statistics for the quarter.
Transact at ticket volume, excluding refunds was 65 million tickets coming in even higher than Q4 2019.
Transacted ticketing ETV, excluding refunds was $6 6 billion.
20% higher than Q4 2019 this.
This was driven by concerts and sporting events, whose GTA V were up 22% and 55% respectively.
Price increases helped drive the GTP levels with average ticket price is up 17% for the fourth quarter relative to Q4, 2019, and concerts and sporting event ticketing pricing each up approximately 20%.
Our growth came from both primary and secondary ticketing with transacted G TV, excluding refunds up 16% and 49% respectively.
And we added $17 million net new fee bearing tickets from new clients to the marketplace in 2021 with most of that inventory coming online this year.
And finally, our ongoing cost management helped drive ticketing into Q4 results operating at substantially lower fixed costs in Q4 2019, as we both structurally reduce cost and also held the line on other costs being added back until we saw ticket sales fully return.
So as we look to 2022.
First the assessor will benefit full year results as Mexico has seen live event starting to return most notably their contribution will flow through our sponsorship and ticketing divisions.
Looking at our leading indicators through mid February 1st.
Firm large venue show bookings were up 30% overall and double digits for each amphitheaters arenas stadiums and festivals.
We have sold 45 million tickets for concerts this year up 45% from this point in 2019.
While it's too early to have much data on ticket pricing early indicators continue to show the elasticity of demand for the best tickets.
Looking at our top 10 concert tours this year versus this point in 2019.
Average pricing is up over 20% as our average platinum allocation has increased substantially.
Now looking at secondary ticketing demand at Ticketmaster five of their top 10 highest demand events ever have taken place in 2022 signaling that secondary markets continue to grow even faster than primary ticketing.
On the sponsorship side commitments are up double digits from this point in 2019 prior to including a SaaS.
And overall, we have more than 80% of our planned sponsorship net revenue for 2022 already committed.
A few other 2022 points.
We continue to maintain a lower cost structure and this takes into account labor cost increases within our perimeter is at the start of 2020.
But obviously, adding new businesses, including assessor will come with additional fixed cost.
And from a seasonality standpoint, we're going to be even more Q2, and Q3 driven this year than usual.
Q1 activity is historically very arena, driven with limited outdoor activity and as we plan the arena tours for this year.
We had most of them starting Q2, instead of Q1 to give the international markets time to fully open.
It appears we plan that correctly.
Continue to be on track with those plans and certainly the leading indicators suggest the full year will be a record fan levels, but with somewhat lower concert activity. This Q1 versus 2019.
In anticipation of the growth opportunities ahead of us. This year, we expect 2022 capital expenditures to be approximately $375 million.
With two thirds of this spent on revenue generating projects.
In addition, we ended 2021 with $2 1 billion of available liquidity between free cash an untapped revolver capacity.
Giving us sufficient flexibility to invest in growth.
We are comfortable with our current leverage and we'll continue to reevaluate our balance sheet on an ongoing basis.
With that let me open the call for questions.
Operator.
Thank you.
And ladies and gentlemen at this time, we will be conducting our question and answer session.
If you would like to ask a question. Please press star one on your telephone keypad, a confirmation tone will indicate that Youre line is in the question queue.
You May press the Star key followed by the number two if you would like to remove your question from the queue for.
For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys.
Our first question comes from David Karnofsky with J P. Morgan. Please state your question.
Alright, thank you.
<unk> commentary.
45% increase in tickets sold.
A 30% increase in large venue supply I'm wondering to understand more what youre seeing on the demand side given your own customer data.
Average concert grower.
By more shows that are buying earlier are you seeing more first time concert goers know any additional color you could provide would be great.
Yes. This is Joe.
Seeing them buy earlier.
Seeing these members benefit from the pent up supply on the pent up demand that exists out in the marketplace. I mean, given that we're just getting going it's probably too early to call whether theyre going to multiple concerts more likely I think we're going to have to play through the year and see more data before we can really make that determination.
Okay, and then you tell the sensor for a few months now, but just interested to hear any update.
The asset in terms of revenue synergies, how maybe their cost structure looks relative to when you first executing the deal in 2019, and then provide an update on how we should think about that.
Mexico market ramp up.
Yes, I think we continue to be very excited by our SASSA would spend a lot of time with their team. We do think the top line opportunities are exactly as we've been laying out first we have the opportunity to bring more of our Turing true Mexico as a natural part of our training activities.
And then second because of their great strength with Latin Max which are Red Hot right now.
More opportunities to build our market share.
In the Latin business and bring those into not just Mexico, but in the U S. So we're excited about that top line opportunity.
They're getting going as we get into Q2, you'll get going first with festivals and then ramp up the touring business, we expect them to have a very good year. This year.
Again, the way, they're structured their economics really flow through.
If you look at them, they're sponsorship and their ticketing divisions.
But we expect them to have a very solid year.
Anything on the cost side of it.
And their commentary and sort of indicated taking out a lot of expenses during the pandemic as well wasn't sure if we should be thinking of that.
Kind of OE structure of that business is different than maybe it existed pre pandemic.
I think it's probably premature to change your cost structure assumptions with them as we further integrate ticketmaster I would expect that and as we get the concert machine more finely tuned I'd expect it but it's there.
The first focus is driving the top line, we get the topline right that business will be great and then we'll follow with costs were.
We're not going to start with cost because you can't pick it can't catch up this year.
And it's Michael stepping in and also we know we know this company very well Alex silver on the CEO as a professional.
You don't get to be the third largest promoter in the world without being kind of an all round good businessman and operator. So he runs an incredible good business, but yes, like myself and our team through Covid. He was able to dig in and decide whats, whereas some rust and some bureaucracy.
And how can we streamline some of the business. So like us I would expect him to hold onto some cost savings and more efficient.
Carlos of the merger.
And we think now together we've already started the process of how do we elevate the ticket business how do we upgrade the software how do we introduce secondary how do we access the hospitality and sponsorship business. So.
Sure there is some cost savings, but we're more excited about as Joe said, we think we can bring another gear to.
<unk> is already well run machine.
Alright. Thanks.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Stephen <unk> with Goldman Sachs. Please state your question.
Great. Thank you I wanted to ask a little bit more about international maybe for Michael could you give us an update on when you expect concerts to resume at scale across your global footprint. I know you laid out a timeline late last year, but I was curious if that changed at all given the latest Covid wave and then if all of that goes according to plan. How do you expect your international business in 2022 will compare to <unk>.
<unk> 2019.
And I will preface here, we have our.
Investor Day Tomorrow, So we're going to dig into all of these topics probably a much more detail. So if.
If we're a little shorter Tonight, just expect US tomorrow, you'll have a much more opportunity to dig into all of these levers.
International It looks like everything is opening up fast and.
And we see a full summer spring business across the globe.
Australia, and New Zealand have only been has been the only real I would say slower some of the Pacific rim a little slower.
Some of the markets China, Japan.
But for our business, we think most of the business across Europe International South America, We start Coldplay March 18th in Costa Rica going down to Latin America, We believe most of our big Lollapalooza as in South America in March and April will happen and all of our summer festivals in Europe .
Our schedule took to happen so looks like 70% to 80% of the business around the world will be open a little bit of Pacific rim might have some delays.
Got it thanks for that and then just one on sponsorship and advertising could you maybe give us an idea on what the remaining inventory in 2022. It looks like is it inventory from earlier in the year later in the year what types of towards our formats and then I know some of your sponsorship and advertising relationships can be multi year in nature.
Is there anything you can tell us about how the funnel shaping up for 2023 and beyond.
Yes in terms of remaining in inventory as you know a lot of our inventory is what we create what our sponsorship team has the ability to come up with ideas for how we expand into new categories, and how we take existing categories and break them down in pieces. So we don't feel generally speaking inventory constrained the team is off.
Working on a variety of areas Fintech and others that we think can steer and still deliver a lot this year and into next year as Michael said, we'll get more into that tomorrow, but we still think there is a great runway in that business and as you also noted a lot of these deals are multi year. So as we establish a new baseline. This year, we just found the opportunity.
Keep growing from that next year and beyond.
Great. Thank you.
Our next question comes from Brandon Ross with late shed partners. Please go ahead.
Yes, Thank you guys.
So ticket pricing for the top 10 towards you said was up I think 20% to over 19, and we definitely took notice when you used the word in the elasticities in your prepared remarks.
Platinum is obviously, a big part of what Youre doing there can you frame, where you are unlocking tailwind.
From platinum tickets, specifically what percentage of major artists are using it.
How much further impact to U C platinum happening overtime.
Well I think again, Brandon you'll be there tomorrow.
I think you just have to look at the size of the prize right now if you look at it just from a secondary perspective.
Much unrealized underpriced or the ticket unrealized pricing opportunity if you want to call. It. So I would say right now platinum is adopting a great tool to get a higher ticket price but.
But we still have very low penetration across our global business huge upside still.
Okay.
And then there've been a lot of reports about insurance rates going up, especially because the COVID-19 and the Travis Scott incident.
Et cetera can you comment on how impactful you expect that to be to your cost structure this year and going forward.
Yes. This is Joe.
We.
See what everybody else sees which is yes insurance costs going up we don't think it's material to the business overall I think we're in a good position as it relates to inflation more broadly if you look at inflation of inputs versus your ability to price on the outputs.
We're in a very good position that while you have.
Some price pressures on your inputs, whether it's insurance or labor. We have your first question a much greater level of pricing ability on the outside which led us as we've talked about you use the same logic as we had last summer at the amps still drove cm per fan up double digits. So.
We're watching every cost as everybody else is we understand which ones are moving where and we're just figuring out how we make sure we're pricing overall too.
To keep our ally.
Perfect. Thank you.
Our next question comes from David Katz with Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Good evening, everyone. Thanks for taking my question just two interesting things I wanted to go back to and hope you could elaborate on one is <unk>.
You talked about the lower cost structure.
And you said that I think Joe that it includes some labor cost increases can you just elaborate a bit more on what kinds of labor costs. Those as those are and where they are from an magnitude et cetera.
Sure Yeah, we like every business have seen employees are demanding some higher wages as you come back from Covid.
And as we built our cost structural cost savings.
We knew that was going to be the case and we built that in and we talked.
In the past about the levels of those cost savings. So I, just rather than get into every quarter trying to reconcile for you guys well how does your cost of living adjustment. This year impact your structural savings I wanted to make it clear we're delivering those savings have been expected that there was going to be some labor cost increases as we were going through.
No different for us than anybody else.
Understood and the second.
Yes, sure I wanted to touch on is I think you mentioned that the secondary ticket market is growing faster than primary.
I'm curious, what's driving that and what order of magnitude there as well.
Well again, it's the same point as what Brandon asked about the Inelasticity of demand for the best tickets plus the general overdue.
Raul desire of fans to get back the live events. So if they didn't buy a ticket for the sporting event or for the concert they missed out there buying it on secondary and Theyre paying whatever it takes on those best tickets to get in so.
As we as we strive on the primary to be pricing it such that that bring the dollars back the content to the artists we think deserve.
Dollar for their performance, we're doing that through platinum and through other tools.
As we do that secondary continues to grow rapidly we're not shrinking secondary yet so we have the opportunity to continue to move pricing and primary as I was talking about earlier, while looking at secondary and figuring out how far do we go.
Okay. Thank you.
Our next question comes from Steven <unk> with Cowen. Please state your question.
Hi, Thanks for the question there's been some reports that the industry has been recently seen 20% no show rates of concerts and you noted in your prepared remarks in no show rates at live nation promoted concerts and your answer back to 2019 levels I just wanted to ask like what are those levels. If you can pinpoint it and could you.
You reconcile maybe if there is a divergence between what you're seeing what the industry has seen and how no show rates are trending internationally. Thanks.
So let me let me give you some facts on that thanks for that question, because I think theres been a lot of reporting by anecdote out there as opposed to reporting by collective backs.
And I don't think our experience is that any different than the industry is as a total I think that on occasion you have <unk>.
Operations for a variety of reasons, but just to give you a macro feel.
Give you that.
For first of all arenas in 2019.
If you look at the number of people that showed up for a concert.
The number of people that bought tickets it ran at 93% in 2019.
That number thus far in 2022 over the past six weeks is running at 91% so not materially different from the 93% for a total of 2019.
For our theaters and clubs. The smaller shows you tend to have a slightly higher no show rate and that number was 87% in 2019, it's running at 83% in 2022. So I think if you first of all recognize that there were a number of shows that have taken place over the past few.
<unk> that were rescheduled and we chose get rescheduled people will naturally forget about the show or have a conflict different than what they originally had.
It's probable that that accounts for all or almost all of that difference and the attendance level. So.
We don't think that reporting is that all accurate.
I appreciate the color Joe and can you just provided.
Just just.
Just to add color to that I remember reading those articles.
Dramatize I think they were saying it was 15%, 20% werent showing but again they weren't taken into account that on a normal year seven 8% of people don't show up to shows.
So youre already starting at that level. So if you look at what our current data says.
We're basically back to 2019 levels and people who are showing up at the same rates or not showing up in that 7% to 8%. The history has always kind of shown.
Thanks, Michael and can you guys. Just provide Q4 concert NOI margin was a little bit the last I think a little wider than some expectations.
I think the advertising dollars that flowed through there, but could you maybe just any comments on that what drove that and then how should we think about Q4 and I know, it's far away, but 2022 as well is that going to be similar.
Similar cadence of losses in that quarter for concert.
I mean, I think if you look at Q4 versus nine teen.
Q4 is generally a loss it's a lower activity quarter you have as you noted it prepaid advertising running through if you looked at our fan base in 'twenty, one versus <unk> 19 in Q4 back that off.
So it's not surprising you're still carrying your fixed cost plus you have your year end advertising all against the lower volume.
Alright, Thanks, John looking forward to the Investor Day Tomorrow.
Thanks.
<unk>.
Our next question comes from Ben Swinburne with Morgan Stanley . Please go ahead.
Thanks, Good afternoon, a couple questions first.
Michael I also noticed you mentioned in the secondary market growing faster than primary a couple of times in your prepared remarks.
Think of Ticketmaster is the clear market leader in primary.
No you're in secondary but maybe I just don't think about Ticketmaster is a leading.
Focus on the secondary market I am wondering if you could just talk about.
Whether you see that.
Accurately as I described it or if you think there is anything you would change in the strategy for that business going forward.
Given what we're seeing in secondary I noticed Joe also mentioned.
We haven't seen the secondary shrink yet so maybe that tells me the answer but I'm. Just wondering if you guys are I don't know pivoting at all as you think about the growth of those two parts of the ticketing business because it does seem like secondary is quite robust.
Yeah I would.
I'll get into this tomorrow again and in our slides we have.
Two sides of the equation here right ultimately long term I don't think secondary is a great business because I believe content, we'll figure out how to price it better. So on the concert side. We're waking up every day our goal isn't to increase secondary sales it's to increase the gross for the artist and to show that's why.
We talked about platinum and VIP and better analysis for the artist to capture more of the dollars. So and we've seen that over the last 510 years every year. The artist is capturing more of it now that doesn't mean that it's an efficient market yet.
It's going to take some more time for the artist can be more comfortable charging those prices where the market.
As effective but it's.
It's happening and you see it over time and in 510 years from now.
We're an artist manager you wouldn't want to be waking up seen lots of secondary tickets for your artist captured outside of your bundle so our job.
Our job mostly is to figure out how to get all of that secondary into the primary bucket for the artist. So they make the dollars I think.
Obviously, that's fires our flywheel.
It is an efficient market yet and most of the secondary is really in the sports business. So when we talk about the ticket side growing we were never in secondary as you said when we took this business over we.
Integrated it we built it and then we ramped it up fast for all of our sports clients. So we are the official secondary of the NFL, the NBA and NHL.
And others, and we have been able to grow that business.
Over the last few years fairly well in the sports business, where most of the dollars are.
So that business, though again continues to be a business where the sports teams.
Or are getting more and more dollars directly the NBA or the NFL or all looking at ways to capture the secondary for the team and our for the league. So we think it's a business right now that is in transition lots of dollars outside of the content. We think long term content captures more of it.
But we're also going to be part of that marketplace that ban or somebody.
Wants to trade and.
And sell their tickets and we want to make sure we're part of that vertical solution at our marketplace.
Got it that makes sense and then just wanted to go back to the forward bookings numbers and leading indicators you guys talked about the 45% and the 30%.
We heard some stats at least directionally similar msg's call and I'm wondering if there is a timing element to this.
Yes.
Should we be extrapolating those into full year growth rates or are we seeing some activity happening sooner because we're still sort of dealing with the <unk>.
Pandemic hangover or the pandemic and so concerts are filling up the calendar sooner and calling on sale sooner I'm. Just wondering if there's any sort of caveat you'd want it gives us to think about translating those into our forecast that makes sense yeah.
I, certainly don't think of it as a caveat, but unquestionably you've got a timing advantage. This year, you've got a benefit from some shows then moved and you have a timing in general of a wide open market that we put shows on sale earlier.
But that said.
We look at all of that and we continue to see every indicator well up.
So, we think it'll plateau or or normalized some but still looking to be a very strong high growth relative to 2019.
Makes sense.
Scott.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Ryan Sundby with William Blair. Please go ahead with your question.
Yeah, Hey, guys. Thanks for the questions.
Just wanted to follow up on the 25% growth in the U S and U K fan base over the last five months.
Are there any comparison issues there we should think through in terms of maybe show count or <unk>.
Victor festivals that got moved around.
A pretty apples to apples comparison.
Yes, so just to be clear that was the outdoor activity over the last five months of last year. So stadiums amphitheaters and festivals. There was definitely some benefits you had a few festivals like electric Daisy that moved into the fourth quarter from May.
And we pushed the amphitheater season later in the year, So I wouldn't I wouldn't try to take anything arithmetically from that as much as a very 2021 was a year of very strong fan return to outdoor events.
Two setting up to be a very strong fan return to every site every sort of venue every sort of there.
Got it.
And then in terms of the average fan revenue up double digits.
This year I guess I know, it's kind of early to make a comment.
Quarter, but now that you've had some more time to kind of look at the data. There is that something you think you can hold onto permanently or do you think this is some kind of an indulgent spending that we're seeing here with that number.
So we think overall that number is real we think that there is higher fan spending and there is greater fan acceptance of some higher pricing theres greater fan demand for real hospitality, some higher end luxuries.
Give us some specific math last time that wouldnt have changed much in terms of what was the incremental spend versus what was some mix issues, but it is largely fan spending more money.
At the shows and we think that continues.
Okay. That's good to hear thanks.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Jason Bazinet with Citi. Please go ahead with your question.
If there was one mistake that I think investors.
Investors, maybe pre COVID-19 it was sort of.
Taking strength that we saw during the COVID-19 period, and sort of extrapolating that into future periods and.
I'm just wondering when you guys look at that very robust numbers at you.
Youre, putting up in all of those leading indicators.
How are you guys sort of parsing out.
Just sort of we've all been locked up for two years, we're going to go out and go crazy and spend a lot of money on food and beverage and merch and.
Pay a higher price to get a premium versus everything sort of settling down.
This sort of long run averages.
Do you think there is that dynamic going on or do you think this is really like something.
That shift in sort of the consumer's behavior.
I think the first thing you guys start with Jason is we don't have a hockey stick, where we're not a COVID-19 business. There was floating along with near zero and all of a sudden took off like a hockey stick and everybody thought the hockey stick was going to continue forever.
Look at the long term growth over the business start with the most macro of GDP spending on goods shifting to experience an increased demand for luxuries.
<unk> desire to go to concerts on increased ticket pricing probe launches everything on a global basis as Michael said all of this has been we've been growing the same chart since 2010.
Most of our investors today, I think if I'm looking at that chart and saying the best predictor of the future is the past and we had a very bumpy couple of years. The macro over time. This is a company. This is an industry that is April between their tail wins their ability to drive increased market share their ability to drive global to bring the.
Slide two of the latent demand that exists in the marketplace that continue to grow the business.
I don't disagree I don't disagree with anything you said, if I can just sort of give your observations, we're seeing like a record per caps inside movie theaters and regional theme parks and things that don't have those same sort of tail winds.
But Jason had those businesses did they tell you for the past five years, we went from $18 to $22 to $24 $26 to $29.
I mean do they tell you they are giving you for the past six years every year, how they were consistently delivering growth. So we can debate is that growth rate continued is there. Some normalization is there a reversion to a mean over a number of years you can have all of those debates, but don't frame it as a hockey stick or somehow as the bumps in there.
Road, the world's going to collapse back down to $18 I think you've got to give us the credit that we've set a strategy and we've executed very consistently for a considerable period and delivered on sustained growth. So yes. There was some catch up of a couple of years, because <unk> 2020 one didn't exist as much share.
But that doesn't mean that they are aberrations.
No I don't mean aberrations, but just I mean, maybe we'll learn more about this tomorrow, but.
It just seems like to comp if we have these really robust numbers this year.
I'd just be curious what counsel you have as we think about 'twenty three 'twenty four to build off this elevated number it's not taking away from that.
So right now I have in front of me a list.
Of 40.
Tours for 2023 that are either confirm or in our pipeline normally at this point a year from earlier, we'd have a list of five to 10.
So yes, we have a lot of confidence for 'twenty, three and beyond look very good because there is a lot of <unk>.
Pent up supply there is a lot of pent up demand and we expect it's a multiyear run.
Awesome. Thank you.
<unk>.
Thank you and ladies and gentlemen that was our last question for today and that also concludes today's conference. All parties may now disconnect have a great evening. Thank you.