Q3 2025 Live Nation Entertainment Inc Earnings Call
And welcome to the live Nation third quarter 2025 earnings Conference call.
Operator: The next question comes from the line of Stephen Laszczyk with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed.
Joining us today is our president and CEO, Michael Rapino, and our President and CFO, Joe Berchtold, who.
Stephen Laszczyk: Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. Joe, maybe on the concert segment for the quarter, I was wondering if you could help us break down some of the puts and takes to concert segment AOI growth in Q3. I think there's a number of factors that investors are trying to better understand. You have growth in Venue Nation attendance, and the profitability that might be coming on as you layer on some new capacity there. You have more stadium activities, you called out earlier, and then some pressure on amp and arena attendance. I think any color to help us better understand the sizing of some of these drivers would be helpful as we look into next year. Would appreciate any of that. I have a follow-up.
We would like to remind you that this afternoon's call will contain certain forward looking statements 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.
Speaker #3: A modern day warrior . Mean , mean stride . Today's Tom Sawyer mean mean pride . Those mine is forever . Don't put em down as again .
Please refer to live nation's SEC filings, including the risk factors and cautionary statements included in the company's most recent filings on forms 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. Five nation has provided definitions of these measures and a full reconciliation to the most comparable GAAP measures in our earnings release the.
Speaker #3: If he's ever quiet . Defense . Riding out the day's events . Not river . What do you say about his company ? Is what you say about desire ?
Joe Berchtold: Sure. I'll give you the detail on the quarter. Overall, for the concert segment, we grew AOI by about $40 million, with roughly a million or just over a million fans. Pretty good per fan incremental profitability. It's 120 more stadium shows that really drove the growth, which was pretty well balanced between the US and international. It was also heavily driven by stadiums that we operate. Estadio GNP reopening and building back up the Rogers Stadium in Toronto. It was a lot of fans that we operate at, which is what drove some of the high profitability per fan. We had about 250 fewer amp shows, as Michael alluded to, just from a cyclical standpoint, fewer shows. Arenas are about flat, but we did grow our activity in our operated arenas with a new Portugal arena coming online and some of our other European arenas. Big shift to stadiums.
The release reconciliation can be found under the financial information section on live nation's website with that we will now take your questions operator.
Thank you.
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And the first question comes from the line of Brandon Ross with Bloodshed partners. Please go. Please proceed.
Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the questions.
Speaker #3: Maybe I decide I'm wise .
First going into 2025.
Seemed like it was one where the Sun the Moon. The stars were all going to align with stadiums and arenas and amphitheaters all coming together.
Speaker #4: Good afternoon . My name is Joe . And I will be your conference operator today . At this time , I would like to welcome everyone to Live Nation's third quarter 2025 earnings call .
It turned out it seems to be a great stadium year, but theres definitely been underperforming.
Joe Berchtold: Overall, in some of the large venues outside of the amps, we had more activity in our operated venues that helped in the context of the fewer amp shows.
Speaker #4: I would now like to turn the call over to Miss Amy Yong . Thank you , Miss Yang . You may begin .
The other venues sizes could you explain what happened with amps and arenas this year end.
Speaker #5: afternoon and welcome to the Live Nation Third Quarter 2020 Earnings Conference Call . Joining us today is our president and CEO , Michael Rapino .
What can you give us confidence that they will rebound strongly in 2026 and I have a follow up.
Stephen Laszczyk: Great, thanks for that. Maybe secondly, just as a follow-up on regulatory and some of the commitments you made on the FTC side, just would love any other color you could provide about where we stand. In your dialogue with the FTC, and then maybe related to that, where we stand in the DOJ's process and to what extent you feel like maybe some of the more recent dialogue you've had, maybe perhaps both agencies have created a framework or common ground with these agencies or lawmakers. Thank you.
Thanks, Brendan I'll take it.
Yes.
Yes, just to be clear, we had incredible quarter incredible year, so far we had.
Revenue up 11% operating up 24 14.
These are these are numbers you pray for every quarter. So we've had an incredible year one of the things. We've always said about live nation is the great strength you have in investing in us as we are a global diversified business and both geographically and venue type and sometimes Europe over delivers an American under deliver sometimes the apps are having a record year, sometimes a stay.
Joe Berchtold: Sure. I'll start with the FTC. I think the government shut down pretty much immediately after that came out, so no real action there. What I would say, and we've said this before when this happened, we feel very good about our case with the FTC. We think it's an extremely expansionist view of the bots act. The fact that they would file this suit when we do more to stop bots and to counter a lot of this activity than the rest of the industry combined, we find to be very far afield. From a legal standpoint, we don't believe that they have a strong case. A lot of the changes that we just talked about are, frankly, things that have been motioned for a while. Obviously, you don't roll out identity verification in two weeks. That's a tool we've been building, and we're just ready to deploy it.
<unk>, we're having a record year.
And that's always been the pattern here and what's great is at the end of the day, we're going to deliver our 10% growth.
Speaker #5: The release reconciliation can be found under the Financial Information section on Live Nation's website . With that , we will now take your questions .
I've had a incredible growth internationally, Mexico, Latin America, a lot of our European businesses and stadiums up 60% again, we would hope we have this problem every year, where stadiums are dominating the business. It just continues to show the strength of the consumer and the buyer.
This year, we had a few a few less amphitheater shows we're.
We're looking towards 26, it looks like it's going to be a great pipeline when it looked like after theaters arenas and stadiums are going to have a very strong year next year.
And on both international and American basis, probably be sitting here a year from now telling you one of those markets over delivered.
And thats the strength of our diversified platform. So we don't think theres anything structural with <unk>.
Joe Berchtold: We have done so. On the DOJ, that case is advanced procedurally. Generally speaking, discovery is complete. Everybody's exchanged expert reports, and we're in the middle of some of the expert depositions. All that's left is a few scraggler depositions. That process continues. The judge reaffirmed the 6 March date for the trial. We'll continue on that process for now. The other development that I think is of real note is that we think the remedies decision in the Google search case has very much validated our view that the claims in our case can't lead to a breakup of Live Nation and Ticketmaster, even if the DOJ prevails on one claim or another. We expected that, but certainly welcome news in that side.
There was a lot of content out there a lot of artists decided not to play stadia or not to play arenas and amphitheaters and Gulf of stadiums.
We support that on a global basis and that helped deliver our global revenue.
Growth of over 11%, we think next year.
The same great combination on a global basis and deliver what we have been delivering for many years.
Record attendance record revenue on.
On record AOI will be in the books again for next year with a combination of international amps and arenas.
Great and then.
On the Ticketmaster side following the FTC suit.
It seems like you've really began to crack down a lot on ticket scalpers can you remind us of the actions that you've taken so far and what impact you expect to each to have on both <unk> financials, and the broader ticketing industry and.
Stephen Laszczyk: Great. Thank you, Joe.
Operator: The next question comes from the line of Cameron Mansson-Perrone with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed.
Cameron Mansson-Perrone: Thank you for taking the questions. First, on the ticketing side of the business, you've talked about the competitiveness in the ticketing industry in the past, particularly in the US. I was wondering if you could just kind of describe how that landscape's been evolving and how you've been responding to that. Level of competitiveness, and particularly whether it raises your appetite or the attractiveness of capturing international growth within that segment of your business.
It seems like most of the work that Youre doing most of the changes you're making are concerts only as opposed to both concerts and sports or any color on why that's the case. Thank you.
Sure Brandon I'll go onto Michael can jump in first again as always just set the context secondaries are low single digit percentage of our revenue.
The feature to us as we've long cost, we focus on primary and helping content get the tickets priced and sold how they want.
First just to answer sports versus concert she is very different sports teams and leagues use secondary as a distribution platform for disaggregation of season tickets.
Joe Berchtold: Yeah. Cameron, I don't think we think of it as an either/or. We look at it as a global business. We're a global platform. We're global in concerts. We're global in ticketing. We're underdeveloped in international markets in Ticketmaster, particularly if you look at Latin America, you look at Asia, even parts of Europe. There's a heavy focus on building out our presence in those markets. We think we have the best ticketing platform and enterprise tools out there, and that's clearly been helping us win a lot of business as we've given you those numbers over the past several years in international markets. North America is competitive, but that's fine. Most businesses in life are competitive. I think we continue to win a lot because we can compete effectively on all dimensions. We've continued to add clients and tickets in North America as well.
So the secondary I would think about it as being as it's really heavily on liquidity market in sports and concerts, because they're all sold one off there is no liquidity market, it's all a price arbitrage market.
So as we've looked at it it's a matter of how much.
Are the scalpers, taking how much arbitrageur theyre getting.
And the actions that we're taking I think are heavily driven by the fact, when we look hard at is just too much.
So the pieces first even though it gets passed is less important as trade desk. It's a tool that brokers used to manage their tickets and simultaneous to place them on multiple marketplaces. It started because of sports.
It's often confused that somehow it's a tool that the brokers could use to get tickets and some advantage for them relative to fans. It's not this it's never been this but just to eliminate the noise. We're shutting it down we don't expect it to have any financial impact on us or on the market. We expect most of these folks will either do a manual.
Joe Berchtold: We'll continue to fight that fight. We certainly see international over the next several years as a great growth opportunity.
Cameron Mansson-Perrone: Got it. Thanks. On the numbers and the release around deferred revenue, some pretty healthy growth both in event-related deferred revs and ticketing revs. Any color you can provide in terms of how we should think about that as indicative of Q4 activity relative to indicative of 2026 activity?
You go to one of the other multitude of platforms that offer this service.
More impactful to the industry as the identity verification tools, we've started to deploy.
So now when our system identifies high risk accounts based on 100 different signals, we can require a validation that the account holders a person in their government I'd matches the account.
Joe Berchtold: Yeah, I think most of that will be getting into next year at this point, given the size of those numbers and the fact that Q4 is cyclically one of the smaller quarters. It goes hand in hand with the other things we've given you on the strength of the pipeline for 2026 in terms of large venues, and the fact that our ticket sales for shows next year are up double digits. Ticketmaster, you'll continue to see some growth in the deferred also as we're adding more venues and the tickets for those venues get deferred.
This is a key tool we've used.
Canceling over 1 million accounts over the past month and on a recent high demand on sale. They got some press we used it after the fact looking at the signals and putting fans through to determine whether they were real fans or it was bought purchase.
So that's been helpful. We are optimistic that in the short term. This can help rein in some of the access of abuse.
Cameron Mansson-Perrone: Got it. Helpful, thanks.
Developed but but.
But we're frankly, we're also realistic that without legislative enforcement changes the scalpers will continue to invest in new tools to fuel our systems.
Operator: The next question comes from the line of David Karnovsky with JPMorgan. Please proceed.
David Karnovsky: Hey, thank you. I wanted to see if you could refresh on the venue pipeline that will impact in 2026 in terms of the buildings opening in the second half of this year and those planned for the coming year. When we look at your fan count growth at Venue Nation, I think you had previously guided this to around 7 million fans. Any reason to think you wouldn't be able to sustain a pace comparable to that next year?
And masked the fact that their box.
So it's hard to fully translate into financial impacts.
But I think given the low percentage of revenue that secondary accounts for what we've seen so far in terms of the activity and the volume. We don't have any reason to think it would be more than a <unk>.
Our low to mid single digit impact taking masters AOE next year.
Operator: Hey, David. I was just going to jump in. The good news, David, is we're going to take this through our investor day tomorrow and get into more detail on the venue stuff. That's probably the best place for it. We continue to see the same pipeline of growth as we've outlined previously. We've made great progress this year in getting these buildings either started or opened up this year. Tomorrow, we'll take you through kind of the longer-term vision of it.
But even more importantly, we don't see this fundamentally impacting our growth strategy given our focus on the primary side.
So as we lay out our multi year strategy tomorrow.
This isn't this is not going to have an impact on that strategy or on the numbers that we would show you in terms of where we think we can get to.
Great. Thank you very much.
David Karnovsky: Okay. Just on the stadium outlook, just wanted to see if you could check in on the pipeline for next year. I know there had been some hope expressed in September that you could get to a comparable year in the US with the growth internationally despite the FIFA factor. Just want to get an update there.
The next question comes from the line of Steven <unk> with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed.
Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the question.
Joe maybe on the concert segment for the quarter I was wondering if you could help us break down some of the puts and takes to concert segment NOI growth and <unk> I think there's a number of factors that investors are trying to better understand you have growth in simulation attendance in the profitability of that might be coming on as you layer on some new capacity there.
Operator: Yeah, I would say the World Cup, FIFA, some of those fears that everyone had earlier haven't seemed to come to life. We are lucky right now at this time of year, which is early still, but good for stadiums to have a very strong year next year. International, which already had a spectacular year, looks very strong on a global basis. We look at next year as being a very, very strong stadium year again.
More stadium activity as you called out earlier, and then some pressure on an App and arena attendance I think any color to help us better understand the sizing of some of these drivers it would be helpful. As we look into next year, but I appreciate any of that kind of a follow up.
Sure I'll give you the detail on the quarter.
David Karnovsky: Thank you.
Operator: Going to Brandon's concern, add a few extra shows in amphitheaters and arenas, and you're back to your annual, higher double-digit fan growth that we've been able to do for the last 15 years or so. We see that consistency will continue onward for the next few years. The next question comes from the line of Robert Fishman with MoffettNathanson. Please proceed.
Overall for the concert segment, we grew Oi by.
By about $40 million with roughly a million dollars or just over 1 million fans, so pretty good per fan incremental profitability.
120, more stadium shows that really drove the growth, which was pretty well balanced between the U S and international.
And it.
It was also heavily driven by stadiums that we operate so GNP reopening and building back Roger Stadium in Toronto. So it was a lot of fans that we operate at which is what drove some of the high profitability per fan.
[Analyst] (MoffettNathanson): Hi. Good afternoon. I have two for either Michael or Joe. Maybe just following up on where you just went. The earnings release calls out the international fan count is on track to surpass the US for the first time. I'm just wondering if you can shed some additional light on where you see that mix shift going with international fan growth over time, and how much that factors into your confidence of delivering another year of double-digit AOI growth in 2026. Let's start there. Thanks.
We had about 250 fewer amp shows as Michael alluded to just from a cyclical standpoint fewer shows arenas are about flat, but we did grow our activity in our operated arenas with the <unk>.
Portugal Arena coming online and some of our other European arenas. So.
Operator: I'm not sure I got the question right, but I think if you're asking it about international, we believe this will be a continued global international business. Most of our growth, both in Ticketmaster, sponsorship, venues, concerts, will continue to be on a global basis, given there's so many markets that we're not very high in market share or haven't entered yet. That mix will continue to grow and continue to be an international story for many years to come.
A big shift to stadiums.
And overall in <unk>.
Some of the large venues outside of the Ams, we had more activity in our operated venues that helped.
In the context of the few ramp shows.
Great. Thanks for that and then maybe secondly, just as a follow up on regulatory and some of the commitments you made on the.
The FTC side, just would love any other color you can provide on where we stand.
David Karnovsky: Got it. Secondly, can you discuss your recent hire of a new global president for Ticketmaster and maybe how you expect that to help in the AI transformation of your overall business or at least with Ticketmaster?
In your dialogue with the FTC and then maybe related to that where we stand in the doj's process.
To what extent you feel like maybe some of the more recent dialogue you've had maybe perhaps both agencies has created a framework or common ground.
With these with these agencies or or lawmakers. Thank you.
Operator: Yeah, I think we thought it was time. Mark's done an incredible job, grown the business dramatically. Our focus under Mark, based out of London originally, was to really focus Ticketmaster to be a much more international business, get away from being just solely US-focused, and think about a global platform. We had many different technologies at the time. Carlos and Mark have done a fabulous job standardizing our global business, launching in many markets. Mark will continue as chairman. That'll be his focus, to keep running hard on international.
Sure.
I'll start with the FCC I think the government shut down pretty much immediately after after that I came out so no real action there what I would say and we've said this before when this happened we feel very good about our case with the FTC. We think it's extremely expansion is to you of the bonds.
Jack.
The faster they would file the suit when we do the more to stop bots and to counter a lot of this activity than the rest of the industry combined we find to be very far field and from a legal standpoint, we don't.
Operator: We absolutely wanted to find somebody that had a very strong technical background, engineering, AI-based, that could look at the platform overall and not just how do we make the enterprise and marketplace better, but of course, how do we make sure we are leading the charge on AI from an agent perspective at the front door to all the places that we're adding on the enterprise level.
We don't believe they have a strong case.
A lot of the changes that we just talked about or frame your things they've been motion for a while obviously you don't rollout identity verification in two weeks, it's a tool we've been building.
David Karnovsky: Great. Thank you very much.
And we're just ready to deploy it so so we have done so.
Operator: The next question comes from the line of Peter Supino with Wolfe Research. Please proceed.
On the Doj that cases advanced procedurally.
Logan Angrist: Hi. This is Logan Angrist on for Peter. Just a quick question for me. Your release reiterates your expectations for long-term AOI compounding, but doesn't discuss 2026 specifically. I'm curious, given all the strong leading indicators that you've called out, is it fair to assume that you can continue to grow AOI double digits next year, or are there mitigating factors that we should keep in mind? Thank you.
Generally speaking discovery is complete.
Everybody is exchanged expert reports and we're in the middle of some of the expert depositions all of its left US a few straggler depositions. So that process continues the judge reaffirmed the March six state for the trial.
So we'll continue on that process for now, but the other development that I think is a real node is do we think the remedies decision in the Google search cases, very much validated our view that the claims in our case can lead to a breakup of live nation and thank our master even if the Doj prevails on one.
Joe Berchtold: Hey, this is Joe. I think what I would say is no mitigating factors. We've just never, sitting in November before the year has started, made that call. I think that's traditionally a conversation that we have in February. I think what we try to give you now, which is what we're looking at, is the leading indicators that have to do with our show pipeline, tickets sold, our sponsorship committed, our deferred revenue, a lot of factors that are pointing extremely positively. I think we all view we'll get to no mitigating, no concerns, but we generally want to wait and get to February and have the full data set to make that call.
Claim or another so we expected that but certainly welcome news.
In that side.
Great. Thank you Joe.
The next question comes from the line of Cameron Medicine, Perone with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed.
Thank you for taking the questions first one.
Ticketing side of the business you talked about the competitiveness in the ticketing industry in the past, particularly in the U S. I was wondering if you could just kind of describe how that landscape has been evolving and how you have been responding to that.
Logan Angrist: Got it. Thank you.
Operator: Your point is what we've been saying for year after year, the last few, is we think this business, on a global basis, has incredible growth ahead of it that would mirror the history we've been able to deliver.
That level of competitiveness and particularly whether it.
It raises your appetite or the attractiveness of capturing international growth in that segment of your business.
David Karnovsky: The next question comes from the line of Jason Bazinet with Citibank. Please proceed. I know you guys have long held that your business is not particularly economically sensitive. There seems to be growing press reports about maybe the low-end consumer sort of running out of gas. I just wonder, underneath the hood, are you seeing any sort of signs of maybe sort of bimodal behavior where the high-end consumer is spending more, but you are seeing a little bit of pressure at the low end to offset some of the strength at the high end, or is that not what you're observing?
Yeah, Cameron I don't think we think of it as an either or we look at it as a global business of our global platform or global in concert for global and ticketing, we're underdeveloped in international.
International markets and Ticketmaster, particularly if you look at Latin America and Asia.
Even parts of Europe. So there's a heavy focus on building out our presence in those markets. We think we have the best ticketing platform and enterprise tools out there and that's clearly been helping us win a lot of business as we are giving you those numbers over the past several years in international markets.
Operator: No. We have not seen any of that. Our business is very diverse. It's powered from clubs to arenas, to festivals, stadiums, small town to big, on a global basis. We see it all. We need all levels of consumers consuming to make the show sell out. We're already on sale for next year for many shows and festivals of certain sizes, and they are selling as fast as ever. The appetite, the consumption, going to that show still seems to be number one priority for them. We've saw no pullback anywhere yet.
North America is competitive, but that's fine most businesses in life for a competitive and I think we continue to win a lot because we can compete effectively on all dimensions and we've continued to add <unk>.
<unk> and tickets in North America as well, we will continue to fight that fight, but we certainly see international over the next several years as a great growth opportunity.
Got it thanks.
And then on the.
On the numbers in the release around deferred revenue some pretty healthy growth both in event related deferred revs and ticketing rads any any color you can provide in terms of how we should think about that.
David Karnovsky: Thank you.
As indicative of <unk> activity relative to indicative of 2026 activity.
Operator: The next question comes from the line of Eric Handler with Roth Capital. Please proceed.
[Analyst] (Roth Capital): Yes, good afternoon. Thanks for the question. Just wanted to talk about corporate appetite for sponsorships now, in terms of what they're willing to do, and sort of how much they're willing to spend.
Yes, I think most of that will be E D.
Getting into next year at this point given the size of those numbers and the fact that Q4 is cyclically one of the smaller quarters and it goes hand in hand with the other things, we're giving you on the strength of the pipeline for 2006 in terms of large venues and the fact that our ticket sales for shows next year are up double.
Operator: Yeah. Again, our sponsorship numbers, you saw the 14%. They've been growing for double digits for years. As we grow our business, we provide more inventory. The more arenas, the more international, the more cities we add, the more inventory our team has to sell. We think that live show continually right now to a marketer is a really good return on investment. They may not have all the other media channels solved while they're figuring out where to put their dollars, but if you want to absolutely touch consumers on a live location like sports or music, these two places are where marketers tend to be spending more money today. We're matching that with them. We have the best inventory in the world, and we see continued growth for a long time in sponsorship and brands that want to be part of that exciting two hours of magic.
Digits Ticketmaster, you'll continue to see some growth in the deferred also as we're adding more venues and tickets for those venues get deferred.
Got it helpful. Thanks.
Yeah.
The next question comes from the line of David Karnofsky with J P. Morgan. Please proceed.
Hey, Thank you.
Want to see if you could refresh on the venue pipeline that will impact in 2026 in terms of the buildings opening in the second half of this year and those planned for the coming year.
Look at your fan Count growth and then you mentioned I think you had previously guided this to around 7 million fans any reason to think you wouldn't be able to.
Sustained at pace comparable to that next year.
Yeah.
[Analyst] (Roth Capital): Thank you.
No.
Oh I was just jumping the good news there is we're going to we're going to take us through our Investor day Tomorrow and get into more detail on the venue stuffs. So that's probably the best place for it but no. We continue to see the same pipeline of growth.
David Karnovsky: The next question comes from the line of Ian Moore with Bernstein Research. Please proceed.
Cameron Mansson-Perrone: Hi. Thanks, guys. I just wanted to zoom in a little bit, hone in on food and beverage spend. I was just wondering if you could stratify the growth that you're seeing a little bit across different venue types, and then front of the house, back of the house, VIP, if possible. Thanks.
As we've outlined previously and we've made great progress this year in getting these buildings either started or opened up this year and tomorrow. We will take you through kind of the longer term vision of it.
Okay and then just on the stadium outlook just wanted to see if you can check in on the pipeline for next year I know there had been some hope expressed.
Operator: Yeah. We've had a strong year again in food and beverage in our amphitheaters, our festivals, owned and operated clubs. We delivered on our growth targets this year again. Continue to be better at diversifying our portfolio, increase in our hospitality, increase in our kind of offerings across all platforms. Had a strong year. We continue to see year-over-year growth on-site, food and beverage, VIP, hospitality, premium, all of the ancillary revenues. When they come to that show, they still want to find that place to have fun and spend some dollars to enjoy it.
Camera that you can get to a comparable year.
In the U S.
With the growth internationally.
FIFA factor just wanted to get an update there.
Yes, I would say no.
<unk> Cup FIFA some of those fears that everyone had earlier haven't seem to come to life, where we're looking right now.
At this time of year, which is early still but but good for stadiums to have a very strong year next year international which already had a spectacular year looks very strong on a global basis. So we.
We look at next year of being a very very strong stadium here again.
Thank you.
And going to Brandon's concern add a few extra shows and after theaters and arenas and.
David Karnovsky: Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'd like to hand the call back to Michael Rapino for closing remarks.
Back to your annual higher double digit fan growth that we've been able to do for the last 15 years or so so we see that consistency will continue.
Operator: Thank you, everyone, for your participation. We'll talk to you tomorrow afternoon at our investor day. Look forward to it. Thank you.
Onward for the next few years.
David Karnovsky: This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.
The next question comes from the line of Robert Fishman with Moffett Nathanson. Please proceed.
Hi, good afternoon.
Two for either Michael or Joe maybe just following up on on where he just when the earnings release calls out the international fan count is on track to surpass the U S. For the first time. So I'm just wondering if you can shed some additional light on where do you see that mix shift going with international fan growth over time, and how much that factors into your confidence of delivering.
Another year of double digit NOI growth in 2006.
Hi, there thanks.
I'm not sure I got the question right, but I think if you're asking about international we believe this will be a.
Continued global International business.
And most most of our growth both in ticketmaster's sponsorship venues conscious will continue to be on a global basis, given there's so many markets that we're not.
A very high end market share or haven't entered yet so that mix will continue to grow and continue to be an international story for many years to come.
Got it and then just secondly.
Discuss your recent hire of a new global President for Ticketmaster, and maybe how that you expect that to help in the transformation of your overall business or at least start with Ticketmaster.
Yeah, I think we thought it was time Mark has done an incredible job.
The business dramatically our focus under Mark.
Just out of London, originally was to really focus ticketmaster to be a much more international business.
From being just solely U S focused and think about a global platform. We have many different technology at the time.
Carlos and Mark have done a fabulous job.
Standardizing, our global business launching in many markets and Mark will continue as chairman and that'll be his focus to keep running hard on international but we absolutely want to find somebody that had a very strong technical background engineering AI based it could look at the platform overall and not just how do we make the enterprise marketplace better but.
Of course, how do we how do we make sure we are leading the charge on AI from an agent perspective at the front door to them to all the places that were added on the enterprise level.
Great. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from the line of Peter's Latino with Wolfe Research. Please proceed.
Hi, This is Logan Angus on for Peter just a quick question for me your release reiterate your expectations for long term compounding, but doesn't discuss 2026, specifically I'm curious given all the strong leading indicators that you've called out is it fair to assume that you can continue to.
Our double digits next year or are there mitigating factors that we should keep in mind. Thank you.
Hey, This is Joe I think what I would say is no mitigating factors, we just never sitting in November before the year has started made that call I think thats traditionally a conversation that we have in February.
I mean, what we tried to give you know which is what we're looking at is the.
The leading indicators that have to do with our show pipeline tickets sold our sponsorship committed our deferred revenue a lot of factors that are pointing extremely positively.
I think we all view, we'll get to.
Nothing no mitigating no concerns but.
We generally want to wait and get to February and have the full data set to make that call.
Got it thank you.
But your point is what we've been saying for Iraqi or the last year was we think this business.
On a global basis has incredible growth ahead of it.
It was near the history, we've been able to deliver.
And the next question comes from the line of Jason Bazinet with Citi. Please proceed.
I know you guys have long held that your business is not particularly economically sensitive.
But there seems to be growing press reports about maybe at the low end consumer sort of running running out of gas and I just I just wonder underneath the hood.
Standardized in our Global business launching in many markets and, and Mark will continue as chairman. That'll be his Focus to keep running hard on International, but we absolutely want to find somebody that had a very strong technical background, engineering, AI based that could look at the platform overall and not just, how do we make the Enterprise Marketplace better? But, of course, how do we, how do we make? Sure we are leading the charge on AI from an agent perspective at the front door to, um, to all the places that we're adding on the Enterprise level,
Great, thank you very much.
Are you seeing any sort of signs of sort of maybe sort of bimodal behavior, where the high end consumer spending more but you are seeing a little bit of pressure at the low end to offset some of the strength at the high end or is that not what youre observing.
The next question comes from the line of Peter subpoena, with wolf research, please proceed.
No.
We have not seen any of that we have our business is very diverse. It is it's powered from clubs to arenas festivals stadiums small town to big on a global basis. So we see it all and we need to all levels of consumers consuming.
To make the the show sellout and.
Hi. This is Logan, angrist on for Peter, just a quick question for me, your release reiterates, your expectations for long-term aoi compounding, but doesn't discuss 2026 specifically. I'm curious given all the strong leading indicators that you've called out. Is it fair to assume that you can continue to grow aoi, double digits next year? Or are there mitigating factors that we should keep in mind? Thank you.
We're already on sale for next year.
For many shows and festivals.
Certain sizes and they are selling as fast as ever so the appetite the consumption going to that show still seems to be number one priority for them and saw no pullback anywhere yet.
Thank you.
Hey this, this is Joe. I think what I would say is no mitigating factors, we just never sitting in November before the year is started made that call. I think that's traditionally a conversation that we have in February. Um, I think what we try to give you now, which is what we're looking at. Is
The next question comes from the line of Eric Handler with Roth Capital. Please proceed.
Good afternoon, and thanks for the question.
I'm just wondering if you could talk about corporate appetite for sponsorships now and in terms of what they're willing to do and sort of how much they're willing to spend.
the leading indicators that have to do with our show pipeline tickets. Sold our sponsorship committed, our deferred revenue, a lot of factors that are pointing extremely positively. But I think uh, we all view we'll get to and nothing, no mitigating, no concerns, but but we generally want to wait and get to February and have the full data set to make that call.
Yeah again, our sponsorship numbers you know you saw a 14% they've been they've been growing double digits for for for years.
Got it. Thank you.
And as we grow our business, we can provide more inventory.
But, but your point is what we've been saying for year after year. The last few, we think this business.
<unk> the more international more cities, we add the more inventory our team has to sell so.
Um on a global basis has incredible growth ahead of it, um that would mirror the the history we've been able to deliver.
We think that live show continually right now to a marketer is a really good return on capital return on investment they may not have all the other media channels solved.
The next question comes from the line of Peter Henderson with Bank of America, please proceed.
Yeah, thank you for taking the question, I guess. Um,
While they're figuring out where to put their dollars, but if you want to absolutely touch consumers on our live location like sports or music. These two places where marketers tend to be spending more money today. So we're matching that with them we have the best inventory in the world.
Just ask 1 on on um sponsorship. Um you know how how much sort of upside.
And the next question comes from the line of Jason bazinet with City, please proceed.
And we see continued growth for a long time and sponsorship with brands that want to be part of the exciting two hours of magic.
I know you guys have long held that your business is not particularly economically sensitive.
Thank you.
But there seems to be growing, press reports about maybe the the low-end consumer, sort of running running out of gas.
The next question comes from the line of Ian Moore with Bernstein Research. Please proceed.
And I just, I just wonder underneath the hood.
Are you seeing any sort of signs of sort of, maybe?
Hi, Thanks, guys just wanted to zoom in a little bit hone in on food and beverage spend.
I was just wondering if you could stratify the growth that youre seeing a little bit across.
Sort of biodal behavior where the high-end consumer spending more, but you are seeing a little bit of pressure at the low end to offset some of the strengths at the high end or is that not what you're observing.
Across different venue types, and then front of house back of the house VIP if possible. Thanks.
Yes, we've had a strong year with men in food and beverage.
Our amphitheater has our festivals.
No. Um, we have not seen any of that, we have, you know, our business is very diverse, it is, it's it's powered from clubs to to areas to Festival stadiums, small towns to Big on a global basis. So we see it all and, uh, we need all, all all levels of consumers consuming, um, to make the the show, sell out and
Owned and operated clubs we.
We delivered on our growth targets this year again.
Continue to be better at.
Diversifying our portfolio.
<unk> our hospitality.
Increasing our our kind of offerings.
Cross our platform so had a strong year, we've continued to see year over year growth on site food and beverage VIP hospitality premium.
And festivals of certain sizes are selling as fast as ever. So the appetite, the consumption going to that show still seems to be the number one priority for them, and you saw no pullback anywhere yet.
Thank you.
All of the ancillary revenues when they come to that show they still want to find that place to have fun and spend some dollars to to enjoy it.
The next question comes from the line of Eric Handler with Roth Capital. Please proceed.
Thank you.
There are no further questions at this time I'd like to hand, the call back to Michael Rapino for closing remarks.
Yes, good afternoon. Thanks for the question. Um, just wanted to talk about corporate appetite for sponsorships now and and in terms of what the willing to do and sort of how much they're willing to spend
Thank you everyone for your participation and we'll talk to you Tomorrow afternoon at our Investor day, a forward to it. Thank you.
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Thank you for your participation.
Yeah. Again, our sponsorship numbers, you know, you sell the 14% they've been. They've been growing for double digits for for um, for years. And as we grow our business, um, we provide more inventory, the more Arenas, the more International, the more cities, we add the more inventory, our team has to sell. So we, we think that lives show continually right now to a marketer is a really good return on C return on investment. They may not have all the other media channels solved, um, well, they're figuring out where to put their dollars. But if you want to absolutely touch consumers, um, on a live location, like sports or Music. These 2 places are where marketers tend to be spending more money today. So we're matching that with them, we have the best inventory.
In the world. Um, and we see continued growth for a long time and sponsorship and brands that want to be part of that exciting 2 hours of magic.
Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Ian Moore with Bernstein research, please proceed.
Hi, thanks guys. Um, I just wanted to zoom in a little bit hone in on uh, food and beverage spend. Um, I was just wondering if you could stratify the growth that you're seeing a little bit across uh across you know, different venue types, and then you know, front of the house back of the house, uh, VIP if possible. Thanks.
Yeah, we've had a strong year again at food and beverage, um, in our amp at theaters, our festivals owned and operated clubs. Um, we delivered on our growth Targets this year again. Um, continue to be better at diversifying our portfolio increase in our Hospitality, um, increase in our, our, our kind of our offerings, uh, across all platforms. So had a strong year. We continue to see year-over-year growth on site food and beverage, VIP Hospitality premium. Um, all of the ancillary revenues, when they come to that show, they still want to find that place to have fun, and, and spend some dollars to, to enjoy it.
Thank you.
There are no further questions at this time, I'd like to hand the call back to Michael Latino for closing remarks.
Thank you everyone for your participation and we'll talk to you tomorrow afternoon at our investor day. Look forward to it. Thank you.
This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time.
Thank you for your participation.