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Live Nation predicts record year as concert ticket prices rise 20%

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February 24, 2022

The world’s largest concert and ticketing business, Live Nation Entertainment (LNE) is bullish about the year ahead despite publishing financial results showing full-year revenue of $6.27 billion (£4.68bn) in 2021 being down 84% on the $11.55bn (£8.62bn) achieved in 2019. In 2020 it reported full-year revenue of $1.86bn (£1.391bn).

LNE saw a huge rise in Q4 revenue last year to $2.7bn (£2.02) from just $237.3m (£177.8m) during the same period in 2020.

CEO Michael Rapino said the company, which owns Ticketmaster, enjoyed a record quarter for ticketing in Q4 2021 with gross transactional value at a new high. Its ticketing business generated $365.4m (£273.8m) in revenue during the quarter compared to just $10.9m (£8.16m) the previous year.

Rapino said 45 million tickets had already been sold for shows in 2022, with ticket prices for “Top 10 tours” up by more than 20% on pre-pandemic levels.

He said that in the final five months of 2021 more than 15m people attended LNE-promoted outdoor shows, including festivals and stadium shows – nearly 25% more than during the same period in 2019.

In 2021 as a whole, LNE promoted more than 17,000 concerts for 35 million fans – with average per-fan revenue up double-digits on 2019. In 2019 it staged more than 40,000 events with attendance of more than 97,000.

Rapino said, “With the strength in ticket sales, not surprisingly, we are seeing every leading indicator for 2022 up relative to 2019, reinforcing our confidence that we will have a record year in 2022 that sets us up for growth over the next several years,” said Rapino.

He reported that, by mid February this year, LNE had sold 45m tickets for 2022 shows – up 45% on the same point in 2019: “We already have eight artists who have sold more than 500,000 tickets for their tours this year, including Bad Bunny, Dua Lipa and Billie Eilish.”

LNE’s long-term debt had grown 6% year-on-year to $5.14bn (£3.85bn) at the close of 2021, from $4.85bn (£3.63bn) the previous year.

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