{"id":224515,"date":"2025-02-21T12:36:54","date_gmt":"2025-02-21T12:36:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/?p=224515"},"modified":"2025-02-21T12:37:07","modified_gmt":"2025-02-21T12:37:07","slug":"live-nation-saw-151m-fans-attend-its-events-in-2024-as-revenue-rose-3-to-23bn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/live-nation-saw-151m-fans-attend-its-events-in-2024-as-revenue-rose-3-to-23bn\/","title":{"rendered":"Live Nation saw 151m fans attend its events in 2024, as revenue rose 3% to $23bn"},"content":{"rendered":"MBW\u2019s Stat Of The Week is a series in which we highlight a data point that deserves the attention of the global music industry. Stat Of the Week is supported by\u00a0music data analytics firm\u00a0Chartmetric<\/a>.\r\n\r\n
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Some 151 million people attended nearly 55,000 Live Nation events in 2024, an increase of 4% year-on-year, the events and ticketing company said in its full-year earnings report on Thursday (February 20).<\/p>\n

The company said 60 million<\/strong> fans attended shows in venues operated by Venue Nation<\/strong>, its venue operating division, up by double digits from the previous calendar year.<\/p>\n

Live Nation has focused in recent years on developing its own network of venues, and in 2024, it built and refurbished three new venues that attracted 2 million<\/strong> attendees. Return on investment on those venues was \u201cat or above planned levels,\u201d the company said.<\/p>\n

The increased demand drove a 3% YoY<\/strong><\/span> increase in revenue to USD $23.16 billion<\/strong>, not adjusted for currency fluctuations. Adjusted operating income grew 14% YoY<\/strong><\/span> to $2.15 billion<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Earnings per share for the year were $2.74<\/strong>, more than doubling the $1.34 EPS recorded in 2023.<\/p>\n

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Live Nation<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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For calendar Q4, revenue was down 2% YoY<\/strong><\/span> to $5.68 billion<\/strong>, while adjusted operating income grew 35% YoY<\/strong><\/span> to $157.3 million<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Revenue from concerts came in at $19.02 billion<\/strong> in calendar 2024, up 2% YoY<\/strong><\/span>. In Q4, concert revenue totaled $4.58 billion<\/strong>, down 6% YoY<\/strong><\/span>.<\/p>\n

(Live Nation\u2019s latest earnings report corrected some errors in its Q1 and Q2 2023 numbers, which impacted its overall numbers for 2023. Among other things, the company adjusted its full-year revenue for 2023 downwards by $22.8 million. The above percentages are based on the new, adjusted numbers.)<\/p>\n

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Live Nation<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Ticketmaster, the company\u2019s ticketing division, sold 637 million<\/strong> tickets in 2024, up 2.7% YoY<\/strong><\/span>. Ticketing revenue came in at $2.99 billion<\/strong>, up 0.1% YoY<\/strong><\/span>, not adjusted for currency fluctuations.<\/p>\n

In Q4, Ticketmaster sold 176 million<\/strong> tickets, up 4.1% YoY<\/strong><\/span>, while revenue grew 13.7% YoY<\/strong><\/span> to $841.1 million<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u201c2024 was live music\u2019s biggest year yet, as artists toured the world and fans turned out in record numbers,\u201d CEO Michael Rapino<\/strong> said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201c2025 is shaping up to be even bigger thanks to a deep global concert pipeline, with more stadium shows on the books than ever before.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Looking ahead to 2025, Live Nation says its stadium show pipeline is up 60%<\/strong><\/span>, in line with execs\u2019 previous predictions of a very strong stadium year.<\/p>\n

Live Nation has already sold 65 million<\/strong> tickets for its own concerts this year, and 75%<\/strong> of expected sponsorships for the year have already been committed. Ticketmaster has transacted 106 million<\/strong> tickets for 2025 so far, up 3%<\/strong> compared to the same point last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cArtists who are touring in 2025 and recently toured in 2022-2024 are averaging double-digit growth in tickets sold per show and gross revenue per show,\u201d Live Nation said.<\/p>\n

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The company is scaling up its rollout of new venues and expects to add 20 large venues (stadiums, arenas, amphitheaters, and large theaters) through 2026, which it expects will add 6 million <\/strong>to 7 million<\/strong> incremental fans.<\/p>\n

Major projects include stadiums in Bogot\u00e1 and Toronto, along with seven amphitheaters and nine large theaters, Live Nation said.<\/p>\n

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On the company\u2019s earnings call Thursday, CFO Joe Berchtold<\/strong> forecast around $900 million<\/strong> in CapEx for 2025, up almost by half from the $632.6 million<\/strong> in CapEx in 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re continuing to see a lot of opportunities that have very attractive returns globally\u2026 at the arena level, globally focused on these large theaters, both types of venues, that can not just deliver attractive returns, but also move some reasonable volume of fans, expand our shows, grow the market,\u201d Berchtold said.<\/p>\n

Rapino said he expects live music globally to be \u201ca high-single, double-digit kind of industry for the next decade.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c2024 was live music\u2019s biggest year yet, as artists toured the world and fans turned out in record numbers.”<\/p>\n

Michael Rapino, Live Nation<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On the earnings call, Berchtold addressed the ongoing antitrust lawsuit the US Justice Department brought against Live Nation<\/a> last year. Company execs had previously expressed hope<\/a> for a change of approach to antitrust action in the federal administration, but Berchtold said it\u2019s too early to tell if that change will materialize.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe haven’t had any discussions yet. The person that you would discuss it with has not been approved yet, not been appointed. So until that happens, there’s nothing we can do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Noting that the antitrust trial is expected to begin in early 2026, Berchtold said the \u201cquestion is, over the course of this year\u2026 is there a path towards a resolution with the DOJ that doesn’t lead to the trial? We’ve said in the last administration, there was really no interest in any discussion on settlement. So we’re hoping that this DOJ returns to a more traditional approach.\u201d<\/p>\n

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<\/a><\/figure>Chartmetric<\/a> is the all-in-one platform for artists and music industry professionals, providing comprehensive streaming, social, and audience data for everyone to create successful careers in music.<\/em><\/span><\/strong>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The live events and ticketing company is stepping up rollout of its own operated venues this year<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":194387,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[133691,130989,122895,489,491,124425],"class_list":["post-224515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-2024-earnings","tag-antitrust-lawsuit","tag-joe-berchtold","tag-live-nation","tag-michael-rapino","tag-stat-of-the-week"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}