Losses Grow At Live Nation: Merger Costs, Lower Ticket Sales & Tickets Now Damage Bottom Line
(Updated) Losses grew at Live Nation last quarter as the company absorbed the cost of its January 25th merger with Ticketmaster, a drastic drop in income from Tickets Now and faltering concert attendance.
The company claims that the merger will eventually save $40 million in redundant costs. But that won't help much if ticket sales continue to fall. Last year they dropped 3% to 6.8 million from 7.1 million in the previous year while total spending per concert goer grew 2% to $59.71 from $58.57.
Ticket reseller Tickets Now had been delivering $15M in revenue a year to parent Ticketmaster, but when the federal merger approval required that links from their main ticketing site be dropped, revenues fell to $1 million. "The minute we had to unlink from our website, that business over the last year has deteriorated," said CEO Michael Rapino on the earnings call. "So we're looking at strategic options for that division."
How can total spending per concert goer grow 2% from $59.71 from $58.57? That’s a shrinkage. I think one of those from’s should be a ‘to’.
They deserve it for monopolizing the concert industry.
Funny how no one seems to “get it” stop charging so much for tix, adding ridiculous “service” charges, and overcharging for food/beverage. THEN maybe we’ll start buying tix in larger numbers again. They need to work together though, promoters/agents/bands.
In complete agreement. Ticketmaster is a beast that needs slaying. I went to ZERO concerts this year because of their gouging ways.
Because of their excessive fees, the markup on a simple ticket is as high as 60%. Yes, 60%. Here’s the breakdown of the ticket price for a STS9 concert at the BoA Pavilion this August. I shied away from checkout when I saw the final tally:
Ticket Price
US $27.50 +
Facility Charge
US $5.00 +
Convenience Charge
US $12.10 =
$44.60
What a rip-off.