Live Nation Entertainment President and CEO Michael Rapino says there’s a easy cause for Ticketmaster’s market dominance: it’s a stronger product than its rivals that gives extra data to its companions.
Speaking at Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference, Rapino defended the much-maligned ticketing division of Live Nation, now going through an antitrust swimsuit from the U.S. Department of Justice.
“What Ticketmaster has continually done is built the best enterprise global platform,” Rapino stated throughout his Q&A with Goldman leisure trade analyst Stephen Laszczyk.
Live Nation took over Ticketmaster in 2010 as a part of the merger that perpetually modified the stay trade. At the time, Rapino says, Ticketmaster was a cloistered operation, conserving the data it collected on occasions and ticketbuyers to itself. Now, Rapino says, that data is shared with venues, artists and groups. That, he stated, is its “secret sauce advantage.”
What’s subsequent for Ticketmaster and Live Nation — past defending itself in a sophisticated antitrust motion — is international enlargement. Rapino stated exterior Canada, the U.S., the U.Okay. and, to a level, Australia, ticketing stays “unsophisticated” with “nowhere near the technology Ticketmaster has.”
Rapino acknowledged that a few of the near-constant client blowback Ticketmaster receives is essentially unavoidable. With tickets essentially restricted, there shall be a major variety of would-be ticketbuyers who're left empty-handed and he stated the corporate nonetheless struggles to unravel “this PR struggle,” significantly getting customers to grasp that Ticketmaster retains solely a small quantity of the charges it expenses.
Rapino additionally stated, on the venue aspect, Live Nation’s Venue Nation is targeted on “white space” markets: these which lack ample arena-sized live performance venues. While basketball- and hockey-loving markets have loads, resulting from their sporting necessities, a lot of the world is enamored with soccer, leading to a surfeit of stadia and a dearth of indoor buildings.
He additionally echoed his predictions from earlier earnings calls concerning the pipeline for 2025. This yr has been comparatively sluggish for stadium enterprise as, for instance, Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour” and Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” wound down, although Live Nation has seen steadiness in arenas and progress at the amphitheater stage. Rapino says subsequent yr stadium enterprise ought to rebound with continued energy in arenas and consistency within the sheds.
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