Ticketmaster extend market lead in global entertainment ticketing

Ticketmaster continued growing its global leadership position in ticketing in 2018, with fee-bearing gross transaction value (GTV) up 14% and total platform GTV of US$33 billion.

As revealed in the Friday release of the company’s results for 2018, Live Nation’s top priority for Ticketmaster in 2018 was deploying its Presence digital ticketing solution, which the company sees as key for effectively unlocking the value of its customer relationships across its ticketing, concerts and sponsorship businesses.

By the end of 2018, Live Nation deployed Presence in over 200 venues, operating 20,000 events for 40 million fans, approximately half of whom used digital tickets.

For 2019 the company anticipates further growth expecting to have Presence in over 500 venues by the end of this year, with over 125 million fans attending events at these buildings. At that point, Live Nation will cover over 75% of major sports and Live Nation buildings, making Ticketmaster by far the global leader in digital ticketing.

At the same time, Live Nation expects to continue building its marketplace, with the fourth quarter of 2018 being its highest fee-bearing GTV quarter ever, selling over 60 million fee-bearing tickets in a quarter for the first time, and delivering over $5 billion in fee-bearing GTV.

Overall in 2018, Ticketmaster managed over 400,000 events, delivering almost 500 million tickets to fans in 28 countries. Live Nation continues adding new clients to our marketplace, who collectively added over 10 million new tickets in 2018.

Commenting on this performance, Live Nation President and Chief Executive, Michael Rapino stated “I believe we have tremendous opportunity for growth on a global basis, particularly in the 13 markets where we promote concerts but do not yet have a substantial ticketing operation.

“In 2018, we furthered our international expansion, establishing ticketing operations in Italy, growing our German operations and laying the groundwork for expansion into Latin America. Ticketmaster continues to exceed expectations, both operationally and in its leadership position in digital ticketing, which we believe it can extend globally and deliver continued profitable growth."