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As Live Nation sees yet more impressive growth in 2016, analyst ponders whether Amazon Tickets will have a future impact

By | Published on Friday 24 February 2017

Live Nation

“Live is a truly unique entertainment form – it cannot be duplicated [and] it is elevated, not threatened, by technology”, said Live Nation chief Michael Rapino yesterday, as his company published impressive financials for 2016, with revenues up 15% to $8.4 billion and initial operating profit up a neat 48% to $195 million. Good times.

Though ahead of those figures, one analyst wondered whether – even if technology can’t hurt live entertainment – what about a technology company? In terms of revenue growth in particular, Live Nation’s ticketing business does more than its fair share, and – as previously reported – ticketing is an area where Amazon now has some pretty big ambitions.

To that end, BTIG analyst Brandon Ross earlier this week assessed whether Amazon could cause a slow down in Live Nation’s impressive growth once it starts to properly roll out its ticketing business – which it has piloted here in the UK – worldwide.

His analysis noted some of the features that could help Amazon succeed in the incredibly competitive ticketing business, not least the fact it can target more casual consumers amongst this massive existing userbase, especially in the US, bundling tickets with other entertainment products. Though, at the same time, he conceded that Live Nation retains a big advantage in being artist manager, concert promoter and venue operator as well as a major ticketing platform.

To that end, Ross concluded that Amazon does not present a “near-time risk” to Live Nation’s Ticketmaster business, but could nevertheless pose a long-term threat. That, in no small part Ross reckoned, depended on Amazon’s ability to break into the US ticketing market. It’s by no means assured Amazon can do that – given the synergies across the Live Nation business, not to mention the growing ticketing operations of its rival AEG – but the retail firm’s big move into ticket-selling is definitely something to closely monitor in the coming years.

Though, actually, over at Live Nation, it’s really Ticketmaster’s secondary ticketing business that is scoring the most impressive growth figures, so it could probably take a hit on primary sales and still continue to grow overall.

This explains the live firm’s persistence in the ticket resale sector despite the PR challenges it creates, given the growing animosity towards the big bad touts – and their enablers – within the artist community. Indeed, many artists, managers and indie promoters would argue that the live sector is, actually, “threatened by technology”, because of the boom it has enabled in touting. But for Live Nation even that has “elevated” the business.



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