German Live Entertainment Giant CTS Eventim Grows Significantly In Q1-Q3

Kristian Sickinger – Ed Sheeran plays Hamburg
FKP Scorpio, which is part of CTS Eventim, says the Hamburg show in front of some 80,000 spectators was Sheeran

CTS Eventim has reported “significant growth” in revenue and earnings in the first nine months of 2018.

Group revenue rose by 23.9 percent year-on-year to €922.5 million ($1.1 billion), while normalised EBITDA grew by 17.1 percent to €140.0 million ($159 million).

Both CTS Eventim’s ticketing and promotion business contributed to these growth rates.

Ticketing revenue after nine months in 2018 stood at €276.5 million ($313 million), which marks a four percent increase compared to the same period last year.

According to CTS Eventim’s earnings report, “this was mainly attributable to a significant increase in online ticketing volume: no fewer than 33.7 million tickets were sold on CTS Eventim’s webshops – a year-on-year growth rate of 8.7 percent (Q1-3/2017: 31.0 million).”

Normalized EBITDA in Eventim’s ticketing operation stood at €102.1 million, plus of 3.8 percent year-on-year, and the first time normalized EBITDA exceeded the €100 million mark in the Q1-Q3 period.

“This encouraging growth in earnings was negatively affected by expenses incurred in implementing the General Data Protection Regulation,” the report reads.

CTS Eventim’s live entertainment segment revenu grew by 34.9 percent to €656.6 million ($744 million), while normalized EBITDA climbed by 78.8 percent to €37.9 million ($43 million).

Revenue and earnings in this segment have already exceeded the totals for 2017 after nine months, thanks to the many promoters under CTS Eventim’s ownership organizing a successful tours.

The biggest one is FKP Scorpio, which promoted Ed Sheeran’s incredibly successful European tour. New acquisitions in 2018 included Doctor Music in Spain and Vivo Concerti in Italy.

null – CTS Eventim
CEO Klaus-Peter Schulenberg

“Positive impacts were also created by the new ‘Holiday on Ice’ tour, by various music festivals – including the second ‘New Horizons’ festival which attracted 30 percent more visitors to the Nürburgring than at its debut last year – and by yet another successful season for the LANXESS arena in Cologne,” the company states.

The Eventim Group also has stakes in Germany’s flagship festivals Rock am Ring and Rock im Park, as well as, through FKP Scorpio in Hurricane and Southside. The company also operates venues including Lanxess Arena in Cologne, the Waldbühne in Berlin and the Eventim Apollo in London.

Klaus-Peter Schulenberg, CEO of CTS Eventim, said, “CTS Eventim is on course for another record year. We improved our online ticketing volume by almost nine percent, even though in many countries, also due to the Football World Championship, fewer highly profitable tours commanding higher price levels went on sale than the year before.

“The fact that we have ramped up our dynamic growth in recent months shows that we can be confident about the fourth quarter. We are looking forward to our Christmas business which has been and will be featuring a lot of presales for many attractive events.”