Rapino Defends Ticketmaster At Goldman Confab, Says Data Is ‘Secret Sauce’

Live Nation Entertainment President and CEO Michael Rapino says there’s a simple reason for Ticketmaster’s market dominance: it’s a stronger product than its competitors that offers more information to its partners.

Speaking at Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference, Rapino defended the much-maligned ticketing division of Live Nation, now facing an antitrust suit from the U.S. Department of Justice.

“What Ticketmaster has continually done is built the best enterprise global platform,” Rapino said during his Q&A with Goldman entertainment industry analyst Stephen Laszczyk.

Live Nation took over Ticketmaster in 2010 as part of the merger that forever changed the live industry. At the time, Rapino says, Ticketmaster was a cloistered operation, keeping the data it collected on events and ticketbuyers to itself. Now, Rapino says, that information is shared with venues, artists and teams. That, he said, is its “secret sauce advantage.”

What’s next for Ticketmaster and Live Nation — beyond defending itself in a complicated antitrust action — is global expansion. Rapino said outside Canada, the U.S., the U.K. and, to a degree, Australia, ticketing remains “unsophisticated” with “nowhere near the technology Ticketmaster has.”

Rapino acknowledged that some of the near-constant consumer blowback Ticketmaster receives is largely unavoidable. With tickets necessarily limited, there will be a significant number of would-be ticketbuyers who are left empty-handed and he said the company still struggles to solve “this PR struggle,” particularly getting consumers to understand that Ticketmaster retains only a small amount of the fees it charges.

Rapino also said, on the venue side, Live Nation’s Venue Nation is focused on “white space” markets: those which lack adequate arena-sized concert venues. While basketball- and hockey-loving markets have plenty, due to their sporting requirements, much of the world is enamored with soccer, resulting in a surfeit of stadia and a dearth of indoor buildings.

He also echoed his predictions from earlier earnings calls about the pipeline for 2025. This year has been relatively slow for stadium business as, for example, Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour” and Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” wound down, though Live Nation has seen steadiness in arenas and growth at the amphitheater level. Rapino says next year stadium business should rebound with continued strength in arenas and consistency in the sheds.