Eventim boss Schulenberg: "None of our festivals was in the red"

The first real festival season, including numerous summer tours, is gradually approaching the home stretch.

The elimination of the corona-related conditions coupled with the huge range of concerts had already given world market leader Live Nation record values ​​for the second quarter.

The results of Europe's largest event and ticketing group, CTS Eventim, are also good.

At EUR 595 million, sales in the second quarter of this year were not only well above the almost incomparable quarter of the previous year (EUR 46 million).

The result in the "record year" 2019 (414 million euros) was worse.

Global ticket sales increased 38 percent in the second quarter compared to 2019.

Benjamin Fisher

Editor in Business.

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"We are very satisfied," says Eventim boss Klaus-Peter Schulenberg in an interview with the FAZ "The figures clearly show that we are finally back in business".

Nevertheless, Wednesday's message referred to the plethora of problems that still exist: a lack of skilled workers, rising costs everywhere or the uncertainty about the further course of the pandemic.

"On average, we experience cost increases of 30 percent and more when events are postponed, which we cannot compensate for with higher admission prices, since the tickets have long been sold," says Schulenberg.

The second quarter traditionally sees the big festivals organized by Eventim companies, such as Rock am Ring or Hurricane and Southside, some with more than 70,000 visitors.

"In the crises of the past, the live industry has always benefited"

Like many other major events, they took place this year for the first time since 2019 - under difficult conditions: "None of our festivals were in the red, but of course we had significantly lower margins than in the past," says Schulenberg.

It was worse elsewhere.

The organizers of the "Fusion", for example, reported a loss of up to two million euros.

Those responsible for the well-known punk festival "Ruhrpott Rodeo" also speak of "financial difficulties" and have started a crowdfunding campaign.

The concerts and festivals of the now 34 organizers from the Eventim network, which covers 15 countries, ensure the bulk of the turnover of the M-Dax group.

In the second quarter, this item amounted to EUR 476 million, after EUR 12 million in 2021 and EUR 322 million in 2019. The normalized Ebitda margin of the Ticketing division, which is smaller in terms of sales (EUR 125 million in the second quarter of 2022), is much higher at 49 percent in the live area.

Here it was 9 percent in the past quarter.

In contrast to the expensive events, the group benefits here from being the market-leading ticket seller, primarily for non-group organizers from a wide variety of areas.

The noticeable increase in margin after 34 percent in 2019 is related to the improvement of processes,

Withdrawal from Russia completed

In addition to ticketing platforms and majority holdings in various large, primarily European promoters, Eventim also operates venues such as the Berlin Waldbühne, the Cologne Lanxess Arena and the Apollo in London.

A new multifunctional hall with a capacity of 16,000 spectators is also being built in Milan.

As of August 2021, the project is expected to cost 180 million euros.

Overall, an operating result of 105 million euros was posted for the second quarter, with a normalized Ebitda margin of 18 percent.

This means a significant increase compared to 2019 (55 million euros), but is only slightly more than in the same quarter of the previous year, where 99 million euros were incurred.

However, the receipt of around 102 million euros in government aid in November and December contributed to this.

The bottom line was an increase of around 55 million euros for the period from April to June, after a good 52 million in the same quarter of the previous year.

A minor point in the half-year financial report was the withdrawal from Russia.

Accordingly, this was completed on August 10 with the complete sale of the shares in the company in Russia for the symbolic price of one euro.

Festival tickets are getting more expensive

The fundamentally positive picture that emerges for Eventim is of course by no means representative of the entire industry.

"The trend continues that concerts by big artists sell quickly, but it's very problematic for lesser-known artists," says Schulenberg.

"I'm afraid it will be a difficult autumn for one or the other organizer." From the Eventim boss's point of view, there is no alternative to price increases: "We cannot avoid increasing the entrance fees for the festivals.

But our goal is for the fans to still be able to cope with the increase."

In general, the character of a festival - whether a traditional event or not - and the line-up of artists always play a role in "the resilience of the ticket price".

For autumn and winter, it is not just any new corona-related restrictions that are causing uncertainty.

Here, Schulenberg insists on rules that are as uniform as possible in order to be able to guarantee tour planning, a core concern of the industry.

Another issue is the effects of the Ukraine war: "In the crises of the past, the live industry has always benefited," says Schulenberg.

People might have given up a holiday, but instead treated themselves to one more concert.

“People are feeling the significant increase in the cost of living – especially as a result of higher energy prices – directly in their accounts.

We'll have to wait and see how this influences buying behavior.” In any case, Eventim is still not making any forecasts.