Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino has questioned the ability of streaming platforms to deliver a compelling super premium ‘superfan’ offering without access to concert ticket inventory, suggesting they and their record label partners lack sufficiently valuable content of their own to drive value. His comments came as the live entertainment giant reported that 2024 revenues hit an all time high of $23.2 billion, though operating income fell 24% to $824.5 million, due largely to Astroworld settlement costs.
Behind the headline figures, the company’s adjusted operating income - a key metric that excludes one-time costs and non-cash items - reached $2.15 billion, up 14% from 2023. This significant difference between operating income and adjusted figures is explained by several major exclusions, including the $454.9 million in Astroworld settlement costs, $549.9 million in depreciation and amortisation expenses, $128.6 million in acquisition-related expenses, and $110.3 million in stock-based compensation.
During the company’s earnings call, Rapino revealed that Live Nation has been in conversation with Spotify and other streaming platforms to make ticketing pre-sale inventory available to them, before pointing out that the company already has “a lot of presale programmes in place” and noting that a key part of a successful presale is to “maximise that inventory, to business and to consumers”.
“Spotify and Apple and Amazon, they’ve approached us. We’ve talked to them all about ideas on if they wanted inventory”, he said, but added that “there’s a cost to that” and it only makes sense for Live Nation to do a deal “in comparison to other options we have for that pre-sell, which is a very valuable asset”.
He offered investors and analysts a candid assessment of why streaming services are keen to pursue ticketing partnerships as they consider new higher priced ‘super premium’ subscription options, saying that they are “trying to add a $5 premium to a monthly subscription” but that they “don’t have enough of their own inventory in terms of music or free songs” to drive the value proposition, before scathingly adding “it’s always the easy go-to, let’s get them a pre-sale access”.
However, he noted that pre-sale access, by its nature, is a valuable and limited commodity, and scaling access presents significant challenges. “Everybody wants Beyoncé pre-sale, and that’s hard to scale”, said Rapino, before emphasising that valuable pre-sale rights don’t come cheaply. “The artists themselves tend to do their own deals. We do deals for the artist, but ultimately the artist has control of it. And that artist’s job is to maximize the revenue from it. They’re not giving that away to anyone for free”.
With a lot of uncertainty about what the much hyped ‘superfan opportunity’ really means - and who owns that opportunity - Rapino’s brutal assessment of Spotify’s super premium proposition - and the potential complexities of making that offer workable - may make gloomy reading for major label execs, including Universal Music’s Lucian Grainge, who recently pivoted the mega-major’s entire strategy towards a so-called ‘Streaming 2.0’ approach in which the superfan opportunity plays a key part.
More pertinently, Rapino’s confirmation that all three big streaming players - Spotify, Apple and Amazon - are exploring pre-sale inventory as part of their offer opens the prospect of a highly competitive battle between the various platforms to grab high-value potential super premium subscribers, with all the market fragmentation that might entail, harking back to the era of platforms striking exclusive ‘windowing’ periods for key releases.
Meanwhile, less than two months into 2025, Live Nation says that it has already sold 65 million tickets for concerts this year. When questioned about high-priced tickets appearing on resale sites, Rapino argued that this reflected strategic pricing rather than scalping issues.
“If you see any of those tickets, any tickets you’re talking about are going to be the high-end tickets sitting on the market. Those will flush out between now and show date”, he explained, adding “we could sell that out in a minute if we drop the price, right? So finding that right combination where you’ve making sure demand and supply kind of march along on the way to the show date, versus the 10am buyer sale”. In fact, he noted, “the instant we sold out at 10am means we transferred a lot of wealth to the scalpers”.
The company reported that stadium shows are now “selling through over 75%” in their first week on sale, higher than in previous years. However, Rapino acknowledged ongoing challenges with professional scalpers, saying “We got hit by multi-billions of bots on the Oasis on-sale”, describing it as “an arms race with us trying to stop them, not let them in the door and let them hold the tickets”.
Beyond North America, Rapino highlighted Live Nation’s global expansion, citing success like the “Coldplay show in India”, which was a “sell out” and the “largest single concert in history” with 125,000 people attending. “We saw those dates sell out instantly”, he added, “so we’ve been talking a lot about the globalisation of the consumer”.
The company recorded $454.9 million in “Astroworld estimated loss contingencies” during 2024, confirming that “all wrongful death lawsuits” stemming from the fatal crowdsurge at the Travis Scott founded festival in 2021 have “been resolved”, and “nearly all claims alleging personal injury have been settled”.
Live Nation intends to significantly expand its venue portfolio in 2025, announcing capital expenditure plans of $900 million to $1 billion. The bulk of this investment - between $700-800 million - will be spent on new venue development and upgrading existing properties, with around $250 million of the funding coming from external sources, including joint-venture partners and sponsorship agreements.
CFO Joe Berchtold explained that this aggressive expansion is key to the company’s growth strategy. “We’re continuing to see a lot of opportunities that have very attractive returns globally”, he said, noting the focus would be “heavily focused internationally at the arena level, globally focused on these large theatres, both types of venues that can not just deliver attractive returns, but also move some reasonable volume of fans, expand our shows, grow the market”.
Rapino added that the company has become the default partner for venue development globally: “We tend to be the first, second phone call if you’re a developer thinking about building or have land and want to use that land or have a venue you want to sell. So we see that pipeline growing and our appetite still remains very large to expand in that platform”.
The company expects to add 20 large venues through 2026, including stadiums in Bogotá and Toronto, seven amphitheaters, and nine large theatres, projecting these additions will bring six to seven million new fans into their venue network.
On the ongoing US Department Of Justice antitrust investigation, there is no update - but no news could be good news. “In the last administration there was really no interest in any discussion on settlement”, said Berchtold. “So we’re hoping that this DOJ returns to a more traditional approach and is open because they don’t own it in the same way. But we haven’t had any discussion yet”.
Looking ahead, Live Nation projects continued growth in 2025, with its stadium show pipeline up 60% and the company having already secured sponsorship commitments covering 75% of its expected 2025 revenue.
While streaming platforms may be eyeing concert ticket inventory as their route to premium subscribers, Rapino’s comments suggest they’ll face significant hurdles in securing meaningful access to what he repeatedly emphasized is “a very valuable asset” - one that appears to be performing stronger than ever as the company pushes ahead with its global venue expansion strategy.
