Live Nation Stock Spikes Following Q3 2024 Earnings Release — Execs Anticipate ‘A Return to the More Traditional Antitrust Approach’ Amid DOJ Legal Battle

Live Nation president and CEO Michael Rapino. Photo Credit: Live Nation

Live Nation (NYSE: LYV) has posted a slight YoY revenue decrease for Q3 2024 – including due to a 17% falloff in ticketing. However, execs appear optimistic that the DOJ’s antitrust suit could soon be in the rearview, and LYV jumped during after-hours trading.The Ticketmaster parent posted its third-quarter financials this afternoon, amid, among other things, a high-stakes DOJ antitrust lawsuit. Predictably, given the forthcoming administration change, the topic quickly came up during Live Nation’s Q3 earnings call.

“It’s still very early in the transition process, so we’re hesitant to say too much,” relayed Live Nation CFO Joe Berchtold. “But absolutely, we are hopeful that we’ll see a return to the more traditional antitrust approach. Where the agencies have generally tried to find ways to solve problems they see with targeted remedies, that minimize government intervention in the marketplace.

“And without getting into specifics, at least some parts of the case, we think – believe reflect a much more interventionist philosophy today than you’d expect of a Republican administration. Obviously, the request to break up Live Nation and Ticketmaster would be an example of that highly interventionist approach. So we’ll obviously be ready to engage as soon as they are,” proceeded Berchtold.

Back to the business’s core Q3 financials – Live Nation, which has teed up an investor presentation for Wednesday, kept the conference call relatively short – overall revenue came in at $7.65 billion on the quarter (down 6% YoY), per the report.As a pertinent aside, Live Nation revised the Q3 2023 figures as well. “For context, what we had is a non-cash, non-operating-tax adjustment that we had to make,” elaborated Berchtold. “This has to do with when we purchased Ocesa and the difference between statutory and U.S. GAAP accounting on some non-consolidated investments.

“So it was just on the U.S. side – we paid the taxes in Mexico, we missed it in the U.S. … Working through with the auditors, we made the decision, it made sense to restate those numbers,” the CFO continued.

Within Q3 2024’s revenue, concerts, as usual, led the pack with a $6.58 billion contribution (down 6% YoY); ticketing’s aforementioned 17% YoY decline resulted in a sum of $693.7 million for the quarter.Rounding out total revenue, sponsorship and advertising reached $390.3 million in Q3 (up 6% YoY), with a loss of $13.5 million attributed to other and eliminations. On the volume front, Live Nation pointed to a 13% YoY hike to approximately 40,000 Q3 events, “fueled by arenas and amphitheaters and double-digit growth in theater and club shows.”

Notwithstanding the revenue dips, though, Live Nation adjusted operating income neared $910 million during Q3 2024 – up 4% YoY, including a 39% YoY spike for concerts to a “record” $474.1 million, the breakdown shows. Nevertheless, ticketing’s operating income slipped roughly 33% YoY to $235.7 million, the resource relays.

Shifting to Live Nation’s performance across 2024’s initial nine months, total revenue grew 3% YoY to $17.47 billion, $14.45 billion of which stemmed from concerts (up 4% YoY), the document indicates.

Lastly, CEO Michael Rapino took the opportunity to predict “an even bigger 2025” for Live Nation, shares in which were up 6.1%, at about $130 a pop, during after-hours trading at the time of writing.