Rapino said he does not see a new trend versus prior years and framed live entertainment as \u201ca continual growth industry on a global basis.\u201d He described industry-wide growth as \u201chigh single digits,\u201d adding that Live Nation hopes to outperform that based on the combination of \u201cmore bands on the road\u201d and more fans wanting to see them.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\n
Responding to a question about the Department of Justice case, Rapino said the company was \u201cvery pleasantly surprised\u201d by a judge\u2019s partial grant of Live Nation\u2019s motion for summary judgment. He said the court determined that promotion and booking services are not a monopoly and called that market definition \u201cnot an accurate\u201d one.<\/p>\n
Rapino argued that dismissal undercuts the rationale for a potential breakup, saying the breakup argument was \u201cfounded on some notion of mutually reinforcing monopolies,\u201d and that the ruling that promotion and booking are not a monopoly \u201ctakes away that edge risk that some folks had had.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also said the court dismissed what he called the \u201cnational consumer monopoly market,\u201d which he said means the government needs to show that Ticketmaster\u2019s alleged monopoly harms venues rather than relying on claims it harms fans. Rapino said the company believes that makes the case \u201csomewhat more difficult\u201d for the government.<\/p>\n
On the secondary market, Berchtold described the company\u2019s efforts in two categories: restricting broker activity on its platform and trying to prevent scalpers from obtaining tickets in the first place.<\/p>\n
Berchtold said that shortly after an FTC lawsuit, Ticketmaster took \u201cimmediate action\u201d that \u201cdramatically restricts\u201d brokers selling on its platform, including limiting brokers to \u201cone broker account per tax ID\u201d and requiring ticket listings to stay within limits. He said the impact has been to \u201csubstantially reduce,\u201d or \u201croughly cut in half,\u201d the number of broker-listed concert tickets on the platform, while noting the tickets may still be sold elsewhere \u201cpending them taking similar steps.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said Ticketmaster has also ramped up account-creation identity verification and is increasing the use of tools\u2014including identity verification\u2014for artist signups and queues to improve real-fan access. Berchtold also pointed to increased use of Face Value Exchange and said the tools are helping \u201cshrink the overall industry\u201d while giving artists more control over tickets and fan relationships.<\/p>\n
Rapino said Live Nation supports \u201cgiving more control to the artists,\u201d adding the company supports price caps \u201cbecause we don\u2019t seem to be getting more nuanced solutions to give the artists that control.\u201d He said momentum is building against problematic secondary behavior and highlighted recent efforts with artists including Noah Kahan and Kid Rock. Rapino said more than 100 artists are now using Face Value Exchange and said he expects legislation to \u201ccreep in\u201d state by state.<\/p>\n
Berchtold said demand remains strong across concerts, festivals, and the club and theater level. He emphasized affordability, stating that in the U.S., \u201c75% of the tickets are under $100,\u201d and said artists are \u201cacutely aware\u201d of pricing to ensure broad fan access. He added the company is \u201cnot seeing any pullback, any issues whatsoever in demand for any budget-conscious fans.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked about recent on-sale activity and sell-through, Berchtold said performance is \u201cconsistent\u201d with last year. He cited examples of unusually high demand mentioned in the earnings release, naming Harry Styles, BTS, and Bruno Mars as having demand \u201chigher than we\u2019ve ever seen before.\u201d He also noted Live Nation is not involved with FIFA ticketing and did not comment on World Cup pricing.<\/p>\n
On Ticketmaster gross transaction value (GTV), Berchtold said the company ended the year with GTV up about 6%, driven by a 9% increase in concerts and a 1% decline in sports and other third-party activity. Looking ahead, he said Live Nation expects growth to \u201cprobably accelerate a bit,\u201d with potential improvement in other categories over the year, while stating the company feels good about Ticketmaster\u2019s operational \u201crunway.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rapino also addressed distribution partners, saying they are less critical for \u201csuperstar stuff\u201d that sells out on its own, but helpful for shows that need more reach. He cited Spotify among multiple partners that can help sell tickets for non-sellout events in various markets.<\/p>\n
On Venue Nation, Berchtold disclosed that pre-opening costs were $25 million last year and are expected to ramp to $50 million this year, adding he does not expect that pace of increase to continue as the business reaches a steadier state and venues mature \u201ctwo to three years\u201d after opening. Rapino said the company has a \u201clarge pipe\u201d of arena and amphitheater opportunities globally and expects more to come.<\/p>\n
Finally, Berchtold said venues choose Ticketmaster primarily because \u201cwe just sell more tickets,\u201d citing promoters and managers\u2019 views that Ticketmaster helps deliver higher grosses through distribution, marketing, and pricing tools. He said economics can matter more in mature markets like the U.S., while venue-level software tools may play a larger role in less mature markets, but emphasized that \u201cselling tickets is the overriding number one factor.\u201d<\/p>\n
Live Nation Entertainment is a global live entertainment company that promotes, operates and sells tickets for live events. The company’s core activities include concert promotion and production, venue operations and management, ticketing services through its Ticketmaster platform, artist management and development, and sponsorship and advertising services tied to live events. These integrated businesses are designed to connect artists, fans and commercial partners across the live event ecosystem.<\/p>\n
The company in its current form was created following the 2010 merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster, combining a promoter and venue operator with one of the industry’s largest ticketing platforms.<\/p>\n
The article “Live Nation Entertainment Q4 Earnings Call Highlights<\/a>” was originally published by MarketBeat.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source finance.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Live Nation Entertainment logo Live Nation Entertainment (NYSE:LYV) executives used the company\u2019s full-year and fourth-quarter 2025 earnings call to outline drivers behind their outlook for 2026, discuss recent developments in ongoing government scrutiny, and provide more detail on demand trends and the company\u2019s Venue Nation buildout. President and CFO Joe Berchtold said the company is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2295740,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[444927,315324,23465,315323,312145],"class_list":["post-2295739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-berchtold","tag-joe-berchtold","tag-live-nation-entertainment","tag-michael-rapino","tag-ticketmaster"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Live-Nation-Entertainment-Q4-Earnings-Call-Highlights.gif","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2295739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2295739"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2295739\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2295741,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2295739\/revisions\/2295741"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2295740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2295739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2295739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2295739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}