CTS Eventim financials

Photo Credit: Anton Mislawsky

CTS Eventim has announced a record-breaking performance for the fiscal year 2023, “significantly exceeding” its forecast thanks to a strong Q4.

The German live ticketing giant reports consolidated revenue of €2.359 billion ($2.5B) in a record-setting year for 2023. That’s a 22.5% increase over the €1.926 billion ($2.07B) figure reported for 2022. The 2023 figure handily beats the €2 billion ($2.15B) figure projected by CTS in October 2023.

The massive growth was mostly powered by the ticketing and live entertainment segments—which saw strong growth throughout 2023. Ticketing revenue rose 32.5% to €717 million ($772M) from €541 million ($582M) reported in 2022. For the live entertainment segment, revenue jumped 18.9% year-on year to €1.677 billion ($1.80B) from the reported €1.410 billion ($1.51B) in 2022.

CTS Eventim normalized earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) came to €501.4 million ($540M) in 2023—up 31.9%. A full breakdown of outgoings was not included in the initial report, instead that will be released on March 26, 2024. The Live Entertainment segment EBITDA remained nearly unchanged at €119.1 million ($128.3M), while the Ticketing segment EBITDA was 46.6% to €382.4 million ($411.9M).

These preliminary figures also include income of €37.4m to which the group companies are entitled to receive compensation paid by the German government to the joint venture autoTicket GmbH, Berlin.

“As the prior-year figures contained a similar volume of income that had been received under pandemic-related economic aid programmes, the year-on-year growth rates shown here reflect the success of the operating business,” CTS Eventim said in a statement.

CTS Eventim owns brands including Rock am Ring and Rock im Park, both operating venues including Lanxess Arena in Cologne, the Waldbühne in Berlin, and the Eventim Apollo in London.

In a November 2023 report, the group attributed the live concerts and sports events for its growth. “The appeal of the content on offer continued to attract millions of fans worldwide to festivals and concerts despite higher ticket prices,” the report reads.