Ticketmaster in Q1 ’18 set another record for its highest-performing quarter in company history, selling nearly 60 million tickets and generating $5B in gross transaction value. The figures, part of quarterly earnings reported by parent company Live Nation, surpass prior Ticketmaster records of 50 million tickets sold and $4.5B in gross transaction value in Q4 last year. “Our strategic partnership with the NFL is off to a strong start, with substantial increases in both primary and secondary ticket sales since the schedules were released,” Live Nation President & CEO Michael Rapino said. Live Nation on Thursday also announced a partnership with Austin-based biometric technology company Blink Identity to incorporate facial recognition technology into its emerging Ticketmaster Presence identity-based ticketing systems. “Whether this becomes the solution for everything or whether this becomes an interesting product for a number of clients is to be determined. We just think it’s the important part of where we’re moving the Ticketmaster DNA to,” Rapino said.
ON THE OFFENSIVE: Live Nation President Joe Berchtold took sharp aim at competitor AEG and allegations of violating its consent decree from the Department of Justice during an analysts call, saying, “We do not believe that over the past eight years, with almost 200,000 shows and thousands of Ticketmaster renewals, that we’ve made a practice of violating the consent decree. Unfortunately, our competitor, AEG, has chosen to complain to the [Department of Justice] whenever they lose to us, which has been often. And when they didn’t get what they wanted out of the DOJ, they complained to the New York Times. That’s the genesis of this. ... Any possible disagreement with the DOJ is very much on the margin.”
