International Ticketing Report 2022 preview

Editor James Drury Sub Editor Michael Muldoon Designer Philip Millard Contributors

Lars Brandle James Drury Derek Robertson Adam Woods

Marketing & advertising Gareth Ospina Tom Brint

Editorial support

Steliana Foligo Laura Silvaa

Cover image

Diplo performing in Adelaide, Australia, 2019 © Danny Howe / Unsplash.com

IQ Magazine

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Welcome 5

Features

Ticket Tech 6–17

Making memories beyond the concert 20–25 The global perspective 26–27

Market profiles

Argentina 28 Australia 29 Austria 31 Baltics 32 Belgium 33 Brazil 34 Bulgaria 35 Canada 36 Chile 37 China 38 Czech Republic 40 Denmark 42 Finland 43 France 44 Germany 46 Greece 49 Hong Kong 50 Hungary 51 India 52 Ireland 53 Israel 54 Italy 55 Japan 56 Luxembourg 57 Mexico 58 Netherlands 59 New Zealand 60 Norway 61 Poland 62 Portugal 63 Romania 63 Singapore 64 South Africa 65 Spain 66 Sweden 67 Switzerland 68 Türkiye 69 UAE 70 UK 72 USA 76

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Welcome

After the turmoil of the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s a great pleasure to be able to welcome you to the latest edition of the International Ticketing Report (previously the International Ticketing Yearbook). Now in its seventh edition, this is the most comprehensive review of the global ticketing industry – a ceaselessly dynamic and innovative part of the entertainment business.

With most countries joyously greeting audiences in venues once more, 2022 has seen one of the busiest periods for ticketing companies ever. As president of Ticketmaster Mark Yovich notes in our exclusive interview on pages 26-27, “This summer really has blown previous years out of the water.” And despite the challenges this pressure brings, the sector has been responding with ingenuity.

Every year there’s new tech and hot topics to discuss, and as always we’re taking an in-depth look at them. In this edition, you’ll discover some of the companies that are finding creative solutions to some of the industry’s problems, while we take a special look at NFTs and what their growing popularity means for promoters and ticketers alike.

A huge amount of work goes into making this publication, so I’d like to say a big thank-you to everyone who helped put it together –they worked tirelessly to hone the detailed reviews of over 40 individual markets. Their dedication is what makes this report so valuable to so many people. My thanks also to everyone who contributed knowledge, took part in interviews, and supported the International Ticketing Report. And finally, to executive editor Tim Chambers for sharing his expertise and insight.

I hope you find this year’s publication interesting and a valuable resource over the coming 12 months.

Drury | Editor

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James

TICKET TECH

Ticketing is a hotbed of technological innovation, and there’s no shortage of companies offering new solutions to gaps in the market. We hear from some of the firms seeking to make ticketing better.

TICKET

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Making memories beyond the concert

The pandemic has hastened the move away from paper tickets to see most territories fully embracing digital passes. Yet for all the advantages mobile ticketing brings – security, control over the secondary market, data-gathering, environmental and administrative benefits, what’s missing is the ‘souvenir’ element of a paper ticket stub.

This element of extending the fan connection post-event is where many people believe NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) can play an important role. “We think it’s a great way for us to engage with our fans using NFT and that direct relationship now to add rewards, add perks, add souvenir moments,” Live Nation Entertainment CEO Michael Rapino told an investors call in 2021. He discussed his interest in the benefits of NBA Top Shot, where fans can buy, trade, and sell digital collectables of NBA moments. These ‘moments’ – often short videos of an amazing dunk or key moment – were sent to ticketholders’ wallets after each game as an NFT. They can be traded, shared online, or used to unlock VIP opportunities, rewards, and more.

Inevitably, in August 2022, Live Nationowned Ticketmaster partnered with the Flow blockchain operated by Dapper Labs, which is behind NBA Top Shot. “Event organisers who choose to offer fans an NFT with their ticket have a real opportunity to make this new technology relevant and relatable at scale,” said Brendan Lynch, Ticketmaster EVP of enterprise & revenue at the time. “This is why we are partnering with Flow, because their blockchain is custom-built for fan engagement and frictionless consumer experiences.”

The breadth of opportunities these digital

collectables offer is what’s exciting many, such as Olivier Biggs of GET Protocol: “In 2016, we started with blockchain ticketing because our founders were interested in the promise of transparency and accountability in ticketing,” he says. “Ticketing can have opaque situations that lead to distrust between promoters, artists, venues, and fans. Originally, eradicating scalping and fraud was the main goal. And we achieved that quite quickly by designing a system where there’s a very clear, simple ticket market, where anyone can see the aspects of their tickets, they can see whether it’s been resold or not, for what price, and everything is transparent.

“Then, in 2019, the NFT hype kicked off. All of our tickets were already on-chain, meaning anyone could see them transparently on a blockchain. But with NFTs, there were suddenly all sorts of new, exciting elements that came into play. And that got us and many others thinking: this is very relevant for ticketing.

“First and foremost is the application of collectables. That’s one of the more understandable approaches because it’s a human trait to want to collect something of an experience you enjoyed or that was a once-in-a-lifetime moment. It’s like a moment of fandom encapsulated into tangible items. Our tickets are NFTs, meaning they are also digital collectables. We prefer to call them digital collectables as opposed to NFTs because it makes more sense to people.”

GET Protocol has around 15 ticketing companies using its technology, ranging from the full white-label offer to more bespoke combinations. One of them, Guts Tickets in Holland, works with the Dutch basketball champion team. The company offers digital collectables with tickets that the attendee can claim post-event. These include things such as a highlight picture of the game, which creates a collectable digital item that fans can keep as a memento.

Vienna-based B.A.M. Ticketing offers blockchain ticketing and collectable NFTs. The company set up its own blockchain to solve the issues the digital ledger has sometimes shown, such as speed of processing.

Co-founder and CEO Georg Müller says the added economic value of post-event engagement possibilities these digital collectables provide are sometimes not fully realised by promoters. “Every time we ask event organisers: ‘what’s the use of adding these post-event elements?’ Often, we get the reply: ‘We don’t know; we just want to get additional revenue from selling them.’ But nobody will buy something like this if there’s

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NFTs are the hot topic in ticketing right now. As their uptake grows, artists and promoters are getting increasingly creative with how these digital collectables can be used to keep fans engaged after the show.

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The global perspective

Unprecedented numbers of events, the ever-shifting technology landscape, new sales patterns, and recovery from Covid – 2022 will certainly go down as one of the landmark years in ticketing. Throughout the International Ticketing Report we see stories of change across all markets, but let’s zoom out for a moment to consider the worldwide perspective. In this exclusive interview, Ticketmaster president Mark Yovich takes stock.

Looking back at summer 2022, what’s your assessment of how business has been?

Summer 2022 will go down as one the biggest in Ticketmaster history. September alone was a record-breaker, with teams in fields, stadiums, and arenas across the Northern hemisphere scanning more than 34m tickets – the largest scan volume we’ve ever seen in the span of just one month. We always knew it was going to be big, but this summer really has blown previous years out of the water. Looking at our own house, we truly have the best people in the business – they rose to the challenge to deliver one of the most electric summers of live.

What lessons do you think Covid has taught the ticketing industry, and what does the ‘new normal’ look like to you from a global perspective?

If the pandemic taught us anything, it’s that

the demand for live events endures. The demand from fans clamouring to get back into theatres, clubs, fields, and stadiums has been palpable. It’s a testament to just how important live events are in all of our lives. That act of coming together with friends, family, and other fans to experience the power of live music together is incomparable.

As for the ‘new normal’ – digital is king. We knew this long before 2020, but the pandemic certainly hastened adoption of digital ticketing. Globally, our clients are using double the amount of mobile tickets this year than they were in 2019. Ticketmaster has long been a pioneer in this space, and we continue to invest in innovation to lead the industry.

As we move ahead, it’s obvious that business is now more global than ever. Which is why we evolved ourselves into a single global team, one that is even better equipped to solve the needs of our clients and delight fans wherever they are in the world.

What key themes do you think the industry will be facing in the coming 12-18 months?

Sitting back and waiting for the fan to come to us is a thing of the past. It’s all about convenience and adapting to consumer behaviour patterns. That’s why we’re bullish with our partnerships that help our clients reach potential ticket buyers in whole new ways – on the channels they use the most. This year, we partnered up with Snapchat where we have seen more than 7m event swipes already, and TikTok where we have 55m unique users already engaging with Ticketmaster content. Partnerships like these are invaluable. They further establish Ticketmaster as the place for clients to showcase their inventory and will only continue to lead to increased conversions.

What technologies do you think will be playing an important role in the near future for ticketing?

Fans are at the heart of live events. We are hyper-focused on using fan insights to evolve our marketplace experience for ticket buyers, to even better support our clients’ goals. Our teams have been hard at work evolving our marketplace experience so that it is deeply rooted in responding to fan needs.

As we look at other innovations, NFTs continue to be an exciting area of exploration. We are working in partnership with clients to extend the life of the live event experience before, after, and during the live event experience through the distribution and gamification of NFTs. I expect to see even more creativity in this space roll into 2023.

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President of Ticketmaster Mark Yovich looks back over the global return to live music in 2022 from a ticketing viewpoint and considers what’s on the horizon.

Argentina

Population: 46million

Language: Spanish

Currency: Argentinian peso (ARS)

GDP per capita: $19,700

Internet users: 39million

Active smartphone users: 54.8million

Judging from the live music headlines alone, Argentina is having a boom time. The biggest shows fill stadium after stadium – this October and November Coldplay are due to clock up a record ten at El Monumental, home of Club Atlético River Plate, all of which sold out in hours. The big international festivals keep coming – Lollapalooza is joined later this year by Primavera Sound and Slipknot’s Knotfest – and ASM Global’s new Movistar Arena in Buenos Aires gives the country the modern arena international touring productions want. But then, there’s political turmoil, inflation of more than 70%, and 40% of Argentines in poverty. So the party might not last forever, but in the meantime, plenty of tickets are being sold in 2022.

Primary ticketing

Ticketmaster has long had a foothold in Argentina, delivering ticketing services for various venues and festivals. But in South America, ticketing has long been viewed as a supplementary revenue stream for promoters, so regional big-hitter Time for Fun has its market-leading Ticketek arm in Argentina, while the Live Nation-associated DF Entertainment sells as All Access, and Move Concerts has its LivePass division. Other ticket-sellers include the fast-growing EntradaUno, which serves the Movistar Arena.

Ticketek lays claim to around 50% of the overall market and is strong in the important mid-size segment – busy international venues Teatro Gran Rex and Teatro Opera are among its theatres – as well as in sport, exhibitions, and family entertainment. Overall, it deals with around 5,500 events per year.

“Business is booming, just like it is all around the world,” says Ticketek/T4F Argentina director Fernando Bolan. “In spite of the situation in Argentina, there is a repressed demand.”

Distribution of sales

Argentinian ticketing methods were already pretty thoroughly modernised, but the pandemic shifted behaviour in Argentina in all the predictable ways, with the mobile channel the key beneficiary. “Since the pandemic, 95% of our sales are online, and the delivery is via a QR code,” says Bolan. “We haven’t sold by phone since 2015, and we have reduced our physical sales points to a minimum.”

Value of market

PwC has looked at the Argentinian market but not recently: the most recent estimates were of growth from $55m (€55m) in 2013 to $85m (€85m) in 2018, and a lot has happened since then.

Secondary ticketing

Secondary sales are a bone of contention in Argentina, and Ticketek among others is scouring for long-term answers. “We are studying new technology like NFTs,” says Bolan. “Our goal is to reduce the illegal resale.” Tickets for the sold-out first night of Coldplay’s historic stand at El Monumental were going for between £442 (€500) and £785 (€888) on Viagogo at the time of writing.

International/domestic splits & genres

Currency problems make Argentina a challenging market, but this year at least, Argentina will take all the international tours you’re offering, whether Latin or Englishspeaking – Demi Lovato, Dream Theater, Fito Páez, J Balvin, André Rieu, Michael Bublé, and Liam Gallagher are all getting a look at the Movistar Arena in the coming months.

Latin music, of course, is particularly strong right now, and the all-conquering trap scene has a thriving Argentinian branch, producing artists such as Duki, Ysy A, Nicki Nicole, Bizzarrap, and Cazzu. Recent local breakthroughs such as Tiago PZK branch further out into R&B, rap, and reggaeton.

Cultural analysis

Argentina’s political and economic upheaval took a dark new turn in September when the country’s vice president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, was the target of an unsuccessful assassination attempt outside her home. Football matches due to kick off the following day were postponed out of respect, while thousands of supporters descended on the capital’s historic Plaza de Mayo to denounce political violence.

Taxes & charges

Argentina abandoned its 21% VAT on concert tickets in 2006, and they remain exempt.

Guns ’N Roses at River Plate Stadium in Buenos Aires, September 2022

Australia

Population: 26.1million

Language: English

Currency: Australian dollar (AUD)

GDP per capita: $48,700

Internet users: 23.1million

Active smartphone users: 27.5million

Bushfires, floods, a pandemic: Australia’s live music industry has felt the full force of mother nature and had some rotten luck in recent years. As the market heads into its typically busy hotter months, business is set to boom. And with this “new normal,” a new set of problems have emerged.

For artists, industry professionals, and the ticketing industry, it’s several giant strides forward, a few steps back.

Primary ticketing

Australia’s live business is back, after two years locked in deep freeze. Though nothing has been smooth about the reopening of borders in this country, a federation of states and territories, each guided by their own set of rules. Each of the three main east-coast cities scaled back restrictions at different stages, and the state of Western Australia kept its borders persistently shut while others prised open. Those inconsistencies dampened the 2021-22 summer season, though promoters and venue operators and ticketing agents are anticipating a blockbuster return with the arrival of the warmer months.

The biggest test since the start of the pandemic would arguably come during the Easter long weekend in 2022, and the return of Bluesfest in Byron Bay. Featuring a line-up stacked with local acts, Bluesfest shifted more than 100,000 tickets, with upwards of 15,000 changing hands in the week

prior to showtime, explains Bluesfest director Peter Noble (Bluesfest maintains an impressive database of hundreds of thousands of fans and followers).

Organisers budgeted for 80,000, with the hope of 85,000, tempered by several waves of flooding in the area. “We had a surge of sales in the last ten days,” Noble reveals. “People waited to make sure we didn’t get cancelled again before they bought a ticket.”

TEG, owner of Ticketek, one of Australia’s two leading ticketing businesses, led Pollstar’s list of Australia’s Top 10 Promoters with US$31.8m (€31.7m) and 485,988 tickets sold. “We are in great shape,” TEG CEO Geoff Jones tells IQ. “Calendar 2023 is really strong with international and domestic tours, with the calendar for 2024 looking stronger again.”

Ticket sales took off in March 2022 “as we got clarity around international touring with borders reopening, high vaccination rates and massive pent-up demand from fans wanting to get out and enjoy the magic of the live experience again,” Jones continues.

Frontier Touring expects to see records tumble. “It’s definitely shaping up as one of the strongest years,” the concert specialist’s CEO, Dion Brant says of the upcoming summer. “2018 was a great year for us as well, this is shaping up as on-par with that at least, maybe even bigger. There’s a lot of pent-up demand with consumers, a lot of pend up demand with acts.”

Value of market

The action-packed summer to come is following a dead zone for touring. According to Live Performance Australia’s 2020 Ticket Attendance and Revenue Report, contemporary music – generating over 50% of total revenue across all live performance – was rocked by the health crisis. The category, which accounts for rock, pop, and hip-hop concerts, posted revenue of AU$309m (€211m), down 63% compared with 2019; and attendance of nearly 3m, a year-on-year shortfall of 65%.

The tough times continued deep into 2021. During the

Sydeny Opera House

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The International Ticketing Association (INTIX) is a registered non-profit membership organization that connects entertainment professionals with the education, visionary thinking, innovation, tools, and relationships they need to ignite and sustain success while delivering optimal customer experiences.

The diverse and inclusive community is comprised of more than 1,000 members who work in ticketing, technology, marketing, fundraising, finance and sales across arts, sports, and entertainment as well as a full range of public venues and institutions. INTIX members represent organizations from across the United States, Canada and 25 countries around the world.

INTIX.org Content hub: access.intix.org

ESNS (Eurosonic Noorderslag) is a non-profit organisation and independent platform dedicated to the promotion and discovery of new European and Dutch music.

Founded in 1986, ESNS hosts an annual four-day showcase festival and music conference across venues in Groningen, the Netherlands. Uncover the most enthralling emerging European (Eurosonic) and Dutch (Noorderslag) acts ranging from mainstream pop to progressive finds during the festival, which sets the stage for leading European festivals. Expand your knowledge of industry-leading topics and innovation during the conference, geared at trailblazing the music industry towards a sustainable future.

Each January, ESNS showcases 350 emerging European artists to over 40,000 visitors. The festival and conference attract over 4,000 music industry professionals, including 400 international festivals. By day, the front-running conference hosts over 150 panel discussions, interviews, keynotes and more that take on urgent subjects and the need for social change in the music industry. By night, European acts perform across 40 locations in the heart of Groningen from Wednesday to Friday, and Saturday presents upcoming Dutch artists in concert venue De Oosterpoort. 19–23 January 2023

What is TPC?

Ticketing Professionals Conference (or TPC) is an educationally-led event focusing on innovation, best practice continued improvement in the entertainment ticketing sector.

Run by people who work in OUR industry, not for commercial gain but to improve how we all work and develop as professionals

Who Attends?

TPC attracts over 500 professionals, from 20+ Countries. The programme is aimed at those at “Box Office Manager”, “Head of Ticketing” (or Marketing!) or higher.

Delegates come from all main strands of entertainment ticketing, performing arts, sports, attractions and festivals 22–24 March 2023

The app that gets you out more

Our personalised recommendations make it easy for fans to enjoy more of the shows they love.

Wherever they are.

Whatever they’re into.