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Munich, 23 May 2019. CTS EVENTIM, an internationally leading Ticketing and Live Entertainment provider, began the year 2019 with a rise in revenue and earnings. The Group grew its first-quarter revenues by 3.0 percent year-on-year, from EUR 274.5 million to EUR 282.7 million. In the same period, normalised EBITDA increased by 3.1 percent to EUR 57.1 million (prior year: EUR 55.4 million). Both the Ticketing and Live Entertainment segments contributed to this growth. As in the prior year, the normalised EBITDA margin was 20.2 percent.
Klaus-Peter Schulenberg, CEO of CTS EVENTIM, commented: “CTS EVENTIM has delivered a successful start to the year. As expected, our Ticketing business did not grow as strongly at the beginning of the year as it did in the very successful first quarter of 2018. Meanwhile, our revenue growth is fuelled by both segments, and has accelerated in the second quarter, especially in Ticketing. Our outlook for the full year remains positive, not least because of this added momentum.”
In the Ticketing segment, first-quarter revenue rose by 2.6 percent to EUR 104.5 million (PY: EUR 101.8 million), although fewer major tours with high-priced tickets went on sale during the reporting period than in 2018. At the same time, CTS EVENTIM saw a significant increase in the long-tail business: the company sold 12.7 million tickets through its own web shops in the first three months of 2019, up 4.3 percent from the previous year (12.1 million). Normalised EBITDA increased by 3.7 percent to EUR 41.9 million (PY: EUR 40.4 million).
CTS EVENTIM also achieved growth in the Live Entertainment segment. While revenue rose by 4.1 percent to EUR 182.2 million (PY: EUR 175.0 million), normalised EBITDA was up 1.6 percent to EUR 15.2 million (PY: EUR 14.9 million). So earnings improved despite a positive one-off effect of EUR 3.0 million in the prior year in connection with a share reduction in Denmark. In addition, normalised EBITDA in the first quarter of 2019 was negatively impacted by start-up costs for the Doctor Music Festival, which celebrates its comeback in Barcelona this year after a 21-year break. These investments are already taken into account in the segment and Group forecasts.
The touring business in Germany and the LANXESS arena in Cologne, which also hosted the World Handball Championships, had a particularly strong start to the year. At the beginning of March, CTS EVENTIM pooled its promoter activities in the pan-European network EVENTIM LIVE, which currently comprises 26 promoters in ten countries.
The quarterly report on business performance in the first three months of 2019 is available on www.eventim.de as soon as this press release is published.
About CTS EVENTIM
CTS EVENTIM is one of the leading international providers of Ticketing and Live Entertainment. In 2018, approx. 250 million tickets were marketed using the company’s systems – through stationary box offices, online or mobile. Its online portals operate under brands such as eventim.de, oeticket.com, ticketcorner.ch, ticketone.it, and entradas.com. The EVENTIM Group also includes many concert, tour and festival promoter companies for events like ‘Rock am Ring’, ‘Rock im Park’, ‘Hurricane’, ‘Southside’, and ‘Lucca Summer’. In addition, some of Europe’s most renowned venues are operated by CTS EVENTIM, for example the LANXESS arena in Cologne, the Waldbühne in Berlin and the EVENTIM Apollo in London. CTS EVENTIM AG & Co. KGaA (ISIN DE 0005470306) has been listed on the stock exchange since 2000 and is currently a member of the SDAX segment. In 2018, its 3,141-strong workforce generated more than 1.2 billion Euros in revenue in 21 countries.
