CTS Eventim AG & Co. KGaA (ETR:EVD)
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55.95
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Sep 17, 2026, 5:35 PM CET
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Earnings Call: Q1 2026

May 28, 2026

Summary

Q1 2026 saw 23% revenue growth and 18.5% higher adjusted EBITDA, with EPS up €0.18 year-over-year. Live Entertainment and Ticketing both contributed, and guidance remains unchanged as management expects continued momentum.

Operator

Welcome to the CTS EVENTIM AG Q1 2026 earnings call. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode. The floor will be open for questions following the presentation. Let me now turn the floor over to your host, Dr. William Willms.

William Willms
CFO, CTS EVENTIM

Many thanks. Good evening to everybody, and good morning to our participants from the United States. Welcome to CTS EVENTIM's earnings call for the first quarter of 2026. Thank you very much for joining. I sincerely hope that you can understand me well. I'm William Willms , as mentioned, Chief Financial Officer of CTS EVENTIM, and I'm delighted to take you through our first quarter results today. On my side is Marco Haeckermann, our Vice President, Investor Relations and Corporate Development and Strategy.

Marco Haeckermann
Head of Investor Relations and VP of Corporate Development and Strategy, CTS EVENTIM

Hello, everyone.

William Willms
CFO, CTS EVENTIM

Before we dive into the details, please allow me a brief word on the structure of the call. As usual, today, we will focus exclusively on our Q1 2026 financial results and performance. I will walk you through the headline numbers, segment results, and certain P&L drivers. At the end of the presentation, we will be happy to open the floor for your questions.

Let me start with the headline KPIs for Q1 2026. In summary, we keep on growing. Group revenue came in at EUR 630 million, up 23% versus Q1 2025. This reflects a robust start into the year. Adjusted EBITDA grew by 18.5% to EUR 119 million, and our EBIT grew by 23.7%, benefiting from the operational leverage of our platform. On retail ticket volume, we recorded 39 million tickets, broadly on prior year level. The slight decline reflects an effect on our business, I will dive into this later in more detail. GTV grew by 3.3% on a last 12-month basis, reflecting continued platform scale. EPS for the quarter stood at EUR 0.66, up 0.18 versus Q1 2025. Again, a positive development. The first quarter of 2026 demonstrates that we are continuing our course of profitable growth.

The start of 2026 was within our expectations. The next slide shows the historical Q1 trend with consistent and compounding growth over the past years. As already mentioned, group revenue grew by 23% to EUR 630 million this quarter. A steady per quarter growth since 2023. Adjusted EBITDA grew from EUR 100 million to EUR 119 million, representing, as mentioned before, a growth by 18.5%. There is a steady and robust growth trajectory since 2023. In Q1 2026, the adjusted EBITDA margin comes out at 19.4% compared to 21% in Q1 2020 in 2025. Please note that this does not represent a structural deterioration of our margin, but is solely a weighted mix effect of the two segments. Live Entertainment accounts for a larger share of the group's revenue compared to the previous year, and Live Entertainment margins are structurally lower than Ticketing.

On EBIT, the outperformance in Q1 2026 versus prior year is also notable. This operational achievement reflects the quality of our earnings base. Let's have a closer look into our Ticketing business. In Q1 2026, the Ticketing business continued its growth trajectory, delivering revenue above prior year. As reported in our last earnings call, we had a structural change in one of our partner business contracts, becoming a partnership based on retail ticket allotments. This was our contract with Stage Entertainment. Taking this effect into consideration, Ticketing came out on a like-for-like basis in Q1 2026 at about + 6%. Adjusted EBITDA in Q1 2026 was slightly above prior year, the adjusted EBITDA margin roughly on previous level. Both EBITDA and EBITDA margin are in line with our internal expectations.

As we started with our Operational Excellence program, Q1 was about building capabilities and talent, which we consider an important first step. Although this temporarily leads to higher cost now, this will be compensated by future efficiency gains. Like-for-like EBITDA in Q1 2026 has outgrown the reported EBITDA performance of just +1% and develops in line with the above-mentioned like-for-like revenue growth. To sum up, Ticketing remains our high-quality earnings stream, and Q1 reaffirms its resilience. Retail ticket volume. On retail ticket volumes, Q1 2026 delivered 39 million tickets compared to 40 million tickets in Q1 2025. A modest decline. This is mainly attributed to the structural change in our partner business in Q1 2026, as explained before. Two-thirds of the ticket volume are generated outside Germany, a significant milestone reflecting the successful internationalization of our platform and reflecting our moat in Europe.

Putting everything together, the volume softness in Q1 2026 is due to the explained one-time effect and not a demand signal, and especially not the result of increased competition. Turning to our Live Entertainment segment. Live Entertainment delivered a strong performance in the first quarter. Strong, within the expected range. Revenues went up to EUR 404 million compared to EUR 292 million last year. An increase of well over 30% and surpassing prior years as shown in the chart. Adjusted EBITDA came out strong too. EUR 29 million compared to EUR 12 million in Q1 2025. The margin expanded to 7.2%. This improvement in our Live Entertainment business reflects two factors. First, a strong portfolio of shows in Germany and the United States. Second, a growing contribution from our venue business to be detailed on the next slide.

Let's now dive into our venue business as an integral part of our flywheel strategy. Venue management maintains an important and high-quality earnings stream. With revenues at EUR 40 million and an adjusted EBITDA of EUR 18 million, margins keep structurally stable and are very much comparable to the margins we generate in our Ticketing segment. Worth mentioning in this context is the following, after hosting the Olympic Ice Hockey Tournament in February with about 400,000 visitors, the Unipol Dome in Milan opened for music concerts in May this year. The Milan Arena contributes therefore already to the operational results and is a meaningful addition to our high margin venue portfolio. Last but not least, let me walk you through the P&L bridge for Q1 2026.

In addition to the adjusted EBITDA of EUR 119 million, which I have already explained in detail, we were able to report a positive financial result of approximately EUR 9 million. The change of around EUR 13 million compared to the previous year is primarily attributable to favorable exchange rates effects. Taking all this together, the EU EPS amounts to EUR 0.66, showing an increase of EUR 0.18 per share versus last year. Again, this reflects the combination of both operational momentum and an improved financial result. To sum up, what to take away from today's call are the three following things. First quarter of 2026 is in line with our expectations, and we remain positive for the remainder of the year. We have seen solid organic growth on group level, Live Entertainment, and Ticketing on a like-for-like basis.

Thirdly, the Operational Excellence program has started and marks the for our 2030 ambitions. That concludes our remarks for Q1 2026. I hope this has been insightful for you, and many thanks for your attention. Operator, let's jump into the Q&A. Please open the line now.

Operator

Thank you very much, with pleasure. Dear ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press star nine and the pound key on your telephone keypad if you are dialed in by phone. I repeat, the combination is star nine and the pound key. You can also click on the dial-in button in the webcast interface and raise your hand there. That also works. Again, one more time. The combination to raise a question is star nine and the pound key. The questions are already coming. The first one is from Edward Vyvyan, Rothschild & Co. Please, over to you.

Edward Vyvyan
Analyst, Rothschild & Co

Hi, William. Hi, Marco. Thanks for taking my questions. I have two if that's all right. First, I just want to come back to something I asked at full-year results. Two of the most common pushbacks we tend to hear from investors on this stock are, one, AI disintermediation risk, and two, intensifying competition from your main U.S. competitor in Europe. Could you maybe walk us through how you're positioned on both of those and how you'd want investors to think about them? My second question was just on mobile ticketing. It's been discussed in the past as a pretty attractive margin lever for the ticketing business, but maybe you could give us an update on where the strategy and rollout sit today. Thanks.

Marco Haeckermann
Head of Investor Relations and VP of Corporate Development and Strategy, CTS EVENTIM

Yes, it's Marco. Let me start off and then I ask William, and he can conclude. Starting off with our friends in North America. We all know it's a great company. Michael Rapino has done a terrific job basically in building U.S. Live Entertainment over more than a decade. Yes. On the other side, when a company of this scale faces that kind of structural uncertainty at home, international growth narratives, of course, serve a dual purpose for them.

They are a genuine business activity, and they are also a signal to investors and regulators that growth can continue regardless of how the legal domestic situation resolves for them. We understand this completely, and we think investors or the capital markets should weigh Live Nation's European ambition accordingly as a capital deployment option driven partly by domestic constraint, not solely by European opportunity. The critical question for us is, does that constraint as partially defensive internationalization represent a meaningful threat for us? The answer is no. Let me now strip out a little bit more why we are convinced that this is a big no for us.

In Europe, Primary Ticketing is a relationship and compliance business. Venue operators and promoters in Germany, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Benelux, Spain, and France, they are not switching systems because of Live Nation's indisputable, very strong position in the U.S. These customers, they are evaluating reliability, regulatory compliance, commercial terms, and platform capability. On all these dimensions, we are the incumbent in Europe. Incumbents in this industry are rarely displaced without a contractual or technological discontinuity, and to be honest, we don't see any of this on the horizon. William, do you have anything?

William Willms
CFO, CTS EVENTIM

Yeah, let me perhaps close with the forward framing. First of all, we will present to all of you a detailed view of our competitive positioning and our growth architecture at the Capital Markets Day. Here is to say that we will announce the date very soon. What I, however, would like all of you to take away is the following. The structural tailwinds in European Live Entertainment are strong. Our Ticketing segment is compounding at record levels. As Marco outlined, the regulatory, and I could also say perhaps the reputational pressure on our principal global competitor is, if anything, an accelerant for our European growth and consolidation thesis and not a headwind. All in all, we are therefore very confident with respect to our structural moat in Europe, and we see this as untouched.

Marco Haeckermann
Head of Investor Relations and VP of Corporate Development and Strategy, CTS EVENTIM

Let me follow up with the AI part. Everyone knows that we all hold this industry very dear to our heart. Let me start with a little bit of an intro before we come to more clearer specifics. One thing is very sure, live will always be live, right? A concert is not a product that can be digitized, automated, or replicated by any technology, including AI. When thousands of people come together in the same room for the same performance, they are participating in something categorically irreplaceable, in my belief and in our belief as a company. This is not some kind of nostalgic observation. It's really a structural fact that underlines our entire business model and our confidence in the long-term growth of this industry, not only in Europe but globally.

AI-generated music, on the other side, is a real thing, and it's growing. Yeah. We view this not really from that perspective where the market tends to look at it as a source of fear and concern. We look at it from an opposite perspective because what is happening there is that for us, it rewards authenticity. Yeah. The growing content which is AI-generated on the side. Yeah. The more the digital environments fill with algorithmically produced content, the more scarce and valuable the genuine art becomes, right? A real artist, a real stage, a real audience. Communities form around true artists precisely because of shared experiences of seeing the music, yeah, forgetting all the day-to-day hassles. Yeah. This cannot be replicated by any technology. We are, if anything, structurally positioned to benefit from this dynamic.

Now digging a little bit deeper into more specifics, the question of our AI strategy becomes much clearer because we are not deploying AI to reinvent what Live Entertainment is, but we are deploying it to serve the entire value chain that surrounds the live experience much better, with more intelligence, more efficiency, and of course, with a compounding advantage at every layer. For example, these layers, when you look at discovery and demand generation, pricing, inventory optimization, transaction and access integrity, the whole live event operations, post-event retention. Internally, we are deploying AI across all our operations, whether it be customer service automation, engineering productivity, internal knowledge management as efficiency plays to primarily reduce our unit costs of serving the fan and the promoter and to free capacity for much higher value work.

Sorry, I've blown out all my powder. William , anything?

William Willms
CFO, CTS EVENTIM

No, thanks, Marco. To summarize, many thanks, Marco, what you just said. The common denominator of all of this is that AI amplifies the value of what we already have, i.e., the proprietary data, the platform scale, the European reach, the trusted relationships with artists and our promoters, and with the venues who choose us and where their success depends also on our success, and this is something which is not replaceable by AI. This is absolutely unique. Therefore, AI does not change the nature of our moat. It raises, however, its height and every layer simultaneously as just outlined by Marco. Again, we will share further details on the AI-enabled components of our platform roadmap growth strategy at our Capital Markets Day. What I would like you to take away is that the business we are in is irreplaceable by definition.

The platform we have built is deeply embedded across the entire European Live Entertainment value chain. AI is the tool by which we will compound that advantage and is not a certain variable that introduces uncertainty into it. I hope this was helpful and answered the question you had. Many thanks for asking it. You had, however, a second question on mobile ticketing. Mobile ticketing is growing. We see already mid-double-digit percentage as the channel of buying tickets for our customers, i.e. our fans or the fans. Many thanks. Next question.

Operator

The next question is from Annick Maas, Bernstein. Please, over to you.

Annick Maas
Analyst, Bernstein

Good evening. I have four questions tonight. First of all, you had a very strong start to the year, definitely better than many had expected. Why is the outlook unchanged today? The second question is, clearly this strong performance has come from Live Entertainment, and you've highlighted that it was U.S. and German touring, but also the Milan venue that have contributed here. Now, I didn't see the slides, so maybe you showed this on the slides, but could you maybe just give us the buckets of how much of the contribution was due to Milan, how much due to the U.S. touring bit, and how much due to German touring? Third question is on naming rights for Milan. Was the first quarter fully integrating naming rights, as in was a full one quarter included? The last one is on the L.A. Olympics.

Can you just explain us again when and how the P&L and cash flow impacts or what they're going to be with regards to the L.A. Olympics? Thank you.

William Willms
CFO, CTS EVENTIM

The L.A. Olympics, you asked?

Annick Maas
Analyst, Bernstein

Yeah. The last question was on the Olympics. Yes. How the P&L versus the cash flow is going to impact over the next quarters. Thank you.

William Willms
CFO, CTS EVENTIM

Okay. First question, change in guidance. Yes, no. Yes, as you said, we had a very good start into 2026. However, as you know, our guidance is only two months old. Please also take into account that Q1 is indeed the least relevant quarter for the full year outcome. For this reason, we reiterate our guidance. For now, however, I can say we remain positive, and we will revisit this topic when we talk next time in August or later in the summer. Two, how do we expect Ticketing perform? I think that was the next question. Q1 was in line with. Sorry, Annick.

Annick Maas
Analyst, Bernstein

Actually, no, it was actually with regards to Live Entertainment. How much of the revenue step-up was coming from Milan, how much was coming from U.S. touring, and how much was coming from German touring? If that could be split up.

William Willms
CFO, CTS EVENTIM

Okay. In the first quarter, the Milan arena is included at a margin in line with the established Cologne arena. I would refer to the chart which we showed in terms of the split between the promoter business and venues. We don't give a split between Germany and the U.S. However, both were very strong in Germany, especially with the Hans Zimmer show. What I could add is, while the venue business continued to operate at a consistently high EBITDA margin level of approximately 46%, the margin remains broadly stable year-on-year. L.A., you want to say something on L.A., Marco?

Marco Haeckermann
Head of Investor Relations and VP of Corporate Development and Strategy, CTS EVENTIM

Hi, Annick. It's Marco. With regards to your question of L.A. As everyone knows, it's a three-year contract. It's a project-based business for us. We started in 2026. It'll last and affect us in 2026, 2027, and 2028, of course.

William Willms
CFO, CTS EVENTIM

Yeah.

Marco Haeckermann
Head of Investor Relations and VP of Corporate Development and Strategy, CTS EVENTIM

From a scope perspective, I think it's fair to frame it over the entire year of our length of the contract as something that is about to generate, according to our expectations, a revenue of something in the low triple-digit millions. With average margins we've seen in other projects like this.

Annick Maas
Analyst, Bernstein

Okay. Thank you.

William Willms
CFO, CTS EVENTIM

Okay.

Operator

For your questions. The next question is from Craig Abbott, Kepler Cheuvreux. The floor is yours

Craig Abbott
Analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux

Yes. Good evening. I hope you can hear me. My first question is just addressing the cash flow was quite weak in admittedly traditionally seasonally weak Q1. I just wondered if you could give us some insights on how you expect to see that developing in the coming quarters, and that in particular I'm talking about the operating cash flow, but then in the investing cash flow, I assume there were remaining Milan investments there. Could we expect then those to ease off in the coming quarters? If you could shed some light on how you expect to see the cash flow developing would be great. The second question is, I just wondered if you had any update to provide on your, let's say, strategy to try to find a partner or partners for a PropCo/ OpCo -type partnership for potential future venue projects.

The third one was just if you could give us any insights on Q2. My last one, sorry. Any insights on Q2, particularly bearing in mind that you had a very weak quarter last year in Live Entertainment with the cost overruns at several festivals? If you could shed any kind of light there to help us map that out, it'd be great. Thank you.

William Willms
CFO, CTS EVENTIM

Perhaps not in the order of your question. Let me start with the question on the venue structure. As you rightly mentioned, we follow a PropCo/ OpCo strategy. We follow the idea and we confirm the idea of an asset-light model for the entire company. Having said this is work in progress, we are in accordance with our planning. I sincerely hope more details can be shared later this year. As I mentioned in the last call and in our bilateral discussions, these are very structured or highly structured discussions and negotiations with a variety of different partners. Please rest assured we are working on this very hard. Nothing has changed that we want to keep only a minority share in PropCo, in other words, we will preserve the asset-light model. We don't have a result yet which can be announced at this state.

Q2, perhaps there's something to share on L.A. ticket sales in the sense that L.A. ticket sales have started in the U.S., and it has been communicated by the IOC that the first ticket drop for LA28 was sold successfully, with demand exceeding expectations by far. Having said this is not surprising, and it's part of our budget respectively outlook already, and more details especially on this will be shared then in the Q2 earnings call. Live Entertainment. Marco, you want to add something on Live Entertainment?

Marco Haeckermann
Head of Investor Relations and VP of Corporate Development and Strategy, CTS EVENTIM

Yeah. Hi, Craig. I'm taking the one on Live Entertainment. We're discussing this since last year, of course. The good thing is that we had a very good start into this year with Live Entertainment. As we've already said in our full year earnings call end of March, that we have done a lot of homework there. As the main topic has been the performance of the festivals, not particular to CTS, but festivals all over the place. As we have said already in March, that we have done some cleaning there. Which should, or at least gives us confidence when we come into Q2, Live Entertainment year-over-year, that we have seen or at least let's say we are very confident.

On the other side, you know as well that so far what has been announced, the large festivals for this year, for example, Rock am Ring and Rock im Park are sold out. Great lineup. From this perspective, to comment on current trading and what we would expect, particularly for Live Entertainment in this second quarter, we see much more sun shining rather than rainy clouds.

William Willms
CFO, CTS EVENTIM

Okay. On the last question, operating cash flow. Given the seasonal nature of the business, we expect operating cash flow to improve significantly over the course of the year, with the strongest cash flow generation typically occurring in Q3 and Q4, reflecting the seasonal strength of the Ticketing segment in the year-end period. I hope this helps. We are very confident there, so be very strong there on operating cash flow later this year.

Craig Abbott
Analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux

Okay. On the investing cash flow, can we expect that number to come down now after Q1 with the Milan venue fully operational?

William Willms
CFO, CTS EVENTIM

There will be certain investments still to be done. The final amount which we will have spent, so to speak, on the Milan arena will be determined at the end by also the contributions from the city of Milan, but nothing in the range you have seen before. These are now, I mentioned this before, I think in the earnings call, smaller amounts on technical equipment, microphones, et cetera. The largest bulk of the work, i.e., the construction work, that has been done. Thank you.

Craig Abbott
Analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux

Okay. Thank you.

William Willms
CFO, CTS EVENTIM

Yep.

Operator

Thank you very much. The next question is from Olivier Calvet, UBS. Please go ahead.

Olivier Calvet
Analyst, UBS

Hi, William and Marco. Thanks for taking my questions. I have three if I may. Firstly, could you come back on the retail ticket volume decline? I understand this is partner business, but can you maybe further specify if you include Stage Entertainment in the comparable period and could you maybe rule out any element of demand softness or competitive pressure there? The second question would be on geography. If there was any noticeable impact of some of the big slates that were announced in the first couple of months of the year on your plans for Ticketing in terms of onsales. Thirdly, just a follow-up on the CapEx. Ignoring any potential contributions from the municipality of Milan, what's the remaining CapEx budget you will have for the year? If you can comment on that would be great. Thanks.

William Willms
CFO, CTS EVENTIM

Okay. Perhaps first on retail ticket volumes, smallest decline, 4.4% year-over-year, as you already mentioned. Without disclosing confidential information, the retail ticket volume development year-over-year is mostly indeed stage. What I would like to take you away more importantly is that Ticketing revenues are up year-over-year, which underlies the quality of our ticket volume in Q1 2026. The volume in itself is not necessarily therefore an indicator for the robustness and healthiness of our business. This on ticket retail volume. I would also take the question on CapEx, and Marco, you take the third one. Here it's a mid double-digit euro amount. I mentioned this in the last call already, and as I said, it's more technical equipment than anything else. Marco, if you take the.

Marco Haeckermann
Head of Investor Relations and VP of Corporate Development and Strategy, CTS EVENTIM

Yeah. Hi, Olivier. It's Marco. I'll take the question on the pipeline and the roster so far. So far Q1 has been in line with previous years, so there were neither positive nor negative outliers. There are many good acts still in the pipeline for the remainder of the year, but as you know, we're going to see more of that the more we enter the second half of the year. For now, I think it compares very well and there have been neither positive nor negative outliers in the terms of big on sales across all geographies.

Olivier Calvet
Analyst, UBS

Thanks.

William Willms
CFO, CTS EVENTIM

Okay? Okay.

Operator

Thank you very much. Moving on. The next question is from Lars Vom-Cleff, Deutsche Bank AG.

Lars Vom-Cleff
Analyst, Deutsche Bank AG

Yes. Thank you very much. Good evening. I would have two questions, if I may. You already mentioned that you're seeing first benefits of the Operational Excellence Program. Would you also be willing to share the costs of the program with us and how much it, for example, has affected Q1 profitability?

William Willms
CFO, CTS EVENTIM

Okay. You said you had two questions. That was the one?

Lars Vom-Cleff
Analyst, Deutsche Bank AG

That was the first one. The second one was, you were kind enough to share the revenue impact of the Stage Entertainment business that is unfortunately not with you anymore. Would you also be willing to share the impact on the profitability level with us? Or to phrase it differently, can we assume that the EBITDA margin of the business you lost is comparable to your Ticketing divisions margin on average?

William Willms
CFO, CTS EVENTIM

Okay. Let me start with Operational Excellence. I will divide this in two buckets. First, we will provide you with what the budget is for Operational Excellence program with a detailed breakdown at our CMD. For now, Q1 can be seen as a good proxy for the quarterly impact in 2026. We would say we expend so far a low single-digit million amount for Operational Excellence. Now an investment, which of course we pay back at a later stage. As I said, Operational Excellence is setting the basis for accelerated growth in the years to come, especially until 2030- 2031. I hope this answers your question on Operational Excellence. Stage. Here it can be said margins are lower than the rest of the Ticketing business as already indicated in what I said before during the call.

Lars Vom-Cleff
Analyst, Deutsche Bank AG

Understood. Thank you very much.

William Willms
CFO, CTS EVENTIM

Welcome.

Operator

Also from my side. The next question is from Bernd Klanten, Barclays. The floor is yours.

Bernd Klanten
Analyst, Barclays

Yes. Hi, William. Hi, Marco. Thanks for taking my question. Just a follow-up on the L.A. Olympics. You mentioned low triple-digit revenue contribution over those three years. My understanding of the relatively low Ticketing revenue guidance for 2026 was partly a reflection of that one-off impact from Stage Entertainment. If we're assuming roughly EUR 33 million-EUR 35 million or so of contribution from the L.A. Olympics, should that not more or less offset the hit you're experiencing from Stage Entertainment? Maybe related to that, in the past, you've sometimes shared how you're thinking about underlying Ticketing growth of the market and how you should grow relative to that. I think, in the past, you've mentioned 6%-8%. Outside of this year, I was just wondering how you're broadly thinking about that.

Just again, on ticketing maybe, to what extent do you have visibility into the rest of the year? My final question is can you share any update on synergies you're seeing for France Billet and See Tickets? Thank you very much.

Marco Haeckermann
Head of Investor Relations and VP of Corporate Development and Strategy, CTS EVENTIM

Hey. Hi, Bernd. It's Marco. Let me kick off. Yeah. Let's start with the more general thing, the market expectations, as you said, 6%-8%, which is, of course, what we see in the markets we're active in as a potential on average over the next five years. Yeah. This is, of course, why it's important to see that in our core business, particularly in Ticketing, we have grown. Yeah. Our organic growth is in line with that. On the other side, what William mentioned in the call is the quality of the tickets we have sold, which led to even better revenue growth than volume growth. Yeah. With regards to the visibility, we highlighted this for the remainder of the year.

We see a very good pipeline, but of course, as we don't have any control about the timing of the on sales, it's of course hard to be more precise for us, but we see continued tailwinds for European touring, yeah, which is as well, the underlying factor for the market potential we are seeing over the next five years. Coming back to L.A., yes, we've indicated what the revenue is over that timeline, and then you bring the question how it affects our guidance. The important thing is, of course, to differentiate between the regular Ticketing business and this being a project business. We are dependent on many other parties. For example, that here again, it is not when and how many tickets go on sale. Yeah. This is solely due to our customer here, which is the International Olympic Committee.

Please understand that from this early on, we now have started selling tickets from April onwards, yeah. Which all went very well. The press around this has been very positive, strong demand. This is going to be a great event, yeah. Of course, for us, it's always important that we give the guidance, yeah, that we understand what is really in our control and where we have good visibility on. Here in this contract, it is of course, completely under the discretion of our customer of how to market the event and give us the order of when to sell tickets and going forward, which surely has an impact about the timing of revenues and earnings.

William Willms
CFO, CTS EVENTIM

Perhaps, a word on France Billet and See Tickets. Both entities are [detailing] and now integrated, and we are very happy with their performance. Needless to say, U.K. and France are two core European markets, which we will now continue to build out. Same applies, of course, to the U.S. We indeed see first synergies, both on the top line and bottom line, especially local structures have been merged where we had EVENTIM and See Tickets operations within the same countries. Thank you.

Bernd Klanten
Analyst, Barclays

Thank you very much.

Operator

The next question is from Christoph Blieffert, BNP Paribas. Over to you.

Christoph Blieffert
Analyst, BNP Paribas

Good evening. Thank you for taking my questions. I would like to come back on the Stage Entertainment contract. Can you please explain the structure of the old versus the new contract? Also take into consideration that Stage Entertainment seems to sell a certain proportion of their tickets via their own ticketing system. If you could help us understanding potential revenue losses on your end, this would be helpful as well.

Marco Haeckermann
Head of Investor Relations and VP of Corporate Development and Strategy, CTS EVENTIM

Christoph, it's Marco. Let me kick in again with a general view. Of course, this all goes under the headline that it has been a very long-term contract, yeah, which has been adjusted for a part of which has been insourced, yeah, on the more B2B side of stage, yeah. Whereas we continue to be their partner on the retail distribution. Yeah. Tickets which are sold under EVENTIM brand over the EVENTIM channels for them, yeah. Yeah. Perhaps to summarize, the key point is that the retail channel stays with us via eventim.de and other details of this very close and dear partner of ours are unfortunately confidential. As I said before, the retail center stays intact, yeah.

Christoph Blieffert
Analyst, BNP Paribas

Sorry for the confusion, but I want to make a follow-up on this. In the past, it has also been possible to buy musical tickets of Stage via CTS. What is really new?

Marco Haeckermann
Head of Investor Relations and VP of Corporate Development and Strategy, CTS EVENTIM

There were basically two ways, right? Whether, for example, for The Lion King in Germany, yeah, that you go to, or that you went to eventim.de and bought tickets, or whether you went to the own website of Stage Musicals and Stage Entertainment. For that, we've signed a contract with them a long time ago to provide them with the B2B solution, so enabling them to sell under their own brand, which at the early days was really a minor share. Over the last 15 years, of course, as they have invested into their own franchise, you know that they have been sold in 2019. As you can imagine, for an IP owner and a content company, COVID was really a dramatic situation.

From this perspective, the only thing happened that the share which they are now selling, for example, the Saturday evening shows, which we could all sell from the back of a truck, is what is now supplied temporarily by another partner, and where they really have to build on our reach, the way of how we cooperate with other promoters because we can provide them with significantly lower customer acquisition costs for the shows that are not that easy to sell. For example, the Wednesday afternoon, this is still to be found on eventim.de and over our app.

Christoph Blieffert
Analyst, BNP Paribas

Okay, this is clear now. Thank you. I have two shorter questions, please. Has there been any positive effect from the Winter Olympic Games on your Ticketing revenue since Q1?

Marco Haeckermann
Head of Investor Relations and VP of Corporate Development and Strategy, CTS EVENTIM

Sorry. No.

William Willms
CFO, CTS EVENTIM

No.

Marco Haeckermann
Head of Investor Relations and VP of Corporate Development and Strategy, CTS EVENTIM

Sorry. We were just looking at one another, who is replying because the simple answer is no.

William Willms
CFO, CTS EVENTIM

No.

Christoph Blieffert
Analyst, BNP Paribas

Okay. Then the last one. Can you give us your view on the ticketing volume growth in Germany for 2026, please?

Marco Haeckermann
Head of Investor Relations and VP of Corporate Development and Strategy, CTS EVENTIM

Well, if I may start into this is, of course, part of our discussion around guidance. Of course, as I said earlier in this call, we see a very good roster of artists coming through Germany. We see continued traction, of course, on our retail channel. We benefit from more international acts coming to Europe and making stops in Germany. Again, it is hard now to be more precise on the volume because this is to 90% much more a timing question rather than anything else. I don't want to sit here in a year's time and explain why someone who's been selling through EVENTIM has not sold in December but in January. Look, the summary, we are positive. Okay?

Christoph Blieffert
Analyst, BNP Paribas

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

As there are no more questions in the queue, with that, we are closing the Q&A session, and I hand the floor back over to the hosts.

William Willms
CFO, CTS EVENTIM

Thank you very much for your time. I hope, or we hope this was helpful, and talk to you soon. Especially see you soon, September, October this year.

Marco Haeckermann
Head of Investor Relations and VP of Corporate Development and Strategy, CTS EVENTIM

Yeah. Thank you very much as well from my side. Have a good end of spring and a nice start into summer. Bye.