All right, let's kick things off. Cameron Mansson-Perrone, Morgan Stanley Music and Live Events Analyst. Before we get started, I just want to note that important disclosures, including my personal holdings disclosures and Morgan Stanley disclosures, all appear as a handout available in the registration area and on the Morgan Stanley public website. And with that, I want to welcome Joe Berchtold, President and Chief Financial Officer of Live Nation. Joe, thanks.
Thank you. Thanks for having me. Just to be clear, this is not the Meta Overflow room.
All right. Let's kick things off with the outlook you laid out on the latest earnings call. You outlined expectations to deliver double-digit AOI and EBIT growth in 2024 and over the next few years. Not a lot of management teams are willing to commit to that level of growth over a multi-year period. What are the secular drivers, as we think about Live Nation, that underpin your confidence in being able to execute against that?
No, absolutely. I think it's one of the things that's great is being in an industry that has underlying supply and demand dynamics that take you a good chunk of the way there. It's nice to have that wind at your back to start. So you start on the demand side. It truly is a global latent demand business. Social media platforms have made it so that fans everywhere are discovering, hearing the same music at the same time. 90% of fans are saying that when they discover somebody on social media, it makes them more interested in going to see them live. So we now have 7 billion people who are interested in Beyoncé. And then on the supply side, you have artists touring more broadly, more shows on a given tour than we had in the past.
We'll get into why and the fact they need to now make their income on the road. But we're also seeing a phenomenon where artists are developing faster. I think in part because of these social media and the discovery, they're able to find their tribes. They're able to find their people and enough of a critical mass in more markets where you move from being a club act to an amphitheater or arena act much faster. Every year, what's going on is you have the existing pool of artists continuing to tour, but then you're adding more in on top of that. You've got a great increasing supply, massive latent demand, and affordable luxury. Again, everybody talks about the high ticket price, particularly on secondary. 2/3 of tickets are under $100. 1/3 of our tickets are under $50.
So on a relative basis to the memorability of that event, of that night, that's another what I would consider to be structural advantage that we have that feeds into that demand. So you have those structural elements. And then because on a global basis, we're helping create the market, we're naturally taking share. We're not—in our mind, we're not trying to go out and take share in the sense of, "Oh, we need to take it from somebody else." We think there's so much demand out there, we think we can help create the market. And by helping create the market, you're naturally building your market position. And then from all the other initiatives we've laid out, just you only need a few more points then at that point to get into double digits on an ongoing basis.
So we've talked a lot about this year. This year, strong in our venues, strong amphitheater, an arena a year. It won't be a top-line growth, but it'll be a profitability per fan and margin story this year. Next year, already shaping up to be a very strong stadium year, so more of another top-line year. But, you know, again, so we look at those short-term. What can we see in the next 18 months? What are the macro drivers? All of them together give us that confidence on our ability to continue to compound our AOI double digits over the next several years.
Great. I want to dive into the business segments, maybe starting with promotion. You know, as the business has shifted increasingly global, how has Live Nation as an organization evolved to kind of maximize that opportunity?
Yeah. I mean, and for the reasons I talked about, it's fortunate we've long been truly global. We operate in 45 countries. One of the great things about our business is there aren't any really material barriers to starting to promote a concert or put on a festival in a new market. It doesn't take a lot of capital. There's no regulatory. It just takes finding the right venue or area for a festival and going in and starting it up. So we've been operating for a long time internationally. It's been increasing focus, and we've ramped up. If you look at the almost 50 million fans that we've added since 2019 through last year, about 2/3 of those were from international markets. So we're seeing that growth internationally.
On the Ticketmaster side, over the last couple of years, we've talked about we've added about 45 million fans. About 75% of those are in international markets. We saw the numbers this morning. Through the first two months, another 5 million fans at Ticketmaster. 3 million of those are international. So we're continuing to see very strong growth in those international markets. We run a combined centralized-decentralized, right? We're centralized in a lot of our buying of tours, but we're very decentralized in our execution. And we have offices in 10 countries in Asia, throughout Europe, now several countries in Latin America. So we have a local presence that helps us understand those markets and compete effectively. Plus, we've got the pipeline then that we can be delivering, to help drive the growth in all those markets.
You touched on about some of the fan growth that you've seen. But if I, you know, going back to the opportunity you outlined at the Investor Day, I think it was a 500 million fan opportunity between North America and Europe that you outlined. Those are your core markets today. What's the strategy to realize kind of that incremental fan opportunity in those markets?
Yeah. I, I think one of the things that, you know, what people look at is and say, "Why are you the biggest player in the space? Can you keep growing?" And, and so once a year, when we do the Liberty presentations, our year of stepping back and say, "Well, what is the opportunity? How, you know, we, we need to believe it because we're deploying resources to go after it." And we looked at it this year, and we said, you know, the TAM is 1 billion people. I talked earlier, right? So in theory, it's 7 billion. But, you know, on a practical basis, we're not dependent on China, right? We may be one of the few growth businesses. We have no dependence on China.
But we look at it, and we say it's, there's 1 billion people out there who we think over the next several years have the opportunity to be going to concerts. And they're not all going today, but they absolutely are out there. In the U.S., it's continuing to follow what has been a hyperlocal strategy that we have, which is recognizing that a person, you know, you may not go from San Francisco down to the South Bay to go to a concert here, because it's going to take you an hour and a half. You're not going to do that. So we can play down in San Jose and play in San Francisco. You can play in L.A. and San Diego. Orange County, these are different markets.
And again, by having a local presence, we understand, "Oh, people will go from Orange County to L.A. for a concert. So I can do five Madonnas in L.A. Nobody's going from L.A. to Orange County. So I can also split them." And so you, you, you get to understand very specifically the market. And because they're all fans now, again, it's not just what's the perimeter of KOLs as it was in my day. And they're the people that know about the release of the album. And you're literally you where you market to is driven by, by how strong is the radio signal of the radio stations that are playing that music. That's, that's all gone. So now they're, they're learning about it everywhere. Europe, it's the same. We're a little earlier days in terms of the hyperlocal.
But the other piece in Europe that we've talked about is the U.S. has the benefit of this incredible arena infrastructure, NBA, NHL, and otherwise that doesn't exist in Europe. So when I talk about, we talk about the TAM, and when we talk about how we continue to grow, that's where the Venue Nation side of it comes in. And where can we find markets that, you know, doesn't have an arena? It's an old city run, doesn't have the hospitality that fans today want, can't gross what an artist needs to gross and what they can gross in the U.S.
So a lot of that opportunity in Europe is really focusing on where can we add those music-oriented arenas cost $hundreds of millions, not the billions that the sports teams' owners put in, and use that to help drive the business over the next several years.
What about the rest of the world where you're a little earlier, shares a little lower? Is that a different approach, or is it kind of the same playbook?
Well, you start with the big cities. In Asia, Latin America, your first focus is going to be. I mean, if you just look at the population of these cities by U.S. standards, right, they're massive. You know, millions and millions of people in a lot of cities. That's the first place you go. And again, we're seeing, you know, Coldplay can go down and play 10 sold-out stadiums in Latin America. So there's absolutely the demand. So we'll focus on the major markets. We'll absolutely focus on the infrastructure. One of the things we got with those Foro Sol, one of the top three stadiums, very flexible build, very low-cost build, one of the top three stadiums in the world. That's fantastic for Mexico. Could be replicated in other markets, in Latin America, in particular, the weather's conducive to it.
We're going to be looking for those two things first. Over time, you figure out how do you get more micro? We're at a point where we don't even need to worry about that yet.
You mentioned OCESA. I think it's been about two years since you closed that deal. What learnings have you taken away from that acquisition that you can apply to new promotion kind of launches or acquisitions?
Yeah. Yeah. Home run, business, home run acquisition. You know, I think one of the things that reminds you of it's easier to buy an A asset and turn it into an A-plus than buy a C asset and convince yourself you're going to turn it into an A. It's a world-class management team, right, which matters a lot. Alejandro and his team are absolutely fantastic. And it is delivered on everything we thought, right? We've turned our touring pipeline onto their business. So we're helping deliver more shows. They're growing their business. We're taking their Ticketmaster platform, which was underinvested in. It was a very strange joint venture where we had no incentive to really invest in it, to keep it up with U.S. levels. And they had no control over it, OCESA, too.
So, we're bringing a lot of the capabilities that exist in the U.S. and globally down there, which is helping conversion, helping your ad units, helping just sell more tickets than we ever had before. Sponsorship, turning that into a global, bringing some of our sponsors down there. So all of that has been fantastic. And at the same time, you know, and sometimes it's better to have a little luck, is the we closed that acquisition right as Latin music globally, particularly the U.S., was taking off. So being able to work with that management team and drive a lot of regional music in from Mexico into the U.S. And so we've talked long about Bad Bunny and Karol G and Kali Uchis and Peso Pluma, all these artists that are now selling out arenas and stadiums.
By the way, back to my point of how fast they go to arenas and stadiums. Probably hadn't heard of them a couple of years ago. So that has been another fantastic. So I think it is really a case study for us of the type of global positioning, the type of global acquisitions that you want to make. That's been great for them, great for our partners who are still there, and great for our business, our shareholders.
What differentiates a B asset from an A asset? Is it easy to tell when you're doing diligence on a deal?
Well, yeah. I mean, how is it performing financially? And is the management team, because you're often buying promoters, is the management team a first call? Are they getting the first call from agent or, you know, or part of the group that are getting the first two calls from agents and managers when they're looking to route into those markets? You want the people that every, again, everybody in the industry knows, yeah, they're the ones that we want to work with. You want to, you want to pick one of them.
Great. I want to turn to Venue Nation. Given the increased focus there over the past couple of years, when did you really begin prioritizing, the venue, the operated venue portfolio? And what benefits has that portfolio really brought to you over the years?
Yeah. I think it's probably been about a decade now. When we were, as usual, like every other company, you go through these strategic sessions and points of the year. And I'd spent a lot of time that summer at our amps. And just the feeling was, it was like going to a state fair. You know, you could buy deep-fried butter. And, you know, it just had that feeling of it was just all mass and GA. And so we got into a lot of discussions about, well, could it be better? And we started benchmarking ourselves against arenas. And we said, wow, we really suck. And, you know, people always had excuses, but it's no, okay, how do we get better? How do we, and by the way, we don't have to break new grounds.
We just have to go to the local arena and steal every idea they have and bring it to your local amphitheater. Don't have any pride. Just, we're just playing catch-up here. So a lot of basic execution. We brought in a food service company, Legends, that's great, upgraded just our basic offerings, the quality of your food, and then started getting into much more of the hospitality, the VIP. What are the different use cases that people have when they come to a show? What are they looking for? Where do they want to spend money? Our job is to eliminate friction for fans that come to an event and want to spend money in different situations. So if you look at it from that mindset, you start coming up with all sorts of ideas, the VIP parking and multiple tiering in your parking and tiering of clubs.
And yeah, you have your backstage, you have your VIP club that's just a club, and you have your viewing boxes, and you've got your platforms, and you've got your Rock Boxes down low with the high price points. You have all; you have a myriad of opportunities. So, you know, we took what was a $16 average per fan revenue to over $40 now. So we've clearly improved it by just being focused on it. But then that's also enabled the other half of our Venue Nation strategy that I talked about with Europe, which in general is, well, we're a pretty good operator of venues now, right?
So if you're a pretty good operator of venues and you think that you have probably a better understanding of venues' potential in terms of utilization than anybody else because you're in that business, well, that makes you somewhat of a natural owner, right? Because if just a private equity guy is going to go buy a venue, they're going to be more conservative than we are about their assumptions on, well, how many shows am I going to have and how is it going to do on my sales? We have enough data that we understand how these things work, so we can invest with confidence and we can operate with confidence. So that makes us a more natural owner of it.
So now, as we're thinking about how do you continue to grow the business globally, arenas international, large theaters like the Paramount in New York that we're opening this month globally are built venues that have enough scale that you can do some hospitality and you can get enough fans through that when you start doing more and more of these buildings, it can start to have a material impact on your business.
That's great. I want to move on to ticketing, and Ticketmaster. Maybe to start, how do you think the ticketing industry and ecosystem has changed, most meaningfully over the past five, 10 years?
Yeah. Well, I think it's, it's a fascinating industry, right, from a semi-academic standpoint, because it is ticketing is so ubiquitous in, in all of our lives. And yet, as we've learned over the past year or so, it's clear it's massively misunderstood in terms of how it operates, how the basic just decision-making forget about the math behind the numbers, just the basic decision-making of who does what, who decides what. But, but let's take it actually even a little further, right? 40 years ago, the ticketing industry in, in the U.S. in particular was effectively created by a brilliant insight of a guy, Fred Rosen, who said, rather, rather than getting paid by the venues to do ticketing, I'm going to go pay them for the exclusive rights. And then we're going to create this thing called a service fee rather than a couple bucks at 20%.
And we're going to share it. Yeah. I'm going to then go build the position. And that's now not just obviously Ticketmaster, but every primary ticketing company has more or less the same model in the U.S. So as a result, I would say for 30 years, the ticketing industry and Ticketmaster only cared about the venue because that's who they sign, that's who they share their money with. They didn't; they semi-cared about the teams because you often had the same person owning a building and the teams. They didn't care about the promoter. They didn't care about the fans. Fast forward late 2000, you know, 2008, 2009, Live Nation, as a very large client of Ticketmaster, is irritated about the fact they haven't invested to serve the concert industry. They haven't invested to serve the promoter.
Ultimately, it shakes out acquisition, you know, acquisition merger with Ticketmaster in 2010. So a lot of time in the past decade has been spent saying, that's great, we need to continue to do well by the venue, but we need to now, given our strategy as a company of Live Nation of super serving the artists, we need to serve the promoter as Ticketmaster. So you've seen a lot of innovation at Ticketmaster focused on that. You've allowed the fan registration to get the tickets, the massive investment in trying to stop bots or slow them down in terms of what they can get, the digital ticket, host the things on platform about upsells that help with the venues that are selling concerts and so on. So I think we've made huge progress.
I think if you lined up a number of agents or managers and asked them about the relative functionality of the ticketing platforms out there, they would say, by a country mile, Ticketmaster is the most effective concert-selling platform that exists. Now, that's still left the fan with less of a focus. I think what we've seen over the last couple of years is there needs to be an increased focus on the fan experience. Now, we're not going to solve the problem that 20 million people want 2 million Beyoncé tickets, right? She has 150 million social followers. She has 2 million tickets. A lot of people are going to be disappointed in the middle.
But there are things from a technology standpoint, there are things from a communication standpoint that can be done better, I think have gotten better over the past year, but we continue to have a long ways that we need to go. That high demand on-sale experience is where a lot of people have their primary interaction. And again, when you know that 90%+ of those fans may be disappointed and not getting a ticket, there's a lot of other stuff around that. You sure better make sure you're doing perfectly to at least minimize the impact when they don't get the ticket. So I think that's the era we're in now, which I think is healthy, right? I think there needs to be a better balance.
We couldn't really do the fans until we had the capabilities, I would argue, of serving the promoter, which I thought was in pretty good shape in COVID and then, you know, you got ramped back up from that. So, but it's been a very interesting progress over the past couple of years.
Yeah. One of the elements of ticketing that I think is underappreciated is how much, say, the artists ultimately have and where that price shakes out. That's, as an external observer, it seemed like that's something that's changed a lot coming out of the pandemic, is just an increased artist appetite to not necessarily jack prices up, but just experiment more, whether it's with tiering or pricing. What are you seeing in that regard? Is that accurate?
Yeah. Well, again, let's start with kind of what are the fundamental structural drivers going on, and therefore the outcome becomes obvious. So first, as everybody knows, artists are now making their money touring. They're not making their money on the recorded music anymore. They're not selling the records. And by the time whatever comes out of streaming, by the time it flows through the record company, somehow most of it magically disappears. So that's just the reality of it. So they're making most of their money. They're like a lot of other people. They made no money for two years, right? Like it's easy, you know, we all kind of have amnesia about 2020 and 2021. I have sort of, you know, angst just sitting here given it was four years ago this week that the world shut down the day after I left here.
but we forget they had no money, right? So, they're in a difficult financial situation. And now they're coming back on tour and costs went up a lot in late 2021, 2022, into 2023. And we're all applauding now, yes, most of those costs have stopped going up, but they still went up a lot. So, they're getting cheaper. So they went up. So you have that financial stress going on with the artists. And then you have total transparency with the secondary market on the fact that ticket prices in the secondary are going up faster than they are in the primary. The average ticket is twice the primary price. And if you're an artist, wouldn't you be sitting there going, well, that's BS.
I have a person here who's taking no investment in creating the music, not one of my partners, not even a venue or a promoter or somebody who's invested to make it happen, take some risk with me. They're sitting on the outside taking a lot of money. If anybody's, you know, and clearly there's no action being taken to limit them right now. So that's my money. So I got to decide how much of that should I be getting? Now, again, I go back to what I said earlier. 2/3 of the tickets are under $100. 1/3 of the tickets are under $50. This is not artists running wild, gouging all of their fans. This is them saying, particularly for the best seats, rather than that money going to a scalper, I want that money to come to me.
I'm now seeing enough data that I'm convinced that 16-year-old superfan at my on-sale doesn't have a prayer against the bots. However much Ticketmaster invests, it's a $10 billion a year industry. They just have more incentive to cheat than anybody does to stop them. So it's going to happen. I get that that third-row ticket for $80 is not going to a fan at the on-sale. It's ending up with a fan paying $800 for it. So I think that I should be getting that. Philosophically, again, as a company that focuses on super serving artists, we believe, we agree, we think that's their money. We think that every artist is best positioned to figure out the relationship to have with their fans, how much they should charge.
I mean, again, some of the things you heard over the past year, people being surprised of, you really think that Jay-Z, like Ticketmaster, set his ticket price? Like, really? You ever stopped and thought about that? You thought that was logical? So I think that, yeah, we're getting a better understanding both of how it works and why the decisions that are being made are being made.
One of the other big changes, at least based on some of the disclosure you gave at the Investor Day, between pre-pandemic and post-pandemic, was a big step function in the ancillary revenues that you generated at ticketing. I know you kind of used the shutdown as an opportunity to invest in the product and do a lot in that regard. What, there are a lot of things within that ancillary bucket. What's really driving the step function in that growth?
Yeah. Well, like everything else in life, when you focus on something, you identify it as an opportunity and you put resources against it, you can get results. And I think people that have followed our company know we tend not to talk about what we think we might be able to do. We talk about what we've accomplished. So it's something we have been working on for a while, but we wanted to see progress and demonstrate it because I just don't believe that, you know, we put something up on the screen and then two years later you never see it again and it's, oh yeah, we moved on from that. We're just on to the next thing. But we have seen Ticketmaster itself as it's a platform and there are a multitude of ways of making money off of that platform.
One that is increasingly important is the data we have, understanding consumer behavior, consumer purchasing, price elasticity, and being able to use that data to then work with teams and artists and others about what we just talked about, which is what is the market value of your product that you're selling? And that's the service that Ticketmaster charges for reasonably. And I think that's a first step of a great opportunity of just how we use our data more effectively. And then the other broad topic is just the revenue we get from selling things to the fans. Upsells are a big focus. The upsell can be you're going to the amphitheater, I'm going to upsell you the VIP club, I'm going to upsell you parking, I'm going to upsell you a lawn chair.
It can also be working with our advertisers on, hey, you're a you're a Hilton Honors Blue member, you get this. You're a Diamond Medallion, you get this. So working with our sponsors to deliver value to the fans, on that platform is another great way. And then just the ad units, getting creative about what are ad units that you can put in that don't disrupt the flow or hurt conversion. We'll continue to add those. So it's really it's all three of those general categories.
Got it. Turning, I guess, lastly to sponsorship in terms of the segments. We've historically thought about sponsorship growth over time kind of mapping to fan growth. How do you get to double-digit growth at sponsorship? Is it getting global versus regional deals? And how much of it is your concert platform relative to or your ticketing platform?
Yeah, I actually think it's grown. I mean, it's been a pretty steady double-digit growth business for us if you look back over the past 12 or 13 years. So, it has it has been, you know, pretty high performing, high margin, obviously. It's about 2/3 on-site and 1/3 online. On-site is really it's about our venues, right? It's about our amphitheaters and festivals in particular. Fans have shown surveys and behavior that they're very open to having brands participate in their concert experience if they're adding some value. Putting up the banner ad, just putting their name somewhere is is a turn-off for fans these days. But if you're doing something that actually enhances their experience, festivals are great because they have people there all day. But even amphitheaters, you tend to have some some time parts before and and during breaks of the show.
That's valuable for fans, valuable for brands. And now we're at a scale, right? 150 million fans, over 50 million fans in our venues that a brand looks at it and says, okay, I can get positive engagement and reach. So it's increasingly attractive, right? It's one of those businesses that I think shows increasing returns as you grow because you have the scale to attract more and more brands. And then on the online side, it's what I was just talking about, which is we're creating new ad units. And you can call them an ad unit if you want, but new ways through digital ticketing and through the identity of the fan for brands to get that direct connection, which is a higher level than a brand than an ad unit.
Got it. Want to make sure that we touch on regulatory. It's been another active year for the industry and Live Nation on that front. You know, there continues to be an ongoing investigation by the DOJ, lots of discussion amongst investors on how that might impact Live Nation's business and corporate structure. What do you view stepping back maybe as the issues facing the industry today and how do those how are those best addressed?
Yeah, you know, I mentioned it earlier. It's been a fascinating year, a year and a half personally, in terms of the education process of how the industry works. Last about a year ago at this time, we proposed what we called the Fair Ticketing Act, which was something that the pieces of it are basically around giving the artists a lot more control of the ticket, recognizing it's their IP and they should have more to say, putting a lot more constraints on the Secondary Market and their ability to scoop up tickets and sell them at a massive, massively higher price.
I think if you watch the narrative on what's been going on with Congresspeople and senators, most of the narrative, most of the bills introduced are now around pieces that we came up with in the FAIR Act a year ago. So I think the world has been gravitating, right, all in pricing, obviously limits on spec selling, which I can't for the life of me understand how that's legal, even with today's laws, but, apparently needs to be explicitly put under control, putting other constraints on secondary, which we think are great for the industry. I think the narrative has shifted to that. I think people recognize that that really is where the market distortion exists because of secondary and the money involved in secondary, the incentives it creates.
The secondary players, you give them credit, they've been very effective with their lobbying. And, you know, if anytime somebody says, oh, you have a blemish, you say, yeah, well, Ticketmaster's a monopoly. Well, you know, oh yeah, that's true. You know, you distract them. But I think that now there's been such a cadence this year that a lot of folks are understanding, no, you're trying to distract by throwing something out that A isn't true and B isn't relevant. And you're seeing that at the federal level. And then I just got an update today this morning on the state level. State level, similarly, very consistently, lots of all-in pricing, lots of bans on spec, a few that are even looking at potentially controlling secondary more substantially.
All the ones that were out there that were kind of the astroturf, protect the fans, not really, you know, but funded by the scalper, those are really largely getting shot down now because the light isn't being shown on the industry, right? And when the light is really put on the industry and nobody's trying to hide things, you start to see what the reality of what the issues are. And so I think we've made great progress over the past year. I feel very good about the trajectory of where things are going. It won't be fast enough. It won't be enough. But it certainly feels like it's all moving in the right direction for artists and for fans.
You didn't have any update for us two weeks ago on the DOJ process. I'm guessing no update now.
I'm not really going to get in the mode of every two weeks hopping on a phone. Yeah, so we're fully, you know, we're fully giving them everything they ask for and they'll define the timetable. And, in the meanwhile, we'll continue to run a great business in a great industry. And again, I'll say it over and over. Our strategy, our culture is to super serve the artists. I don't think we have anything to be ashamed of with having that as a strategy. I think that our structural behavior is positive for the industry. You know, big is bad today. So we'll, you know, but I feel very good about what, you know, how we are as a company trying to operate, what we're trying to do and what our opportunities are going forward.
Great. You outlined some helpful framework in terms of your capital allocation thoughts and mentality at the Investor Day in November. No surprise Venue Nation was top of the list, but I was a little surprised that New Market M&A was pretty far down the list. Is that an indication to us that you kind of from a promotion standpoint feel like you have the footprint or presence that you need today?
I think in the U.S. we do. I think internationally there's absolutely more M&A. I don't, you may be reading more into the sequence of the list than we intended. I don't, to me, cash is cash. M&A versus CapEx are just different deployments of cash with slightly different characteristics, having to do with speed and risk and cost and time. But they're ultimately towards the same objective. But when we walk into a market, if we walk into you know, if I walked into Madrid, Madrid has certain buildings that exist or don't exist, certain pieces of land that exist or don't exist for me to do something. So you're going to go to the markets that you think are attractive and that you think don't have the infrastructure that's necessary. And then it becomes practical at that point. So what are the opportunities?
Is it an existing arena, old, run down? I buy it. I put some capital into it to refurbish it and I'm off and running. Or do I need to start from scratch and just deploy the capital? I don't think we have a philosophical view as much as you got to look at the markets when you get there.
Yeah, makes sense. Maybe with the time we have left, staying on the Investor Day topic, you outlined a lot of different areas across your business in terms of driving the next leg or legs of growth. We've talked about a lot of them, but across that kind of opportunity set, what would you highlight as the biggest opportunity for Live Nation over the next year, three years, five years?
Yeah. Well, as we started with, I think the number one thing is you continue to grow your fan base. It's like getting to that 200 million fans because you've got some growth in the market. You continue to build the market, implicitly getting some share from that. And then you do everything else. So if we can get 200 million fans, good things will happen. We'll unlock more sponsorship, more ticketing, more advertising, more everything. So, all of the different pieces will perform.
I think then the other one, which is what we were just talking about, which is the Venue Nation side of, I think, continuing to both build the portfolio of venues, which helps create that market so you can have the infrastructure in the middle to deliver your supply to your demand, and then continuing to focus on how do we get better and better at the hospitality side, monetize that, which, you know, which then through the cycle opens up more opportunities because you're making more money, you can hit your threshold returns. So I think those are the two that are the kind of the cornerstone. And then the other pieces, I think we have a long track record of delivering and we'll continue to deliver incrementally on them.
Great. Well, that brings us to time, basically. Joe, thanks so much for joining us.
Of course. Thank you. Thanks for having me.