All right, we'll get started. My name is David Karnovsky. I cover media, entertainment, and advertising at J.P. Morgan. Very happy to have back Joe Berchtold, Live Nation President and CFO. Joe, thanks for being here.
Thanks for having me.
Let's start with the topic that's front of mind for investors, which is the DOJ. The latest we saw in the press is that you recently met with the agency, which is considering a legal action against the company. What can you say here in terms of updates, and is there anything incremental to note on timing, how long a process could theoretically play out?
Yeah. I mean, as I said on the earnings call, we're now in discussions with the senior division leadership, which is generally the last part of the process. These are always serious discussions. Wouldn't get to this point if they didn't have concerns. But the good news is, we're still talking, and they've said they have an open mind. So, I mean, without getting into all the real details of the conversation, I think it's fair to say, I continue to believe that we fundamentally have business practices that are fully defensible. But we're also open to figuring out common ground in order to get this settled and moved on. What we don't know is exactly what they want at this point still.
You know, if you look at the Apple case, I think from my view, you have some similarities, that it seems to be some discrete business issues, where they ultimately decided they wanted to take action against the broader platform as opposed to sorting the specific issues. So I think that's what still has to play out with us, is what ultimately are they looking to solve for?
I don't want to box you in, but anything on timing or, like, what?
Well, we don't... Again, we don't fully control it-
Got it
... because it depends on what they wanna do. As I said, we're continuing the conversations, and we'll keep showing up and continue them as long as they're interested in doing so. But yeah, I think we're getting to the late stages now.
Got it. And you mentioned discrete business practices. We saw something in Billboard about a potential focus on-
Yeah
- exclusivity and ticketing contracts.
Yeah.
What can you say there?
Yeah, well, I think exclusivity, it's a bit of a red herring from my mind. If you look at the various initiatives that have happened at the state level, in California most recently, over the past month or so, there was an initiative on exclusivity in the state. And what happened in California is what has generally happened in most other states, which is all the venues say, "Wait a minute. Those are our property rights. We think the best way to maximize the value of those property rights is to auction off exclusivity. So one is from a financial standpoint, we extract the most value. And then, secondly, from an operational standpoint, frankly, we don't want the hassle of being told we need to deal with multiple systems." These are the revenue ERP systems.
It's not just a marketplace, right, in primary, and we've talked about this a lot in the past. There's one piece that's the consumer-facing, its marketplace, all looks very simple. But from a venue standpoint, this is their revenue ERP system. This is the system they use that build shows, prices shows, market shows, manages their entire manifest, generally will tie into their financials. It's what they train all their people on, it's what their box office gets trained on, it's tied into their access control, set up in their box office. So if you're a venue, you're saying, "Wait a minute, why is somebody telling me I need to work with multiple systems?" I've got no issues with any venue that says they want to be non-exclusive, and want a financial arrangement that reflects that, and want an operational arrangement that reflects that.
All of that is fine as far as we're concerned. We just find that that's not generally what the venues are asking for. So I think so long as any conversation stays grounded in, "We need to be able to be responsive to what venues ask for," and how that gets structured, that's, that doesn't concern me at all.
Length of exclusivity, that was a point of concern for some politicians?
Yeah. You know, I think what's happened, generally, we've talked, most contracts are 3-5 years in length. In recent years, as venues have looked to use big advances in ticketing to help fund their capital requirements, they have wanted to have longer terms because it means they can get a bigger upfront check.
And so if somebody came along and said, "Hey, you can't go longer than five years," again, that doesn't concern me. That will limit the venues in terms of how much capital they get, but we, we can, we can figure that out. That, that doesn't concern me in the least.
Got it. On the earnings call, you and Michael discussed a bit the decentralized nature of Live Nation, with promotion and ticketing able to stand up as separate businesses. A question we get asked frequently, though, is about the importance of integration between the two. What should investors know? How has that evolved since the merger in 2010?
Yeah, I think if you dial it back 15 years, and why did we do the acquisition of Ticketmaster? I think there were two key areas. One is, at the time, Live Nation, as the promoter, was in a B2B position, and it was in a time when technology was squeezing B2B providers. We said: Well, we wanna be B2C, so we wanna own the consumer, know who they are, know what they're doing, and we think we need to be in ticketing to have that B2C interface. The second is if you looked at Ticketmaster, at that point, had spent 25-30 years being very focused on being a venue and a sports system. It had been underinvested in for several years, and it wasn't a great concert ticket sales platform.
And we thought that if we're going to be in the concert business, we better have a ticketing platform that is really good at what we need in terms of what I talked about earlier: pricing tickets, marketing tickets, figuring out how to manage the manifest. And ultimately, you see a lot of the innovations that we've had with Ticketmaster over the past decade, making it a great concert system. Moving to digital tickets, moving to having a joint primary and secondary exchange, so fan could get all the solutions they needed in one spot. A lot of things we've done to try to stop bots, fan registration, Face Value Exchanges.
We've had a whole lot of initiatives to make it the best platform to sell concert tickets, which I think even a lot of other promoters would say we well succeeded and are clearly the leader in selling tickets today.
Got it. Maybe, moving to the business. At earnings, you disclosed year-to-date Live Nation ticket sales of $86 million. That was basically in line with the prior year. Fee-bearing tickets at TM, I think were up 4%. Wanted to see if there's any updates to provide there, and just maybe you can refresh us on venue mix, how that's impacting the forward metrics, AOI growth.
Yeah. No, it continues to be a very strong year. I think, as of now, we'd be at about 100 million concert tickets sold, up a couple percent, so it's accelerated a little bit. We have, as we've long said, stadiums are quieter this year, but arenas, amphitheaters, theaters, and clubs, ticket sales are up double digits across all of those different venue types. So continuing to think this is gonna be a very good year, a very good year in particular for shows at our own venues. On the Ticketmaster side, I think we've sold about 140 million tickets, so up around 5%, again, reflecting a little of the acceleration we've had on the concert side. So everything continues to be very strong consumer demand.
We're feeling very good about where we are as we head into the summer season.
Maybe, following up on that, can you segment out that demand across maybe consumer type? I think investors always assume the high end will come through, but middle or low end-
Yeah
... sometimes there's concern, commentary from earnings.
Yeah.
And then, what about Live Nation Concert Week?
Yeah.
Expanded that,
Yeah
... for its tenth anniversary.
Yeah, I was gonna say that I think Concert Week is probably the best single data point you have on that casual fan behavior, right? It's a fan that is willing to say, "Well, there's a deal out there, a promotion. I'm gonna take advantage of that." That'll speak to the more price-conscious, I think. So, we increased it this year, as you said. We added more shows. Home run in terms of our sales up across the board. You know, you have to separate out more shows versus more tickets a bit, but if you look at our amphitheaters, on a per-show basis, we sold about 20% more tickets this year for Concert Week than we sold last year.
So even though we had a lot more shows, no cannibalization in terms of fewer tickets per show. In fact, that number was up around 20%. So, that's obviously what has driven a chunk of when I gave the $100 million number, the $140 million number. What has helped drive both the concert and the ticketing numbers is that very strong Concert Week result, casual fan. We've seen it also. We have some festivals, Lollapalooza, Governors Ball, that we have, when we launched it, for a limited time, an early bird special, if you will, in terms of getting a low price if you commit on the day of or first couple of days of the on-sale. In both cases this year, dramatic increase in those sales.
Just another data point that more cost-conscious, casual fan is continuing to absolutely buy tickets.
Got it. In your last earnings release, you posted some interesting stats around global content growth in the-
Yeah
... U.S. and Europe. You cited specifically, Latin and Afrobeats artist. Frame the opportunity around these genres. You know, is the growth here just... Is it all incremental, and that, you know, now the concert supply is-
Yeah
... catching up to what we've seen on Spotify?
Yeah. No, I absolutely think it's incremental. I think what happens every year is you've got, you've got a base of artists that have been touring or continuing to tour, and then you have new artists that are getting added in. So that universe of artists touring on both a regional and now increasingly a global basis just continues to grow, right? So if you think about how is it we continue to expand the market, it's two pieces in parallel. One is we're going to more markets, more places globally, and then at the same time, you've got an increasing base of artists whom you can work with, that you can take globally. So you need a bit of both.
But if you look at, if you look at Latin music, if you look at Afrobeats, even if you look at, at, K-pop and, and other, Asian acts, already this year, we're up, in all three of those, we're up double digits from the number of shows we booked through the entirety of last year. So all of those genres are continuing to show very strong growth this year. I think the good news from my perspective is they're all still, if you look at it as a total percent of our fan base, they're still a relatively limited total portion of our fan base. So I think there's still a long ways to run, for all these regional genres as they continue to globalize.
Got it. As you've noted, AOI growth this year, a little more amp, less stadium-driven than in 2023. So in that context.
Yeah
... you know, what's your confidence level around improving onsite per caps-
Yeah
... at the owned and operated venues and festivals, what are the drivers?
Yeah, as we said in the earnings call, just to the start, the first quarter, our theaters and clubs were up double digits in terms of the fan spending. So good early read there. In the amps, I think we've had something like 50 amps play off through-
Yeah.
when we have the data. So it's a pretty small data set, but and again, all of this is very small data set, so I take it more for the absence of any concerns. But, I think we had 18 artists that had played in the first month last year, played in the first month this year. There, the average per fan revenue is up double digits for them. So again, I wouldn't read and go model, "Okay, that's what's gonna happen when we do, you know, 1,500 shows.
Yeah.
But it says, "Okay, there's nothing concerning." There's nothing out of the gate in the first few weeks that would say there's any sign of any pullback. There continues to be a lot of product innovation on site, a lot of focus on hard alcohol. What we had is the shaker cups before, now live juice, expanding that, has proven to be very popular. Some people are moving away from beer and, and from seltzer. Continuing to focus a lot on parking, VIP parking, ways to segment parking so that we can use that as a strong revenue driver. And then all the hospitality options you have on site, continuing to figure out what are different high-end hospitality we can provide.
Michael talked about our aspiration of having 30% of our fans being able to have some sort of hospitality experience. So we're continuing and incrementally working our way towards that, and that all those provide some great growth opportunity.
Is the super high-end hospitality an opportunity? I remember we talked about this at Lollapalooza, but-
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'd say that's generally been more of an opportunity at festivals, where you can really have that very exclusive high-end hospitality. It hasn't been as much as consistently at the amps, in part because of just the acts who were at the amps. But, you know, this is again, an incremental thing for us. We're not trying to leap all the way to the-
Yeah
... $1,000 a head at the amps, but incrementally in figuring out what is the demand, because we know there is still a long, long way to run with the demand.
Got it. Good segue into Venue Nation. So, you've guided CapEx for 2024 at $600 million, around $450 million of that is slated for venues. Wanna see if you could segment that out, maintenance, refurbs, new builds-
Yeah
... and then, I think it's 12 venues, planned for opening the next 2 years. Maybe just a little detail around, you know, what those are, where they're located.
Right.
Is that the right kind of pace?
Yeah. Yeah, so as you said, it's about $600 million CapEx this year, about three-quarters of it tied in with the venue side of the business. If you take that roughly $450 million, about two-thirds of that is either new builds or major refurbishments, which I sort of put in the, in a similar bucket of a, of a pretty, a pretty new fan experience, where we can get that, that hospitality we're really seeking. And then the last third is a mix of either some tactical on-site, you know, bars, hospitality, on existing, on existing amphitheaters or theaters and clubs, and then the rest is, is, 20-odd% is maintenance. So yeah, you're always gonna have that maintenance-
Yeah
... ongoing, but the vast majority of it is to driving the revenue side. As you said, or as we've said, we expect about 12 buildings between this year and next year opening up. It's well split between international and North America. I think it's exactly 6 North America, 6 international in terms of buildings. Pretty much the same in terms of expected fan count. When I talked about our plans for those buildings total on a run rate basis, about 8 million fans. It's pretty well split between North America and international as well. In international, we've got South America, we've got Canada, we've got Europe, we've got Asia. So, again, very global. And I'd say the majority of our focus now is on those international markets. That's where we see the most opportunity.
So 50/50 now, but trending over time?
Yeah, I think trending over time, we'll see more. And just as I watch what comes across my desk in terms of the conversations, if I tell you three months from now, it's 14, not 12, I think it'll be because we've added a few more international ones.
Okay. On the, on the refurbs, how, how substantial an opportunity is there for your domestic amp or theater footprint, right? A lot of these venues kind of are older. They came through Live Nation-
Yeah
... as part of the original-
Yeah
... predecessor company back in the 1990s.
Yeah. Well, a lot of it ties in with when we do lease extensions, right? I mean, it's just simple math. You know, Jones Beach was someplace we hadn't put a lot of money into for quite a while outside of New York. Well, you get to a point where you can't put money in because you have a lease that's gonna expire, so you're not gonna put a lot of capital in, and gosh, maybe they'll give me credit. So we had to wait until we had with the state, went through the process, had a substantial extension of the lease, and that let us put in the money and get the return. So all of these amphitheaters we're looking at now, how long is the term? Can we go and extend the term so that we have the flexibility to invest the money?
So it's gonna be, it's gonna be in pieces over time as we get those extensions. Meanwhile, we'll keep on with some of the tactical, very rapid return steps that we can take, whether it's in the parking lot, or adding bars, or adding some straightforward refurbishments that gives us some other hospitality.
Anything to tease around Jones Beach, what we could look forward to?
I think it'd be a totally new experience.
Yeah.
Opens up next month. I'll get out there and take a look, but all the reports I've heard are great.
... maybe separate to the, internal investment, what's the, the venue opportunity on the acquisition side, right? What does the market look like at any given time, for venue deals, and, and how are you positioned against, like, an AEG or an OVG?
Yeah, I think... The way I think about it is, I think about it in terms of cities. There are, pick your number, 100 cities outside the U.S. that today are at a scale you'd love to have an arena in, you'd love to be touring. So you have to look at the city, and you have to say: What are the options there? Is there an existing arena? What shape is it in? If there's a new arena in great shape, and it fulfills the full needs of the market, okay, you move on. But often you'll either say, "Okay, there is nothing, so that's, I'm gonna have to build it. How can I build it? Is there land? How do we develop it? Is there an existing building? Who owns it?
What refurbishment does it need? Are there opportunities for us to acquire it? Can we partner with the existing person, right? Is there somebody else who we should be working with?" So every situation is gonna be a function of just what's in that city now, and who can we work with to try to move to a position that we can operate that building, control it, and drive the improvement to make it a world-class music arena so we can bring a lot more shows there, right? The first thing is, get the infrastructure in place, bring more shows. Then we operate it, and we continue to improve the performance of the building as we've learned how to do.
Got it. I want to jump to ticketing. So in your releases, you always continue to highlight new enterprise ticket signings, most of this coming from abroad. Maybe unpack the drivers there.
Yeah.
Are these regions where, you know, you've kinda recently opened, like Brazil, or is it more where you've been a long time?
Yeah, it's, I mean, it's what you'd expect, right? It's a mix of all the above. I think we talked about 70% of our new tickets being in international markets. I'd say half of those are in U.K. or Europe, some of the more established markets, but I think 20-odd% of it is down in South America, much newer, and then the rest would be Asia and some of the other markets scattered around. So, you see a pretty broad mix.
We're having a lot of success going into new markets, but as we've talked about for the past couple of years, I think as we really enhanced our international platform through the course of COVID, that has now differentiated itself, and we're continuing to see a lot of success in established markets internationally because of the functionality that I was talking about earlier.
So let's, let's follow up on that, 'cause we sometimes get the question, right: What considerations does a venue have when they sign you as an enterprise partner, and, right, what should investors know about Ticketmaster versus a would-be competitor on, on sales, marketing, fraud prevention?
Yeah, I mean, you get into the details, but I think at the highest level, what they care about are two things. One is: Is the platform going to sell the most tickets for me? If it's going to sell the most tickets for me, then, A, I will collect the most service fees-
Right
... that I keep the bulk of. And B, that's really helpful when I'm debating with... Forget when it's Live Nation. When I'm debating with some other promoter about, do I get the show or does somebody else, that's what's gonna matter first and foremost to content, is, is who's gonna be able to sell the tickets. And then secondly is just: What are the financial terms of the deal? So those are the biggest. Now, you, you have a lot of then sub-pieces that particularly roll into the, "Is it gonna sell the most tickets?" Is it a system that it can be effective in marketing? Does it do a good job pricing? Is it easy for my staff to learn how to use and deploy?
Do they have all the tools so that I can manage against bots and make sure fans are getting tickets, and to stop fraud, and a lot of that specific functionality. But I think if you just stopped a manager on the street and said, "When you're thinking about what building you want your artist to go into," they're gonna say, "Well, what, what's gonna sell the most tickets and gross the most money for my artist?
Right.
And so if you're a venue in a competitive world trying to get those shows, you know that's what's gonna ultimately really matter to your, to your decision.
On the financial terms, I mean, you said that was the second. Is it just the-
Yeah, I mean-
... the split or-
It's a very competitive-
Yeah
... market, right?
Right.
Don't let any of the press reports fool you. Every renewal that we have gets, you know, it's what you expect in today's world, right? It doesn't get easier. It gets harder, and every venue does a good job of going out and getting multiple bids. Often, at some point in the process, they're, you know, they tell you: "This is where we need you to be financially, and we like your platform, and if you can meet these financial requirements, then we want you to be our ticketing company.
Got it. You've talked more about Ticketmaster as a platform recently. I think for some time the service fee is gonna continue to be the center of the business, but what are the longer-term opportunities in terms of e-commerce, sponsorship, partners looking to leverage your place in the ecosystem?
Yeah. I think it, it starts with, I mean, a bit of what I just said, right? You know that every competitive renegotiation's going to get tougher.
Yeah.
So when you run a business, you don't get to throw up your hands and say, "Oh, well, it's pretty tough. I guess, I guess I'm just gonna make less money." No. Your job, right, when you're running a business, is to say: What are all the levers I have at my disposal? So I know I have some headwinds over here in terms of how I think about every negotiation I'm gonna have for a renewal with a venue. All right, I've got some benefit that if I can continue to scale, I can continue to get some leverage off of my fix, so that's one. We also have to be continually asking, what are the other revenue sources? How do I continue to monetize that?
Part of that is the services to the venues, services to the artists, what can I come up with there? And then the other half of that is, well, I got this great platform. I'm selling, we just talked, 130 million tickets already this year, over 320 or something million tickets last year, fee-bearing. So I've got those people going through a purchase transaction. What else can I do to monetize that relationship, either at the point of the transaction or later on? Because now it's a digital ticket, I know their identity, and I can have a relationship with them. So again, some simple, obvious things, but just, you know, maybe weren't historically the focus. About a third of fans travel over 100 miles for the major shows.
Well, if you travel over 100 miles, you might need a hotel room, right? You might need a restaurant reservation, and our platform can be a great source of, you know, leads, which we can monetize for those. You're buying a sports ticket. I don't know, do you wanna buy a jersey, too? "Hey, you're going to see—you're going to the playoff game, and here, tomorrow night, you're taking your kids.
So do you wanna get a jersey with that and have that delivered same day, so that they can wear their favorite player's jersey?" So there's all sorts of opportunities, and then once we have, as I said, post-purchase, a lot of this now with our sponsors, where they see their opportunity: If I can figure out a way to add value to the fan's experience, concert-going, sports-going, whatever it is, then I can use Ticketmaster as a way to connect with those fans and monetize, and we can monetize that. So we're continuing to look at that. Again, we've used these examples before with our amphitheaters. You're going to the amphitheater. Hilton wants to say, "Oh, you're a Diamond Medallion. Why don't you go to the VIP club on us?" Or, "You're just a member.
Why don't you get a lawn chair on us?" So they can use it to deliver different value to different segments of, of their population and get some value out of that. So, a big focus for us, we've talked about now for the past couple years, is tracking how are we monetizing that, that non-service fee part of the relationship, because we know driving that is a key part of the growth going forward.
Got it. Maybe just one more on ticketing. You put up some stats regarding all-in pricing. I think there was an 8% increase in completed sales over the first half year of the program. Joe, can you help frame this? Was that better than expected, given some of your competitors didn't follow suit-
Yeah, yeah.
If the whole industry goes that way-
Yeah
... how would that change?
Yeah, look, we were pleasantly surprised, right? The first thing, again, that I read into that is no negative. The big concern is, if we adopt some of these initiatives, what's the impact gonna be? And so just so we're specific on what it was, it was an 8% increase in the conversion rate from putting something in your cart to buying it. So that showed that fans not being surprised by an add-on price down the road meant that they were more likely to buy. You know, I think that primary's a little different than secondary. We always had it still pretty available through the purchase flow. I think what happens a lot in secondary is they really wait.
I mean, on some sites, you have to put in your credit card just to get what your service fees are gonna be-
Yeah
... to really drive it to the end, so they've been dragging their feet. Service levels tend to be higher in secondary. I think it's the right first step for us. I think it's the right step for the industry. You know, if you take a step back in what all the conversation is over the past year and a half about ticketing, particularly in, on the legislative side, it went from us being the, you know, the demons, the root of all evils in the industry, to I think a lot of education, and the conversations today on the legislative side tend to be very different.
They tend to be very focused on what are reasonable consumer protections around things like all-in pricing, elimination of spec tickets, elimination of deceptive URLs, tougher crackdown on the bots, really things that tend to go to the secondary, where you see the primary abuses taking place. And hopefully, again, we put out our proposals a year ago. We're starting to see what just passed in the House last week, having components of that. I think you're getting a lot more visibility. There was a great article in Billboard last week talking about Taylor Swift tickets and how it was actually cheaper to buy Taylor Swift tickets in France, fly there, stay there, than it was to buy them here in the U.S.
And it's because there are just some reasonable common-sense controls on secondary in a lot of European markets, controls that give a lot more to the artist in terms of what can happen with it. So I'm hopeful that we're now on a path, all-in ticketing being the first step of some pretty common-sense reforms in ticketing that will be good for the fan, will be good for the artists, the content owners. And, you know, again, I feel good about where we're at with all-in pricing. I think chances are that may be actually something that can get passed as a bill, and again, it'll be a good step for the industry to clean up.
Passed and enforced, hopefully, right?
Yes, yes.
Yeah, that's the second piece. Just circling back to sponsorship, growth was outsized in the quarter. You talked a little bit about traction in the Southern Hemisphere. I don't know if that's just-
Yeah
... South America or also Australia.
Yeah.
What's going on there? Is that, you know, just an extension of the global relationships to some of the infrastructure you've built up?
Yeah, it's heavily South America in the first quarter, but we're generally seeing between South America and Asia, if you look at our first and fourth quarters, which were historically lighter, as we're starting to do more festivals, more big events in those markets, you're seeing just a higher growth rate. So I don't know that you'll see higher growth, but higher growth rate, given the smaller denominator of those quarters. Sponsorship is continuing to do great. I think we're probably 90% booked now, up double digits for the year. So you know, as I talk to folks internally, like, that's not the problem. I don't worry about that.
They're gonna deliver their double-digit growth this year, I think, so we're in good shape there, and yeah, just as we're building Latin America market, it's a great sponsorship market.
Okay. On M&A, if we look at your, at least, cash outflows for acquisitions, it's been a little quieter recent periods. Curious, what are you seeing in terms of deal flow? What are the kind of target regions for you?
Yeah, deal flow is great. You know, it's the old adage, I can either do a good deal or a quick deal.
Right.
So I don't obsess over doing quick deals. They'll bounce around and be somewhat chunky in terms of their timing and their size. But you know, as I said, I think about it in terms of cities, particularly outside the U.S., so you'll continue to see us very active, particularly on the venue front, South America, Europe, Asia, all over, as we continue to try to build that. I think you'll still see some promoter acquisitions. Again, South America, Asia as the primary targets on those, as we further expand our footprint in those markets. So no slowdown in appetite or discussions, probably just a bit of bouncing in terms of timing.
I wanna just go back to something you said on festivals. I think Michael was talking about, less of a focus on broad, multi-day tentpoles, more of a shift to, shorter genre-based events. First, what's driving that? And then second, what's the implication coming out of that in terms of per caps or sponsorship?
Yeah, I think that, it's just we've got some creative people that have come up with some great festival ideas, and what they've done is they've really packed the agenda with who the artists are, and then they run those on a multi-day basis. So the best example is When We Were Young, which we launched in Vegas, I guess, a year and a half or so ago, it's sort of pop punk. I remember when the lineup came out, all- if you looked at all the social on the lineup, it was, "This has got to be fake. There's no way they can have this group of acts in one day. This is a Fyre Festival.
It's not gonna happen." But so then what happened is it was set up as a one-day festival, but we did it five days, so we repeated it five times because there was so much demand for it. So it's just a, I think it's a complimentary way, you know, with the Lollas of the world, ACLs, BottleRock this weekend, Sea.Hear.Now in New Jersey later this year. I mean, you're still seeing a lot of these do well, but you've got this pop-up of there's Lovers and Friends a few weeks ago. There's sort of the emergence of these new festival types. It's taking a minute to figure out how to work with sponsors on something that, rather than being a three-day event, is many one-day events with a new audience generally each day.
So the good news for—I always look at it as glass half full. That means more opportunity as we figure that out. That's another area of growth that we have. So, I think that over the, you know, it's better this year than it was last year, and next year, we'll push them to do a little better again, as they figure out what's the model. Again, because you don't even necessarily know when you go on sale. Is it gonna be 3 days or 5 days? How many of these are we gonna do based on what the demand is? So we're still sorting that out.
Got it. All right, we're just about out of time, Joe. Thanks for being here.
All right, thanks.