Good day, everyone. My name is Hector, and I will be your conference operator on today's call. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Live Nation Entertainment's second quarter 2022 earnings conference call. Today's conference is being recorded. Following management's prepared remarks, we will open the call for Q&A. Instructions will be given at that time. Before we begin, Live Nation has asked me to remind you that this afternoon's call will contain certain forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that can cause actual results to differ, including statements related to the company's anticipated financial performance, business prospects, new developments, and similar matters.
Please refer to Live Nation's SEC filings, including the risk factors and cautionary statements included in the company's most recent filings on forms 10-K, 10-Q, and 8-K for a description of risks and uncertainties that could impact the actual results. Live Nation will also refer to some non-GAAP measures on this call. In accordance with the SEC Regulation G, Live Nation has provided definitions of these measures and a full reconciliation to the most comparable GAAP measures in their earnings release or website supplement, which also contains other financial or statistical information to be discussed on this call. The release reconciliation and website supplement can be found under the Financial Information section on Live Nation's website at investors.livenationentertainment.com. It is now my pleasure to turn the conference over to Michael Rapino, President and Chief Executive Officer of Live Nation Entertainment. Please go ahead, sir.
Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us. The second quarter confirmed that live entertainment industry is back globally and bigger than ever. Live Nation led this return and continues to deliver the best global network to support artists as they play shows for the fans around the world. Every key operating metric is at an all-time high. As we promoted more concerts, had more fans attend shows, they spent more money, sold more tickets, and enabled brands to connect with fans at a scale we have never seen before. As a result, relative to 2019, we drove a 40% increase in revenue to $4.4 billion and a 50% increase in AOI to $480 million. With most of the world fully reopened, it's clear that concerts remain a high priority for fans.
Consumers are seeking out and spending more on experiences, and the growing demand for live music and events is driving our business to record levels, far outpacing any macro issues or cost increases. Momentum across our business has remained strong in recent months and weeks, and demand, combined with a substantial concert pipeline, gives us confidence in our ongoing growth this year and into 2023. During the second quarter, we promoted over 12,000 concerts for 33.5 million fans, each up over 20% relative to the second quarter 2019. Of the over 6 million additional fans this quarter, 5 million of that growth came from international markets, driven by the addition of OCESA and the reopening of most global markets, with particularly strong focus and demand through Europe and Latin America.
Growth was broad-based, with double-digit attendance increased at venues of all types, demonstrating strong demand for events at all sizes, from large-scale stadiums and festivals to intimate clubs and theaters. Even as show count and attendance grew, fans demonstrated their willingness to pay more for the best seats, with the average price of a ticket for our concerts this year up 10% globally relative to 2019, which remains less than the US inflation level over the period. At the same time, our average entry price for concerts remained affordable at $33, up only 5% from 2019. With market-based pricing being widely adopted by most tours, we expect to shift over $500 million from the secondary market to artists this year, continuing to support those who created the concert and ensuring they are benefiting from it.
On the venue side of our concert business, we continue to build our portfolio of operated venues with an active pipeline of almost 30 new venues across the globe. We're seeing the benefit of operating more venues as the number of fans who attended shows in our owned and operated venues during the quarter was up 13% to over 14 million fans, and we expect that figure to reach over 50 million fans for the full year. Fans are spending more on-site, with average per fan revenue up 20% at each of our amphitheaters, festivals, theaters, and clubs relative to 2019, with the average per fan revenue at our amphitheaters this year at $38.50, up 30% relative to 2019. Our ticket business also demonstrated strong growth in the quarter.
Transacted fee-bearing ticket volume up 48% to 77 million tickets, and transacted GTV up 76% to $7.3 billion, both relative to 2019. This was our highest fee-bearing GTV quarter ever, with April, May, and June accounting for three of our top five all-time fee-bearing months. 75% of this growth came from concerts, another indicator of the high demand for live music. Along with the volume increase, transacted ticket prices globally was up approximately 15% for the first half of the year relative to 2019, as both concerts and sporting events saw similar low double-digit price increases during the period. Even with strong primary ticketing sales and increased pricing, demand for live events on our secondary ticketing marketplace remained high.
As a result, our GTV more than doubled for the quarter relative to 2019. We are continuing to see the benefits of our technology investments at Ticketmaster, including our global leadership in digital ticketing. Between new capabilities and the sales effectiveness of our ticketing marketplace, we consistently deliver high ticket sales for our event organizers. As a result, we continue to win business from new and existing clients. In the first half of this year, we had a 12.8 million net new fee-bearing tickets to our marketplace, led again this year by our international markets, which accounted for 60% of this new growth. Sponsorship has also benefited from the concert flywheel this quarter, driving 74% growth in revenue relative to 2019. As we further enabled more brands to connect with an increasing number of fans on a global basis.
Festival sponsorship has performed particularly well during the first half of the year, more than doubling from 2019, led by nine new festivals in our Mexico and Latin American businesses that accounted for roughly half this increase, along with broad growth in sponsorship levels across most of the North American festivals. We continue adding more clients in technology, telecom, and purchase path integration, including Google, AWS, and Hulu. With these categories collectively more than doubling their sponsorship since 2019. As we look forward to the second half of 2022 and into 2023, we have sold over 100 million tickets for our concerts this year, more than we sold for the entire year of 2019. Fan demand remains strong and continued growth in ticket buying and on-site spending.
Given the long-term nature of most of our sponsorship partnerships, our planned sponsorship for the year is now fully committed. As we prepare for 2023, everywhere globally is open for concerts, and we are actively routing all of our markets with the largest artist pipeline we have ever seen at this point of the year. For the 2023 tours we have put on sale so far, all signs continue pointing to strong fan demand. With that, I will let Joe take you through more details of our results.
Thanks, Michael, and good afternoon, everyone. As with last quarter, 2019 is the best comparison for us in terms of understanding our operations and key performance indicators. Most of our focus will be relative to Q2 of 2019. For the company, our reported revenue of $4.4 billion for the quarter was $1.3 billion better than Q2 2019 or an increase of 40%. On a constant currency basis, our revenue was $4.6 billion for the quarter, so there was roughly a 4% impact due to the strengthening of the U.S. dollar.
Our reported AOI of $480 million for the quarter was $160 million better than 2019, up 50% and led by an improvement of over $100 million in ticketing and $80 million in sponsorship. On a constant currency basis, our Q2 AOI was $502 million. The FX impact of -$23 million or 4% was largely driven by the devaluation of the euro and the pound. This was not only our highest Q2 AOI ever, but it was also our highest quarterly AOI ever, beating our prior record quarter, which was Q3 of 2019 by 12%. Notable, given the Q3 is traditionally our highest AOI quarter each year. We converted almost 80% of this AOI to adjusted free cash flow of $379 million.
Let me give a bit more color on each division, and then I'll give you more on full year leading indicators. First, in concerts, our AOI was $123 million for the quarter, which compares to $133 million in Q2 of 2019. It was one of concerts strongest second quarters ever, despite limited activity in our Asia Pacific region and operating cost increases. Additionally, while OCESA had a very strong return to activity, its AOI largely flows from sponsorship and ticketing, while their concerts division absorbs most of its costs. In the quarter, we had over 33 million fans attend 12,500 events, growing nearly 25% compared to Q2 of 2019, when we had 27 million fans attend 10,000 shows. We continue to see growth in our on-site spend with no signs of change.
Here's what we're seeing so far this year by venue type across our owned or operated buildings. In our amphitheaters, ancillary per fan revenue has risen to $38.50, an increase of $9 per fan over 2019 levels or 30% growth. At our theaters and clubs in the U.S., ancillary per fan revenue has increased by over 25%, driven by higher concession sales and increased purchases of premium packages, fast lane entry and night of show upsells. In our theaters and clubs in the U.K., ancillary per fan revenue has risen by 20% compared to 2019, largely as a result of increased food and beverage consumption, pricing optimization, as well as the shift to cashless payment. Finally, at our major festivals, increased spending on concessions, camping, and VIP experiences has driven ancillary per fan revenue up by over 30%.
The consistent theme here is that as we continue elevating our hospitality operations and create more premium options, fans are eager to enhance their experience. At this point, we still have a lot more room to grow these higher quality experience offerings throughout our owned or operated portfolio, which includes over 400 venues and festivals globally at this point. Next, ticketing had another very successful quarter, delivering $231 million of AOI, making it the most profitable quarter ever for ticketing, beating the record set just last year in the fourth quarter and nearly doubling the Q2 2019 AOI results of $124 million.
Our growth came from both primary and secondary ticketing, with transacted ticketing GTV up 69% and 141% respectively. Transacted ticket volume, excluding refunds, was 77 million tickets, our highest quarter ever, besting our former record of 65 million tickets in Q4 2021 by 18% and 25 million tickets or 48% higher than Q2 of 2019. Transacted ticketing GTV, excluding refunds, was $7.3 billion, our highest quarter ever, besting our former record of $6.6 billion of Q4 of 2021 by 11% and $3.1 billion and 76% higher than Q2 of 2019. International markets are now largely back and contributing to this growth, with transacted ticketing GTV up 67% relative to Q2 2019.
As Michael mentioned, approximately 75% of our growth came from concerts, which was due to both higher fan attendance at our concerts and also timing with a number of on sales expected to happen in Q3 getting moved up into Q2. Even as more of the tickets value is captured for content organizers, our secondary marketplace has continued to grow rapidly with four of our five best resale days ever in Q2 and 12 of our top 20 resale days in 2022. We continue to believe that the secondary market is a leading indicator for primary pricing opportunities over the next few years, as well as a buffer against any demand fluctuations. Finally, sponsorship had its biggest quarter ever with AOI of $178 million, 80% higher than our Q2 2019 AOI of $98 million.
With the U.S., the U.K., and now Mainland Europe all fully open, we had high growth in both on-site and online sponsorship, with each delivering record Q2 AOI. The growth in our large multi-year, multi-asset sponsors speaks to our value of connecting live music fans with global brands. We are nearing in on 100 such major sponsors that in total generate well over half a billion dollars in revenue and represents nearly 75% of our growth relative to 2019. As we look to the remainder of 2022, starting with our leading indicators through late July, all relative to 2019. First, confirmed show bookings are up over 30%, driven by double-digit increases in every market and across all venue types.
Our concert ticket sales through the end of July are over 100 million tickets for events this year, up 38% and higher than our full year 2019 fan count. As a result, we expect a very strong Q3 for concerts with more shows and higher attendance, including fan growth at our owned or operated venues where we are continuing to see strong APF increases. Also, similar to last year, we are extending the amphitheater later in the year, adding over 1 million fans in Q4 this year relative to 2019. Michael also gave the numbers around much of our Q2 fan growth being driven by international markets, which is a great indicator of the broadly global health of our fan base. I don't want anyone to overextrapolate this to the U.S. market as we expect North America will drive much of our fan growth in Q3.
Second, ticketing has sold 183 million primary fee-bearing tickets for events this year, up 30%. Of these, 122 million tickets are for concert events, which is 42% higher than 2019. Related to this, we have $3.2 billion in event-related deferred revenue, double our level in Q2 of 2019. These are largely tickets that have been sold by Ticketmaster for Live Nation concerts, but the revenue in AOI hasn't flowed through yet and will do so over the course of the next year as the events occur. We remain on course for a strong Q3 in ticketing as our deferred revenue is recognized, but also impacted by the shifts of some of the on sales that moved into Q2.
On the sponsorship side, we expect to see continued growth driven by our strong Q3 festival lineup, with some of this activity also involving on-site activation support. On the cost side, increases continue to impact us primarily in the venues we operate, amphitheater, theaters and clubs, and festivals. In all cases, we are delivering increased profitability per fan due to increased ticket and ancillary revenue. A few other points on 2022. Given our presence in the U.K. and Mainland Europe, we've experienced FX headwinds, and through the end of June, our AOI has been adversely impacted by $23 million. This was almost entirely in the second quarter as the U.S. dollar strengthened significantly against the euro and the British pound. Based on current rates, we expect our AOI to continue having a 3%-4% hit in the second half.
We provided detailed guidance on line items that impact our EPS calculation last quarter, and there's just one update that I wanted to make here, which is, as noted, we expect the headwinds with FX rates to continue through the remainder of the year, which at current forward rates result in approximately $15 million quarterly below the line expense due to currency exchange losses on the revaluation of our foreign balance sheet balances to US dollars. In anticipation of the growth opportunities ahead of us this year, we continue to expect 2022 capital expenditures to be approximately $375 million, with two-thirds allocated to revenue-generating projects.
We expect free cash flow conversion from AOI to be back in the mid-50s% for the full year, and we ended Q2 with $2.5 billion of available liquidity between free cash and untapped revolver capacity, giving us sufficient flexibility to continue investing in growth.
We are comfortable with our leverage with over 85% of our debt at a fixed rate and our average cost of debt of roughly 4.3%, positioning us well in this interest rate environment. With that, let me open the call for questions. Operator?
Thank you. We'll now be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment please while we poll for questions. Our first question comes from David Karnovsky with JP Morgan. Please proceed with your question.
Hi. Thank you. Michael, wanted to get your thoughts on pricing and VIP tickets. You know, we've seen artists embrace VIP inventory even amid some fan pushback and negative press, which looks to me to be a break from prior years. You know, do you think the industry has collectively gotten to a place where artists are now kind of comfortable reclaiming the secondary market economics? And then how much more room is there to kind of drive this process?
Yeah. Thank you. I think we've been saying for a few years that, you know, over time, we believe that that secondary $10 billion, $12 billion, depending on what number you see globally, has to start getting captured by the artist at some level. It's just too transparent. The more they see all of the online pricing, while they work so hard to put that show on. I do think that right now, artists are looking at us saying, "I'd like to capture some of it in the front end. I don't wanna be sold out at 10:01, at $200 to have someone else make $2,000. Fan's not getting a deal anyways.
They're spending $2,000 from somebody else." I do think they're looking and saying, "the front of the house, can we capture some demand?" Now the advantage is, you know, the artist has one objective as we do, as does the venue, to fill every seat. You're never looking for the gross, you're looking to make sure that every seat is filled for the best experience. We want that, artists want that. I do think the new dynamic pricing, the better we have become at these tools to the artists, they're looking at the holistic picture. Maybe I can charge a bit more on the front row. I'm gonna charge less on the back row because net, I'm gonna sell through the back end of the house, but maybe it's always a spot in our business.
Now, if you can still get the same gross, but you can lower the ticket price in the back part of the house, that's a win for everyone. We're right now, Joe has the exact math we looked at yesterday. You know, it's still a small percentage of the total gross is priced platinum and/or dynamic, 1-2% kind of numbers. Really non-existent outside of America. We've just introduced it in Europe. The answer is yes, there's a long runway where the artists will look at the small. Again, even as much noise as you heard about the Springsteen sale, less than 1% of the tickets were priced a little higher to capture the second versus 99% of the house.
To the artist, I think they'll look at us to look at the Platinum, the premium, the dynamic. How do I better price my product, fill the house, lower the price in the back, capture more of the front? We think that's got many years of runway for us to expand on a global basis.
Okay. Great. I just wanted to ask on concerts AOI in the quarter. I think it was roughly flat versus 2019, and that's with the increase in fans and the per caps. Just wondering if you could speak to the impact of things like cost inflation, mix. I know you said APAC wasn't fully open, and then.
Yeah.
Maybe timing as well. I think Q2 2019, if I remember correctly, had some pull forward from Q3 that year.
This is Joe. Yeah, I'll take that. As I think we laid out a handful of factors that we think were some combination of timing and one-offs that impacted this quarter. Asia Pacific is not fully open yet. We've got the organization up and running to prepare for it being open. Just the structure of OCESA's P&L is they really drive their economics through ticketing and sponsorship, whereas most of their cost structure is in the concert side. We talked about some operating cost increases for our operated venues, still driving per fan profitability increases, but you have some costs there. It's just I wouldn't overread one quarter. Keep in mind, for instance, that a lot of this was in international markets where we had less growth this quarter in North America.
We have a lot of growth in Q3 in North America. As I look at the numbers overall, North America, if you look at our 100 million tickets, North America has 30% growth. As that flows through in Q3, you'd expect to see some of that flipping around. I just wouldn't read too much into it.
Right. No, that's real clear. Thanks.
Your next question comes from Brandon Ross with LightShed Partners. Please proceed with your question.
Hey, thank you. Just wanted to drill down a little more on David's question about Platinum ticketing. Was wondering, Michael, if you could just, because I think a lot of investors and fans are not really educated on how Platinum ticketing works. Can you talk about who sets the prices and kind of the cadence of ticket releases and how you think about when tickets are gonna be released, kind of this move from face value ticketing, where everything was available at the on sale to maybe trickling out tickets more over time. How you think about the balance of dollars and maximizing profits for the artist with this idea of fandom and fairness and what your role in that is.
All right, that's a lot. I'll try to take some pieces. You know, we work for the artist. We're a B2B business. The artist is the one that decides when they tour, how they tour, where they tour. Our job is to provide all the tools, platform and services to help them succeed on that tour, from a one day to multi-year. Now artists, as you said, is, they're genius brand managers. They have to balance the needs of their fans, supply, demand and pricing. Some brands like The Rolling Stones have been very good at always staging expensive experience and wear that proud and able to deliver that brand position.
I think artists are always trying to find a fine line on how do I make the show accessible, how do I make sure all my fans can show? How do I price it fairly versus how much money can I make? I think they see that. I think today all the technology's advancing and they're starting to look at more technology and more pricing data. I think they can now look at shows and realize that in some ways they can price 1-2% of the house higher and achieve some of those economics versus the scalper, while still pricing 98% of the house at a very reasonable brand position. We can achieve both. This is an industry that for 30 years, we would do a tour.
They would set three ticket prices, $140, $79, and $39, and that would be the three prices in every city for every night for the market, as you know. That's just not the way it's gonna operate forward, a different price on a Friday in New York than in Indianapolis on a Tuesday. Dynamic smart pricing, now that we're able to provide that level of sophistication, the bands are much more sophisticated, and they're now able to use tools to figure out how do I price it better and achieve some better economics, where we get some of the leakage of secondary, but still maintain an overall ticket price, leaving dollars on the table, but still finding that balance between the consumer demand, the brand, and the slippage in the economics to secondary they've been losing.
Got it.
Sorry, Brandon. Just one comment to respond to.
Sure.
Your commentary about trickling out tickets. That's not a practice. That's not something that is the norm or something that we do.
Okay.
I think that the speed of ticketing has to do with just what's the pace at which some of them sell out, with the theory being, for some artists, if they price a lot of tickets at market price, they may not all sell out in the first hour. It has nothing to do. Ticketmaster takes all the tickets it gets, puts them directly on sale. It does nothing to try to limit supply or anything in that manner. I just wanna make sure we're crystal clear on that.
Yeah. No, I wasn't.
Yeah, great point. We
that would be your decision anyway.
Yeah, but I think we're just addressing because marketplace, the consumer obviously gets a little confused at times when at ten o'clock there's lots of secondary tickets, right? Historically, the Bruce fan would have been sold out at ten and had to go to a secondary to buy that good seat. Today we're sorting through that process where we can provide information in advance, but our job at Ticketmaster is put every sale, ticket on sale, provide that into the secondary market, and provide you know, all the data to the artist that he can adjust up and down as the market adjusts.
Got it. Talking about dynamic pricing, if there was to be some kind of downturn in the next year or so that actually affected the live entertainment business, do you see kind of the same tools as flexibility to respond to market conditions in bringing ticket prices down as much as you bring them up in this demand environment?
Sure. The tools can be used. Go ahead, Michael.
No, I said it before in our last call. I mean, we looked at the last recession. There was a single-digit drop in some ticket sales, but that was years ago, not even in the same league as sophistication on pricing, nor do we have the tools. Yeah, we look at dynamic pricing now, dynamic pricing, looking at all market data, algorithms to figure out what is the price point that we'll sell through.
We do believe that because of the upside right now in the premium secondary side of our business, that if we had to pull back ticket sales and drop the prices by 5% or 10% to match supply and demand or inflation, we have so much flexibility in pricing to get that done and still sell through the house and lower price if that was needed for a band to sell through tickets.
Right.
An artist, their number one goal is to sell every ticket. They're always gonna be in a variable of how do I price it to sell through? What do I got to reduce the back end of the house, the front end of the house? What do we need to do to sell through on a Tuesday night in Indianapolis? Let's adjust pricing.
The other part of the buffer, Brandon, is just the secondary market itself. How big it is and its continued growth, right? I gave you the numbers. The secondary market for us grew 140% this quarter. That tells you that even as some pricing is going up in the primary side, the secondary is growing up, going up even faster, both in terms of volume and price points. Our first line of defense is keeping our eye on secondary and using that buffer if there is any variations in demand.
Got it. Finally, if you could just double click a little on 30 additional venues that you're talking about adding. Are those what venue types are those, and how impactful do you see that to be in the future?
I think in our investor conference, we wanted to kinda highlight, I think it's always been a strong business, but we put more focus on it from an operational design development. We've got over 300 venues we manage. We've been adding 20-30 a year over the last few years. As you know, with Austin been an incredible success and which will provide full return. Those 30 that we have in the pipeline, now another 75 behind those, on a global basis, are everything from clubs to arenas, depending on where the hole in the market may exist. We see great platform there.
As we've said before, when we show in a co-operated venue that we have the sponsorship and the ticketing and the food and beverage and all the revenue streams, that's our highest return for us.
Great. Thanks for the time.
Your next question comes from Stephen Laszczyk with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your question.
Hey, great. Thanks for taking the questions. On fan growth for the year, maybe for Joe, I think you mentioned in your prepared remarks, not extrapolating international growth or contribution to the U.S. markets this year. Can you maybe unpack that for us a little bit and maybe touch on what portion of fan growth you expect will come from acquisitions versus organic growth in markets like the U.S. or the U.K. this year?
Sure. I'll use as the basis the 100 or so million tickets that we sold through July, because I think that just gives the numbers, the facts. As I indicated within that, the U.S. is up about just over 30% and international is up 40-odd%. You have strong organic growth across both North America and international. Our primary acquisition, of course, would be OCESA, and that would be, you know, somewhat less than half of the international growth. The international growth, even absent acquisitions, would be in the mid- to high-20s%. Again, this is not an acquisition dependent growth. This is organic plus acquisition.
Great. That's helpful. Maybe one for Michael. I was curious if you're seeing any unique trends develop in terms of fan behavior this year. For example, maybe are you seeing more first-time concert goers, you know, come out, this year or fans set to attend events with greater frequency? I'd be curious if you're seeing any of those data points or think that any of these trends that you're seeing open portions of the market up going forward that maybe you haven't seen, you know, come into the industry before. Thank you.
Yeah, I'll take this. Michael's having some audio problems here. I think that what we're seeing is a very broad-based, high propensity of going to concerts among fans that are interested in going to concerts. It's a bit of all of the above, where certainly we have people who haven't gone to concerts in a long time going. We have people who go to one now going to two. We have people that are going to many. It's not I don't think you could pull it apart as one factor. I think you're seeing a broad-based, high demand return to shows. When they're there, a broad-based spending pattern on site.
Great. Thanks for that, Joe.
Your next question comes from line of Stephen Glagola with Cowen. Please proceed with your question.
Hi. Thanks for the question. Concert ticket prices, I want to go back to that being up 10% year-over-year versus 2019. Joe, can you just break out how much of this increase is being driven by market pricing versus set price ticketing increases at the on sale? Thanks.
Yeah. As Michael said, the dynamically priced tickets represent a very small percentage of the overall tickets. So it's not going to be, you know, felt by most people. I don't have the exact numbers. I would guess that it's less than half of the impact is from that, and then there's a general increase. We can probably use the fact that the entry price of $33 is up about 5% from 2019 as a proxy for what's going on with the overall ticket pricing, and then maybe the remainder is driven by the more front of house activity.
That's very helpful. Thank you.
Again, those numbers are because there's a lot of attention on how much the overall ticket prices are up. If you look at the U.S. market, the U.S. is up between 12% and 13% in terms of inflation over the past three years as a comparative.
Yeah, thanks.
Your next question comes from David Katz with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question.
Hi. Afternoon, everyone. Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to just get a little more color, if we can, about international markets and international landscapes, and if, you know, we obviously are seeing a lot of strong demand. Is it relatively even if we look at international markets relative to the US, or are there any that are stronger, weaker, et cetera?
Yeah, we're seeing no difference right now in demand across the globe. You know, you can look at, I guess, Springsteen just went on sale last week. Global stadiums across Europe everywhere sold out just as fast in Europe as it did here, similar to Post Malone, Kendrick. The tours that are selling here are selling just as fast in our international markets. Latin America, Mexico, continue to see completely record demand in all those markets. We're also still seeing you know, walk-ups strong at our festivals and on-site as of last weekend, right? That's kinda current data. They're still spending money. They're still buying tickets at high demand. We have no pullback yet in Europe or any international market.
Great. Am I permitted to follow up, or would you prefer I went back in the queue?
Sure, go ahead.
Okay. With respect to digital initiatives around ticketing, if you could just talk about kinda, obviously exciting and productive, sort of what inning you'd say we're in and you know, any observations, surprising or otherwise, so far?
Yeah, we're still in early innings. This is the first summer that we're really deploying at scale the data and the technology so that we can reach out to fans once they've bought the ticket, do upsells for people who are going to shows at our venues, connecting them with sponsors, seeing some very good increases in our upsell levels as we talk about some of our average per-fan spending and the increase on premiums at our amphitheaters, for instance, more premium parking, more premium entry, VIP clubs. It's certainly enhanced by our ability to have a platform that can reach out and sell to those fans effectively, and you're not depending on them just figuring it out night of. We're very happy with the early progress we're making.
Perfect. Thanks very much.
Your next question comes from Ryan Sundby with William Blair. Please proceed with your question.
Hey, guys. Thanks for the question. With AsiaPac still limited this quarter, I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about, one, how quickly that ramps from here, and then maybe two, a little more on the long-term opportunity there following the recent acquisitions in Thailand and the Philippines. I think plans in place to bring Lollapalooza to India next year. Any color on how that kinda comes together and how large an opportunity that would be would be great. Thanks.
Yeah, most of that I think it was an Asia reference. We, you know, we're currently in 40 countries, with hundreds of offices in 40 countries, varying degree of market share from the U.S. to Cape Town or South Africa. We've got a global platform. That was always our first priority. We can say to any artist, we can put you on the road in any market, sponsorship, make it happen. When we get kind of our flag in the ground, we start to maybe launch or build festivals, operate venues, build up our ticketing, sponsorship and the model, and the flywheel start to work. You can kinda look at our business across the globe. Different markets were in varying degrees of that growth.
Latin America, we were very undeveloped in all markets. Obviously now with OCESA, we've got that flywheel in Mexico. We bought festivals in Latin America with Rock in Rio and then bringing Lolla. Bought a couple promoters. We're gonna get some venues going. The flywheel's starting to work in Brazil and Colombia and Argentina, but we'll kinda go from zero market share to big opportunity there. That'll continue to be a big focus for us. Western Europe, there's still some markets we're undeveloped in, whether it be Portugal or Spain, certain markets we don't have the full flywheel, and you'll see us continually add a festival or a promoter or a venue to those markets. Asia, we have a good platform. We have people in the ground.
We've got a really strong business in Australia and New Zealand. As we moved up to Pacific Rim, we've been, you know, slowly building the flywheel in all those markets. Japan's probably the one market that's the best and biggest in that market. We've got to do more work on that. We look at Asia as really undeveloped territory, low market share, huge opportunity over the next while. We, like everyone else in the world, look at Asia, look at Latin America, and we're looking to the Middle East and Eastern Europe as areas where we have no real market share. That consumer now on TikTok knows that Drake dropped a video last night, whether they live in Singapore, India, Cape Town.
We've got a global product, and we've got lots of opportunity to keep growing.
Great. Thanks. Thanks, guys.
Your next question comes from Matthew Harrigan with Benchmark. Please proceed with your question.
Thank you. Recognizing that you can't alter the weather or nature, and there's an amphitheater season and all that, you're really inducing a lot of serial correlation, I think, activity, you know, among concert goers. I mean, people are going back and even when people, I think, go to movie theaters, you get people. There's a hit movie, and there tends to be a lot of repeat behavior. Do you think that all the initiatives you're undertaking are gonna alter the seasonality in your business, you know, somewhat and maybe make Q4 a lot more active, even on a relative basis than it's historically been? Because it feels like there are a lot of things, you know, pushing in that direction if you know, take out concerns with weather and all that. Thanks.
Yeah, this is Joe. I gave you some numbers that in our amphitheaters, we do expect to have about a million more fans attending shows than we had in 2019. We're certainly seeing an extension of the amphitheater outdoor season, particularly through the more southern states. Theaters and clubs have always been very active in Q4. Arenas tend not to be quite as big just because the routing gets interrupted by more of the holidays. We'll see a bit. I don't think it'll dramatically change.
Thanks.
It will be why we look at our business as global. In the U.S., you know, the arenas, NBA, NHL and NFL clog up the venues in the fall into the winter. That's why we take a lot of these artists now and say, "Let's go tour in Asia, Pacific Rim and Latin America. Let's get off cycle of America and go to those markets as those open up." There is a big 12-month-a-year business on a global basis. This industry is focused too much on the U.S., Western Europe summer business. You are right. As the business expands in a lot of those markets, you have a 12-month strong market where you can put a sellout show in other markets while you're waiting for a summer business here.
Makes sense. Thank you.
Your next question comes from Paul Golding with Macquarie Capital. Please proceed with your question.
Thanks so much. Michael and Joe, congrats on the quarter. I just wanted to ask, given the strong demand that we're seeing across the board here, and what I presume is some overflow in terms of demand that isn't able to get a seat, where does streaming fit into the medium-term strategy now? I know it was more of a focal point, of course, during the pandemic, but just seeing opportunity for sponsorship or advertising through that, how much incremental focus will there be on that going forward? Or sort of walking back from that a bit, just help us think about monetization there or investment if it's still a strategic point for you. Thanks.
Thank you. I think, you know, I think we were clear even in COVID. We were not spooked by the thesis that might have been there for a moment that live could be duplicated in digital. We've always said that this is magic two hours you have to physically experience. That's why we love this industry and think it's a very unique space that can't be duplicatable. We've always said that we have all these shows and most festivals especially, and dedicated fans, that you can expand that show. There is an audience that wants to watch their favorite artist. This weekend we had an incredible broadcast on Hulu for three days, high quality filming and broadcasting live. Lollapalooza, it looked fabulous. We've always thought the screen is an extension.
It's great for our sponsorship business, where we have nine sponsors looking always to be part of the show, both on and off. We love Veeps. We love the opportunity. We're doing thousands of shows. We think it's an ancillary business that helps our overall sponsorship business as well as our committed festival business. You know, our business is so big now, I wouldn't say it's a material piece on its own. We never thought it would be, but it's another service we provide to both the artist, festival and sponsor, and it's something that you have to be in.
Great. Thanks so much.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of the question and answer session, and I'd like to turn the call back to Michael Rapino for closing remarks.
Thank you, everybody. Have a great summer, and we'll talk in the fall.
This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you all for your participation.