Admittedly, I’m a couple of days late on this one: CTS Eventim AG, the German ticketing and live entertainment company that will help Live Nation start their own ticketing division, reported financials for the first nine months of 2008. And just like their new partners in the U.S. the Germans seem to defy overall economic trends.
The entire group recorded revenue of €292 million ($372m), up 3.7 percent against the first nine months of 2007. EBIT was down 4.8 percent to 30.8 million, EBITDA was down 3.0 percent to €36.3 million. Group earnings (net profit), however, was up 5.8 percent to €16.4 million ($20.9m).
CTS Eventim’s strong suit these days is the ticketing business. Revenue was up 29.5 percent to €71.1 million ($90.5m), while EBIT rose 28.5 percent to €16.7 million ($21.3m). The increases were mainly due to gains with high-margin online ticket sales.
Live entertainment, on the other hand, suffered a little from fewer concerts during the reporting period. Sales for Q1-Q3 shrank 3.0 percent to €223.1 million ($284.2m) and EBIT was down 27 percent to €14.1 million ($18m).
[...] sees Live Nation now selling their own tickets. LN Ticketing is powered be German ticketing firm CTS Eventim and initially focuses on club shows and smaller venues as the transition from Ticketmaster is still [...]