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Eventim withdraws 2020 financial outlook due to Covid-19

CTS Eventim has withdrawn its 2020 financial forecast due to the “current uncertainties” surrounding the development of the Covid-19 crisis and its impacts.

The Berlin-based firm’s management board said it is currently “not possible to issue a sufficiently reliable and specific” new forecast for the 2020 financial year.

Last month, Eventim published its 2019 annual report with the expectation that its ticketing segment would see further improvement in 2020, due to the expansion of online ticketing, despite the outlook of a global pandemic.

The company said in its most recent statement that those predictions were made without “considering the negative effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the future growth of the two segments and the CTS Group.”

With live events blackouts in many European countries, Eventim said it expects a significant year-on-year decrease in revenues and earnings in the ticketing and live entertainment segments for the 2020 financial year. It added that the “decrease cannot be quantified with any greater precision at present.”

In its 2019 annual report, the firm published record earnings and attributed that growth to its ticketing segment after it reported group revenue increased by 16.2% year-on-year to €1.44bn.

Ticketing revenue increased by 7.7% to €481.6m from €447.1m the year prior, with normalised EBITDA up by 12.6% to €220.4m.

Last week, nearly 40 pan-European music industry organisations signed an open letter to demand emergency aid for the sector across the European Union in response to the Covid-19 live events shutdown.

The letter, which was signed by the likes of festival association Yourope, managers’ bodies IMMF and EMMA, venue associations Live DMA and Liveurope and PRO collective Gesac, calls for emergency, as well as sustainable public support, and structural policies at EU, national, regional and local level.

Image: Martin Fisch