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It’s difficult enough to confirm what is happening within the industry, as Ticketing Business news does whilst combining interviews, reportage, and the decoding of corporate press releases. But to assert with any confidence what will occur in 2025 requires a mix of audacity and self confidence that can easily be viewed as arrogance or simply reflective of a singular critical perspective.
Sounds like another TJ Chambers Op-Ed.
Revenues – Two-Tier Ecosystem – Casualties & Consolidation – Growth of D-2-C – Superfans & Creator Economy
The next 12 months will see yet more trumpeting of record-setting revenues by the uppermost tier of artists, attractions, and sports franchises, and their vertically aligned international promoter-producer conglomerates.
Those revenues will be driven by above-inflation ticket price increases, the greater utilisation of bundles (ticket + VIP & Hospitality) and packages (ticket + accommodation & travel), the wider adoption of yield management tools (ticket type + timing of purchase + dynamic pricing), the upwards-only creep of ticket-related service fees and the wider adoption of (new-build) venue facility fees (‘this fee keeps the venue running, helping us to improve our services and experiences’) or venue restoration levy (‘goes towards the refurbishment, improvement and upkeep of our theatres’).
The focus on revenues as the primary KPI will also assist to divert attention from individual event P&L, or the profitability of competing operators, and certainly deflects attention from the growing chasm between those mega-successful concerts, festivals, tours, residences, leagues and sports tournaments (which aside from the monetisation of ticketing also successfully attracts the overwhelming majority of event-related advertising, sponsorship, media, broadcast, and commercial affiliate networks), and the rest of live entertainment – the arts, music, dance, theatre and sports.
Revenues – Two-Tier Ecosystem – Casualties & Consolidation – Growth of D-2-C – Superfans & Creator Economy
The rest, that is, the small to mid-scale. The local or provincial. The mainstream and worthy but decidedly not FOMO fashionable. The schools, colleges and community based as opposed to commercial. The new, experimental, or fringe. Those learning their craft or involved in grassroots stages for emerging talent.
The gulf between the two strata of the live entertainment ecosystem, the 5% uber successful and 95% everyone else, will widen as consumer disposable income, and associated over-extended credit cards, will concentrate expenditure on fewer big, bright and shiny, expensive events.
And the populist purveyors will continue to add ferris wheels, jumbotrons, fireworks and costume-changes until the onstage bacchanalia of ‘Decline & Fall’ as narrated by the avatar of Edward Gibbon extends its Vegas season of spectacle & circus.
Revenues – Two-Tier Ecosystem – Casualties & Consolidation – Growth of D-2-C – Superfans & Creator Economy
The fiscal tensions released by the increasingly two-tiered ecosystem, with inevitable cashflow stress on ill-capitalised organisations (who may have never fully recovered from the impact of the pandemic) or those already poorly funded by civic authorities, will lead to further sector consolidation by the various genre-specific operators.
Whether concert and festival promoters; immersive exhibitions and entertainments; IP-owners and theme park operators; multi-club sports franchises; performing arts producers and theatre operators; there will be a reduced number of larger international organisations, accompanied by greater levels of Private Equity ownership across sports leagues, venue operations, ticketing and the other ancillary revenue sources for live entertainment.
Perversely, the process of consolidation will also lead to a new number of micro-operators specialising in API-enabled bolt-on’s for example: bot-mitigation and security specialists; (long-tail) CRM; digital ticketing delivery; dynamic-pricing modules; event cancellation insurance; facial identity and verification services; social group booking facilities; layaway payment plans, etc.
Revenues – Two-Tier Ecosystem – Casualties & Consolidation – Growth of D-2-C – Superfans & Creator Economy
Event Rights Owners – Artists, Attractions, Promoter-Producers, Brands, Advertisers etc. – will all re-examine their route to the end-consumer and increasingly question why they permit the scale of the ticketing/e-commerce intermediaries.
Why do they spend a lifetime and billions on creating and developing I.P. only to then identify a third party retail agency solution as the means for consumers to acquire access to the experience.
Inevitably there will be a greater focus on Direct-to-Consumer channels to serve fan clubs; known previous purchasers; membership schemes and supporters; preferred commercial partners (for example specific credit card owners; high-net-worth individuals, patrons and donors); and other closed-user groups.
The importance of having access to end-consumer information, and then being an effective analyst and data-scientist, able to directly communicate appropriate and relevant marketing messages across the broad spectrum of social media channels will be a key mercantile differentiator.
Rights Owners will increasingly want to engineer repeat business to known consumers aided by smart, data-informed decision-making, supported by bespoke service levels, as opposed to generically frustrating onsales accompanied by blanket emails with little relevant content, low open-rates and fragmentary ticket-purchaser data.
Revenues – Two-Tier Ecosystem – Casualties & Consolidation – Growth of D-2-C – Superfans & Creator Economy
The commercial self-interested growth of D-2-C by event Rights Owners will also lead to increased levels of the ‘personalisation’ of events, for example within the music sector, fan club members are attracted by the access to livestreamed rehearsals, soundchecks or media launches/Q&A, and weekly diary messaging etc., and not just the traditional offering of event tickets and/or merchandise. These ‘superfans’ will also commit to a paid subscription for access to this additional content.
So, the market will respond to this incremental revenue opportunity by developing new goods and services, for example: artist-curated festivals and cruises; interactive engagement with artist-journals; fan-club limited edition merchandise; NFT memorabilia and personalised-avatars for fan forums etc.
Additionally, the emerging ‘creator economy’, with UGC distributed and monetised by non-traditional entertainment platforms such as Instagram, OnlyFans, Patreon, Substack, TikTok, YouTube, etc, have largely eliminated the distinction between professionals and amateurs and disrupted the traditional cultural formats and revenue flows.
As a result, new social video networks, membership-based adult communities, cloud-gaming & esports, immersive & competitive social-exercising, livestreaming & hybrid VR/IRL concerts, experiential exhibitions, blogging, podcasting and influencer channels etc. are all taking attention-span and market share from the traditional content distributors and their support services.
Or maybe not. Check back in another 12 months.
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