CTS Eventim Aktie

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the CTS Eventim AG Earnings Call First Half Year '26. [Operator Instructions] Let me now turn the floor over to your host, Mr. William Willms.

Good evening to everybody, and good morning to our participants from the United States. Welcome to CTS Eventim's Earnings Call for the first 6 months of the year 2026. Thank you very much for joining.

I'm William Willms, as I said, CFO of CTS Eventim, and I'm delighted to take you through our half year results today. On my side, as usual, is Marco Haeckermann, our Vice President, Investor Relations and Corporate Development and Strategy.

Hello, everyone.

Now before we dive into the details, please allow me a brief word on the structure of the call. Today, we will focus on our H1 2026 financial performance. I will walk you through the headline numbers, segment results and certain key P&L drivers. At the end of the presentation, we will be happy to open the floor for your questions.

Let me start with some operational highlights of the last quarter. Our signature Twin Festival, Rock am Ring & Rock im Park here in Germany was definitely one of those highlights in the last quarter. Sold out 8 months in advance with more than [indiscernible] over 3 days and spectacular headliners like Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit and Iron Maiden. The Rock am Ring success story will continue next year with 2/3 of all tickets for the 2027 edition already sold so far.

Second, the Eros Ramazzotti World Tour, with shows in more than 30 different countries, started in February in Paris, followed by several shows in Europe in the last quarter. Eros is now heading to the United States, Canada and Latin America, and he will be back in Europe in 2027 for further performances.

And last but not least, LA28 started with the so-called first drop, offering tickets to the public in April this year. Together with our JV partner, AXS, we act as the exclusive partner for the primary ticketing. The so-called second drop window has been conducted already successfully too.

First, a summary of our headline KPIs for H1 2026. In summary, I am very proud to say we keep on growing profitably. Group revenue came in at EUR 1.5 billion, up 17% versus H1 2025. Adjusted EBITDA grew by 12.4% to EUR 225 million, benefiting from the operational leverage of our platform and proving again the strength of our business model. Our EBIT grew even stronger by 15.3%.

On retail ticket volume, we recorded 81 million tickets and performed slightly above prior year's level. By this, we have been able to overcompensate the known and reported change in the stage partner business. GTV on the last 12 months basis grew by 13.3%, reflecting continued platform scale. And EPS for the first half year grew significantly to EUR 1.25, up EUR 0.32 versus H1 2025, a positive development mainly benefiting from FX effects. The first half of 2026 demonstrates hereby our continuous course of profitable growth and is in line with our expectations.

The next slide shows the historical first half year trend with consistent and compounding growth over the past years. Group revenue grew by, as already said, 17% to EUR 1.5 billion in the first 6 months. Adjusted EBITDA grew [ by ] EUR 201 million to EUR 225 million, representing a plus of 12.4%. In H1 2026, the adjusted EBITDA margin comes out at 14.9% compared to 15.5% in H1 2025. This, however, does not represent a structural deterioration of our margin, but it's mainly a weighted mix effect of our 2 business segments.

Live Entertainment accounts for a larger share of the group's revenue compared to the previous year and Live Entertainment margins are structurally lower than the Ticketing segment, as you all know. As the revenue contribution within Live Entertainment will grow, we expect Live Entertainment margins to improve over time. On EBIT, the outperformance in H1 2026 versus prior year is notable. This operational achievement reflects the quality of our earnings base.

Let's have a deeper look into the performance of our Ticketing business. In H1 2026, the ticketing business continued its growth trajectory with plus 14% revenue growth. As already mentioned, 2026 was impacted by the Stage -- by the change in the stage partner business. On a like-for-like basis, without this effect, ticketing came in at nearly plus 20% in H1 2026.

As we started with our operational excellence program, the first half year was about building up capabilities and talent, which we consider as an important first step. Although this temporarily leads to higher cost now, this increase will be compensated by future efficiency gains and corresponding cost reductions. Adjusted EBITDA in H1 2026 is also above prior year and grew by plus 3.4%. Both EBITDA and EBITDA margin are in line with our internal expectations. Ticketing remains our high-quality earnings stream and H1 2026 reaffirms its resilience.

In the first 6 months in 2026, we delivered, as I mentioned before, 81 million retail tickets. And by this, we are leaving behind the dip from the structural change in our Stage business. As you can see, Eventim is becoming more and more international. Due to the overproportional international growth, 70% of the retail ticket volume is nowadays generated outside Germany. This is a significant milestone, reflecting the successful internationalization of our platform. Putting everything together, the volume growth in 2026 underlines a healthy market environment for CTS Eventim and proves the quality of our offering and the strength of our business model.

Let's turn now to our Live Entertainment segment. Live Entertainment delivered a strong performance in the first 6 months, strong and within the expected ranges. Revenues went up to nearly EUR 1.1 billion, an increase of well over 18% versus 2025. Surpassing all prior years as shown in the chart, Live Entertainment surpassed the EUR 1 billion level for the first time within the first 6 months of the year. Adjusted EBITDA came out strong, too, EUR 53 million compared to EUR 34 million in H1 2025. The margin expanded to 5%.

This improvement reflects 3 factors: one, a very strong portfolio of shows and festivals, especially in Germany and Italy, turnaround and a positive development of our U.S. promoter business, and a solid contribution from our venue business presented on the next slide.

Let's dive now into our venue business. Venue operations remains a key high-margin pillar of the group. With revenue of EUR 70 million and adjusted EBITDA of EUR 29 million, margins remain structurally stable. The start-up phase of the Unipol Dome is temporarily weighing on the events business' margins in the second quarter. When adjusted for the effects of the Unipol Dome ramp-up, margins in this business are actually slightly above the prior year level.

It is worth noting in this context that following the Olympic ice hockey tournament in February, which drew 40,000 visitors, the Unipol Dome in Milan opened its doors for the first music concerts this spring. A rapidly expanding event schedule is set to follow from late summer onwards. Consequently, the Unipol Dome Milan will contribute to operating results starting in the third quarter and represents a significant addition to our high-margin portfolio of event venues.

Last but not least, our strong operational momentum is complemented by a positive development on the financial result. We are able to report a positive financial result of plus EUR 20 million. Taken all together, the 6-month EPS significantly went up to EUR 1.25. This EPS of EUR 1.25 reflects a growth of 34% compared to last year. As mentioned, this reflects the combination of both operational momentum and an improved financial result.

What are the key takeaways of today's call, which I would like you to take home? First, we have seen solid organic growth on group level and on ticketing like-for-like. First 6 months of 2026 are fully in line with our expectations. Third, the operational excellence program has started and marks the kickoff for our 2030 ambitions. And last but not least, strong net result and EPS.

And finally, as already announced in the beginning of this year, I'm very pleased now to announce that our Capital Markets Day will take place on the 20th November 2026 in the Unipol Dome in Milano. And to round off a hopefully very exciting and successful day with all of you, we will like -- we want to invite you to a fantastic concert in the Unipol Dome with the British rock band Muse at the very same night. So please save the date. Stay tuned and official invitations will be sent out shortly.

That concludes our remarks for the first 6 months of 2026. I hope this has been insightful for you. Many thanks for your attention. Operator, may I please ask you to jump now into the Q&A, and please open the line now.

[Operator Instructions] So we already have quite a few questions. Lara Simpson from JPM.

It's Lara Simpson from JPMorgan. My first question was just on the LA28 drop. If you could just give a bit more context in terms of one, the size of that revenue that dropped through in the second quarter and also try and help us understand the profitability on which it fell through. I know there's different moving parts on the economics there. And then I know you mentioned the second drop has now happened. So just helpful if you can understand the quantum of that. And I suppose if we take a step back, what does the contract look like in terms of overall revenue and profit expectations? Because, clearly, a lot of moving parts, and I know it can be quite lumpy.

With that, my second question would just be if we strip out Stage and the LA28 contribution to ticketing, what was the clean organic growth for that division in Q2? And how you think that compared to underlying market growth? And then my third question, if I may, is just to come back to the guidance. You've obviously reiterated the message from the annual report. So I think that points to an increase in revenue and EBITDA. You've clearly delivered a very strong H1, again, moving parts with LA. But could you just talk a little bit more to the outlook for the second half? It feels like it's still quite conservative. Are you expecting material deceleration in the second half of the year? Or should this be framed as quite conservative? Any color you can give on the second half, I think, would be helpful to manage expectations.

Maybe I'll start with the third question. Marco will take over question 1 and 2. For the time being, we stick to the guidance. We look positive into the year. Having said this, you are right, we are a little bit conservative given the geopolitical environment. Updates on the year, we will discuss then on the 20th of November in more detail. I hope this is a satisfying answer to you and all the others who might have the same question.

Lara, it's Marco, and thanks for the questions on LA. So first off, as we said last year, the overall contract, of course, has a maturity of 3 years, starting off in 2026 until 2028. And over the term of the contract, as we said in our Q1 earnings call, we expect a low triple-digit million amount of revenues over 3 years, with the profitability levels of somewhere between 20% and 30%.

With regards to what was the impact of the first drop in the second quarter, we can say that there was a positive revenue contribution of a low to mid-double-digit million amount at exactly the profitability levels, which I've highlighted. Now the nature of the contract is, of course, that it's not fully in our control of when these drops happen. So this is, of course, what the IOC can decide upon and where we are ready to act when they want us to act. And the final drop -- the second drop, I think, is about to conclude right now. So for now, we are very satisfied with the progress, but it's still too early to give -- share more details there. That would be something for the Q3 call then.

And the second question, adjusting for the change in partner business in 2025, which, of course, rolls through now 2026 in each quarter, and the LA contribution in the second quarter, we can say that the pure organic like-for-like growth in the second quarter and the first half was around in the mid-single-digit territories. Comparing this to market growth, I think we can say this is in line with what we have seen so far in the market, although the market in Q2, I would say, may have been even a little bit weaker than at a single or mid-single-digit percentage where we see our organic growth in that quarter.

Operator, next question -- do we have another question?

Ms. Maas, please try to ask again. I see that you just left the queue.

The next question goes to Christoph Blieffert, BNP Paribas.

Can you give us some indication which percentage of B2C ticket sales Eventim has lost from the in-house ticketing system of Stage Entertainment? And can you please also quantify the related revenue loss in the second quarter, please? Then I have a follow-up question on the LA Olympics, please. Can you give us an indication how many tickets you have sold? And can you please also repeat the revenue and adjusted EBITDA contribution? And the last question is on the Investor Relations team. There are rumors that Marco might leave the company. Stefan has already left. So any thoughts about the future setup would be helpful.

Okay. It's like for the last -- for Lara, let me take question number 3. And Marco then as they tie in to the questions Lara asked, question number 1 and number 2. Yes, indeed, this is correct. Marco, unfortunately, is leaving the company on his own request. But this a very, very dear colleague, very, very respected colleague of ours is leaving. He will take on different role in our other ventures. This is fair at an age and development of a career where Marco is. Therefore, our, so to speak, best wishes to his future after September, but I can truly say we and I and the rest of the management team will miss him dearly.

Now of course, as we know about this development, we are in discussions for a replacement, which will take up this role and step into these large shoes. And this will be announced very, very soon. And a proper period of handover will be guaranteed so that all of you will have the right and best person possible for questions, discussions and further contact in the company.

Marco, do you want to take over question...

Let me deal with the question. So Christoph, the first one on this change in the partnership business. I mean, as we said already in our last earnings call, I mean, to some degree, we -- of course, we are not allowed to disclose confidential information as we are in business with that company still. As you know, we continue to sell retail tickets successfully for them, which is part of our recurring business.

Other than that, what we have indicated so far that the effect, which we see rolling through each quarter on the revenue side is around a high single-digit million and some low to mid-single-digit million kind of EBITDA contribution, which is the effect if you multiply it by 4, which gets you to that territory of what the value of the partner business was. Your follow-up on the L.A. Olympics, as we said, I mean, even here, again, we are in a contractual relationship with L.A. We have a joint venture partner, which, of course, limits us to disclose contractual information here.

And as we said already on Lara's question, we have seen a low to mid-double-digit million contribution in the second quarter, which came in at around 20% to 25% margin, which is the margin level we expect on average for the value of the contract over the length of the 3-year period and the totaling revenue to come out at somewhere in the low triple-digit millions, the hundreds, sorry, to make it more specific.

And with regards to the number of tickets, for LA28, the first drop in the second quarter was around 4 million tickets, although it's important to highlight that this is not specific as our retail business where we just collect a fee based on every ticket sold. It's a much more complex contract. So as you said, it's more like a B2B kind of framework, which is why you see the margins where they are.

So what you are telling us when we take out the 4 million retail tickets, the number of retail tickets is down, but organic growth is up. So this is the message.

If you would do that math, you would have to adjust, of course, the period from last year as well with the partner tickets from Stage, which we have lost. And I can say, but like we said earlier that the clean organic like-for-like was up in the mid-single digits in terms of revenue and earnings. So -- and this is not coming from a decline in retail tickets.

Thank you for calling back Annick Maas from Bernstein.

My first question is going back on to the ticketing margin and the operational excellence program that you called out as being the reason why margin was down. Can you just give us a bit more color on what we should expect here for the second half of the year?

My second question is on Live Entertainment. Here, you've mentioned that Live Entertainment was more weighted towards the first half than usual. What was exactly driving this? And how shall we expect this to shape out in the next years? And then thirdly, thinking about Milan, the venue, how do you think about the value of that business? Because if I look back at how much this venue was supposed to be worth a few years ago versus the CapEx that you've spent on it, the numbers are actually quite different. So I was just quite keen how you think about the value of the Milan venue for you?

Okay. So third question first, value, right, is one side of the coin. The other side of the coin is investment. So investment so far is slightly net investment north of EUR 400 million, while the final amount will be determined by the contributions from the city of Milan and others.

Now when you come to the value, right, you have to take then right, or you have to make your calculation on an NPV basis of the EBITDA or free cash flows this company or this business is delivering. But I guess you were basically looking at the net investment number.

Now in terms of the operational excellence program, this is a key program of ours and driving our -- as I said before, our ambition towards 2030. It's a scaling program first and a cost program second. Fast growth and a large number of acquisitions in the last years have duplicated certain processes. I have explained this in several bilateral calls and discussed this. These processes sometimes lead to unclear interfaces or reporting systems, which need to be modernized. And this is nothing specific, right, but this happens in a fast growth scenario, and we are tackling this on the process side, especially.

So that we follow an objective with an organization that can carry more business, more products and several large projects in parallel without cost and complexity rising proportionately. That means that 2026 carries certain implementation costs for this program, including continued investment in technology, platforms and AI.

Stopping these investments now will be the wrong decision as we are preparing for stronger growth in the years to come, '27 and following. The efficiency and growth contributions will start from 2027. And I'm very much hoping to show you more details during the CMD and then measurable milestones rather than single savings numbers in the years to come during our quarterly calls.

Annick, it's Marco. I will take the question on the Live Entertainment margin and the timing. I mean, as you know, of course, particularly in Live Entertainment, timing of expenses and show is never the same compared to the previous year. And this is why we, of course, look at it more like on a rolling basis. And here, the important message is, of course, with all the portfolio work the Live Entertainment team has done since last year, we see the first half -- first 6 months margin up by 120 basis points.

Yes, there was quarter-on-quarter quite some volatility with Q1 where margins shot really up by more than 300 basis points and now flat margin development in Q2, which is mostly due to these timing effects. But we are on the right path there. Our Live Entertainment team is doing a great job and particularly the topics which William has highlighted in the presentation as well, the turnaround and the profitability in the United States with our promoters will set a good ground, particularly in the second half as well to continue on this path and to bring over an extended time period, our Live Entertainment back into the margin territory where we used to have it.

Great. Can I just follow up on the operational excellence question? My question was more to understand, shall we expect the same margin drop in the second half due to operational excellence? Or I understand that you will keep on investing, but you can invest a little bit or a lot? Or what is the phasing of the second half? Are we expecting the same level of investment that you saw in the first half in the second half?

Annick, it's Marco again. Yes, it's exactly like we've laid out at the beginning of the year, where we said Q1 and now Q2 is a good proxy with the low to mid-single-digit million of incremental and temporary expense for operational excellence. And the math would be right if you just roll this forward through Q3 and Q4 to come up with the full year...

The next question goes to Andreas Riemann from ODDO BHF.

Two topics. One is the festivals. So last year in Q2, EBITDA was negatively affected by loss-making festivals. Can you update us on how many festivals did you shut down? How many do you plan to operate in '26? And how many are still loss-making? So any insight on the festivals would be appreciated. And the second one, last year, you also spoke about integration costs, mainly for See Tickets. Are those costs now 0? And is the integration of See Tickets completely done? This would be the second question.

Integration of See Tickets is done. So no further integration cost. Of course, you have the usual, so to speak, right, cost of putting new systems in place as technology becomes obsolete, right? But what you would classify as typical integration costs, right, this has been done.

Now on the festivals, you're right, we are constantly actually reviewing our portfolio of festivals. One festival we stopped is the Highfield Festival. We will not continue on this festival. It's a midsized rock festival here in Germany. There are other festivals, which are continuously under review and which might not continue next year.

Now the thing with festivals is once you stop it, it's stopped. You cannot restart, right? Rock am Ring, Rock im Park had difficult years. And there, the team from DreamHaus in Berlin did a fantastic job last year in restructuring this festival and bringing it up to basically the level you need to be, right? They see this at this time. And it was not only a huge success for the fans, but also financially. So long story short, there are other festivals under review, which might be stopped and which will be announced in due course over the next few months. Do you want to add?

No. But I think at the bottom line is what we had as well from Annick's question upfront. I mean the margin is up, it's structurally up. There might be a little bit of noise from one quarter to the other, but the average trend is in the right direction. And this goes together, of course, with the work our teams are doing on the portfolio. And of course, it goes without saying that not just -- I mean, single festivals are under review. You always have to see it in a broader picture from a ticketing perspective, from a market positioning perspective. But this work, which we started last year is bearing fruits already now, and it will continue to do so.

The next question is from Olivier Calvet from UBS.

The first one would be on the LA 2028 ticket sales. If you could make any comments on drop 2 and on so far, the share of inventory, if you have visibility on that, that has been sold in the first 2 drops? And just to confirm whether you saw any impact from volumes as opposed to price? That would be the first one.

Secondly, just on the group volumes, when I look at the European tickets, I see a decrease in Q2 and H1. I was just curious if there were any further drivers because I see also some geographies, notably the U.K. being down year-over-year. So just curious if you could comment on volumes and whether there's anything going on in the relatively small but still relevant U.K. market.

And thirdly, just on the investing cash flow and sort of your Milan venue comments. So you posted a significant cash outflow in the first quarter. Second quarter is an inflow, so it gets overall better over H1. I just wanted to get the, sort of, outlook for the full year. And you said the Milan venue was net EUR 400 million? Or did you mean -- so did you mean net of any subsidies or I just want to come back on that.

Okay. Olivier, it's Marco. So correct me if I might miss on 1 or 2 parts of the questions, but let us start from the back. I mean, as William said, the investments for Milan are basically north of EUR 400 million, and where we would expect to end it.

Of course, at the moment, the investments done so far, which you see through our cash flow statement are basically gross because there haven't been any payments from the cities or other funders of these projects. So everything that went through the cash flow as of now is gross basically. And this is why it's -- the money is coming in as we started and as we've elaborated that we are already in the ramp-up phase this year of the Unipol Dome.

The second question around European volumes. I mean, basically, when we take out a little bit the noise from our numbers, the change in partner business last year and the contributions from other larger projects this year, we see a stable volume development, which is at the moment at the low single digits. But market-wise, we can say that, of course, markets that have seen tremendous performances last year and the year before, like the U.K. that, of course, you're seeing a little bit of the effect where many big acts have been touring over the post-COVID years, which is somehow flattening out. And I would say the revenue effect you would refer to in the market are more driven by the mix and the volume there, so average ATPs rather than actual volume effects as much as we can say from that side.

The first question on L.A., as we said, the second drop is about to conclude today. So there is not too much which we can say. And as we've said earlier, I mean, I can't say whether it's a good or a bad thing that in the end, we provide the infrastructure together with our partner, which our client, which is the IOC is excessively using, which is why that when we started early on, the best guess was, of course, to have the total contractual value split in 3/3 over 3 years.

What we now see is, of course, that they like dropping these primary tickets, so that there might be a little bit less to sell primarily in 2028 and that this will move forward. So -- but it's an indication we could give at best. It is not enough to really put tangible numbers to it. But as of now, the second drop went technically well. So this is what we can say and the numbers can be discussed in more detail in the next call.

Okay. And just can I follow-up on the investing cash flow? Because if I look at what you've done in Q1 and H1 now, it seems like cash from investing is a positive, something like EUR 85 million. So I just wanted to confirm maybe the outlook for the year for investing cash flow since you don't break it down further, right? Just so we have a sense of what to expect and what drove that positive inflow in Q2?

Yes. I mean, mainly what we have is, of course, year-over-year that on the overall investing cash flow, Milan is tapering out. That's one thing. Last year was affected, of course, by advances which we paid for projects like the LA Olympics, which is now reversing as we start to generate revenue. And these are the basic moving parts there. Again, given that this is a moving part throughout the rest of the year as well due to the -- whether there will be drops, what the size of the next drops will be from the IOC, it's hard to predict.

But I mean, one thing is for sure, we are in a very cash-generative business. And this is, of course, the line we would expect 2026 to come in. We are talking about what temporary effects are and what sustainable effects are and what we expect from the investments we are taking this year, whether it's operational excellence or other projects. So bear with us for the rest of the year, and we can disclose more details about how the cash flows are developing. But yes, we are still very happy at where we are in running this business as it is, of course, very attractive from that cash flow perspective.

The next question goes to Bernd Klanten from Barclays.

On the Excellence program, you've spoken about the sort of impact in 2026, but what should we expect in terms of cost savings for 2027? Then the second question on venues. What is currently the status quo on Vienna? And should we still expect clarity on the sort of financing structure and the potential financial partner for Milan by the CMD in November? And then my last one on net financial income, EUR 20 million versus minus EUR 6 million in 1H '25. Can you just remind us of the main moving parts there? And what's a reasonable assumption for the full year?

Bernd, I didn't get -- or we didn't get the last question. Could you repeat it, please?

Yes. The last question was just on net financial income, that EUR 26 million delta. What are the main moving parts behind that? And what's a good assumption for the full year?

Okay. Let me start with your second question on whether we still continue or still plan to refinance or find a partner for the venue in itself. Now the basic idea is with the potential investors, what we are discussing is not only to refinance simply, right, this venue, but to find a partner who would also support us and partner with us going forward on potential other venues. So that in other words, if we would then refinance, right, Milan, the Unipol Milan, that this cash generated from this financing exercise is effectively the war chest spent for future venue investments, right?

Now the idea behind this is that, of course, the venue in itself will not become off balance sheet, off balance sheet, but it will be, so to speak, changed into an IFRS 16 lease liability. At the end of the day, all of these structures are some sort of a sale and leaseback scenario. But the main question is to find the right partner for this kind of exercise. We are in discussion with several potential partners, and they come from all sorts of different industries or angles. You can think about classic financial investors, real estate developers/real estate investors.

You could also think about partners who come from our industry and are interested in moving into the physical mode of a venue, right? But the key question for us is who is the right partner going forward, who has the financial strength, but also shares the same strategic idea in good times, but potentially also bad times.

Financial results. The financial result, as I mentioned, improved by EUR 25.6 million compared to the last half year, mainly driven by the positive effect, EUR 27 million from the currency translation of noncurrent U.S. dollar-denominated receivables into euros and partly offset by lower interest income and higher interest expenses. What we believe is that going forward, this trend as much as we have here, the glass ball, the crystal ball, right, will continue.

And let me just conclude with the question on Vienna. There is no update yet. We're still in exclusivity period. We are waiting for the next move from the city, and this is the update we could give.

Got it. And just back on the first question, anything you can guide to in terms of impact for '27 from the cost excellence program?

As mentioned before, same effect, Marco, I think as what Marco said, right?

I mean we were talking about expenses in 2026, with then positive effects coming through. But the important thing is it's not a cost-cutting program, right? It's a little bit of a reacceleration program for the years 2027 and out.

So the next question goes to Craig Abbott from Kepler.

I have a couple of remaining questions, please. First of all, in the second quarter, you had a 2-day shutdown at the Garorock Festival, and I think a couple of the smaller festivals were also impacted on that final weekend in June when the authorities forced some shutdowns due to extreme heat. I saw some public reports also suggested that the Garorock had some initial losses.

Now historically, CTS has been very well insured for such force majeure events. Was there initially a negative impact in Q2? And if there was, if you could maybe at least give us an indication how much? And if there was, should we then expect then the counter effect, i.e., insurance claim to then come in, in Q3 or Q4? That would be the first question.

My second question is just one more, please, on LA28. Just to confirm, even though it's a partnership with AXS, you do fully consolidate all those sales and earnings versus EBITDA and then account for the minority share in the net earnings. If you could just comment on that.

And the third -- well, 2 more questions, please. The third question is getting back to some of the earlier cash flow questions. Also, I saw not just in the investing cash flow, but also in the operating cash flow, a very positive turn in Q2. Obviously, happy to see that. But I just wonder if you could give us an update on kind of what trends you're expecting there in H2?

And the final question is you've given us the CMD date. I just wondered when we can expect an official invite with like an indication of what the program is going to be focused on?

Okay. First, on your insurance question, you're right, there have been cancellations. All -- as you quite rightly pointed out, all our events are fully insured, then there was no negative impact in Q2 from those cancellations. In terms of the actual invitation going out, this -- we are planning for actually next week. Idea is to start midday.

And then in terms of a structure where we will really go through the company strategy and reintroduce it to you and the 360-degree view on the company, the operational program and of course, then with concluding with a full potential plan/business plan until 2030 and giving you there the main -- clear idea of the main drivers for our continuous growth until 2030.

Craig, it's Marco. Let me take the lighter ones. Yes, we can confirm what you said that we fully consolidate the operating income on the sales of the L.A. Olympics project, and that the adjustment for the earnings that are attributable to our JV partner will be carved out on the -- in the minority interest. On the cash flow profile in the second quarter, as you can imagine and as you know, that usually Q1 and Q2 have historically been quarters and due to the seasonality of the business where you would more face operating cash out with the ticket monies, you have basically received and paid out over these quarters, but that there was a counter development from LA in the second quarter, which positively impacted, of course, with these ticket proceeds, the operating cash flow profile.

Okay. That's very helpful. And just to get back to my first question, please. So just to be clear on this, yes, there was in Q2, that Q2 included both the hit to the festivals as well as the -- either the insurance claim already received or the expected insurance claim to be received. And hence, a neutral impact on the earnings. Did I understand that correctly?

Yes. That's what was correctly understood. Yes.

So the next question goes to Gerhard Orgonas from Berenberg.

Two follow-up questions. One on the CapEx, please. I'm still wondering about the big inflow in investments in Q2. So in Q1, you published CapEx or investing -- cash flow from investing activities of EUR 114 million. And in H1, it's EUR 29 million. So it's a big inflow. And if that doesn't come from any subsidies from Milan? Or can you tell us where that comes from? Is that also related to L.A.?

And the second question is related to the financial result. I think your predecessor, William, had started to invest the cash, the EUR 1 billion cash that you have on the balance sheet. If I look at your H1 financial results, apart from the FX, it seems like the financial income is neutral. Has there been any change to this policy of investing the cash on the balance sheet?

No, no change in the policy, right? We are still carefully and cautiously investing as and if needed. And on L.A., I mean, like we said, I mean, the cash flow profile in the first half was impacted by L.A. from an operating perspective. There have been minor positions on the investment side where there were short-term papers in which we were invested, which were liquidated, but these were minor positions that were showing an impact on the cash flow from investments as well, but that was a minor impact.

So what's the EUR 85 million? That's pretty big. Where does that come from in Q2, EUR 85 million inflow...

Hang on. Yes. Like -- sorry, we double checked here with really the numbers now in depth. So basically, what happened in Q2 was that as we, of course, invest the liquidity on a rolling basis, that particularly in Q2, the inflow from papers that became due were simply bigger than the reinvestments, which we've done where we invested liquidity as well into new papers, commercial papers and short-term notes. And this is just a timing effect, which became visible from, less reinvestments from money that became due that was investments over previous periods.

So the last question goes to Henrik Paganetti from Jefferies.

So most of my questions were already asked, but I have one question on the EBITDA in ticketing in Q2. So is it fair to assume that the impact from LA is higher than the impact from the lost stage contract?

Impact-wise, I mean, like we said, I think it's fair to say that there was a, as we said, when we indicated what the contribution from L.A. in Q2 was and what we said or what the shortfall was basically year-over-year from the Stage contract. And in between both pieces, we had organic like-for-like growth in the mid-single digits. And so yes, overall, of course, there was a decent earnings contribution.

But let's not forget about the organic growth, which came from growth in ticket volume, which we have sold, pure retail volume, which added positively to the contribution. And what might catch the eye at the beginning is, of course, more the diversion of the profitability from what has been reflected last year in the partner business that fell away, which was a relatively smaller share of revenues, as we said, with a high single-digit million, but a mid-single-digit million of earnings contribution.

And as we've laid out today as well that the large sports business here with L.A. is, of course, very -- is attractive from a revenue perspective, from a profitability perspective as well, but the margins are much lower than what we have discussed with the change in the partner business. And a little bit of operational excellence.

Yes, exactly. Because like my assumption would be that the EBITDA contribution from L.A. is higher than the Stage loss. And then you have the excellence program, which is minus again, but you also have the impact from the integration costs, which you won't see or haven't seen in Q2 now this year. So my question is, is the 5.8% growth, is that very close to the organic growth you have seen? Or is the organic growth actually a bit smaller here?

No. I mean it's pretty much in that territory. There were exactly these effects from last year. There were integration costs, which are now netted by the operational excellence expenses. There was organic growth. There was basically a new large sports business coming in, which will flourish over the next 3 years. So there was a couple of noise around it, but the way you summed it up was very correct.

Thank you. And this concludes our Q&A, and we would hand back to the operator for now.

So everyone, thank you very much for your participation. I wish you all a beautiful evening or morning, wherever you are and until next time.

Many thanks, and see you in Milano on the 20th of November.

Thank you.

Have a good day. Bye.

And welcome to the CTS Eventim AG Q1 2026 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions]

Let me now turn the floor over to your host, Dr. William Willms.

Good evening to everybody, and good morning to our participants from the United States. Welcome to CTS Eventim earnings call for the first quarter of 2026. Thank you very much for joining, and I sincerely hope that you can understand me well. I'm William Willms, as mentioned, Chief Financial Officer of CTS Eventim, and I'm delighted to take you through our first quarter results today. On my side is Marco Haeckermann, our Vice President, Investor Relations and Corporate Development and Strategy.

Hello, everyone. Dive into the details. Please allow me a brief word on the structure of the call, as usual, today, we will focus exclusively on our Q1 2026 financial results potential performance. I will walk you through the headline numbers, segment results and certain P&L drivers and at the end of the presentation, we will be happy to open the floor for your questions.

Let me start with the headline KPIs for Q1 2026. In summary, we keep on growing. Group revenue came in at EUR 630 million, up 23% versus Q1 2025. This reflects a robust start into the year. Adjusted EBITDA grew by 18.5% to EUR 119 million, and our EBIT grew by 23.7% benefiting from the operational leverage of our platform. On retail ticket volume, we recorded 39 million tickets broadly on prior year level, the slight decline reflects an effect on our business, and I will dive into this later in more detail. GTV grew by 3.3% on a last 12-month basis, reflecting continued platform scale and EPS for the quarter stood at EUR 0.66, up EUR 0.18 versus Q1 2025, again, a positive development.

The first quarter of 2026 demonstrates that we are continuing our course of profitable growth. And the start of 2026 is worth mentioning, but within our expectations. The next slide shows the historical Q1 trend with consistent and compounding growth over the past years. As already mentioned, group revenue grew by 23% to EUR 630 million this quarter, a steady per quarter growth since 2023. Also, adjusted EBITDA grew from EUR 100 million to EUR 190 million, representing, as mentioned before, a growth by 18.5%. Again, there is a steady and robust growth trajectory since 2023.

In Q1 2026, the adjusted EBITDA margin comes out at 19.4% compared to 21% in Q1 in 2025. Please note that this does not represent a structural deterioration of our margin but is solely a weighted mix effect of the 2 segments. Live entertainment accounts for a larger share of the group's revenue compared to the previous year and life and entertainment margins are structurally lower than ticketing.

On EBIT, the outperformance in Q1 2026 versus prior year is also notable. This operational achievement reflects the quality of our earnings base.

Let's have a closer look into our ticketing business. In Q1 2026, the ticketing business continued its growth trajectory delivering revenue above prior year. As reported in our last earnings call, we had a structural change in 1 of our partner business contracts becoming a partnership based on retail ticket allotments. This was our contract with Stage Entertainment. Taking this effect into consideration, ticketing came out on a like-for-like basis in Q1 2026 at about plus 6%. Adjusted EBITDA in Q1 2026 was slightly above prior year. The adjusted EBITDA margin roughly on previous level. Both EBITDA and EBITDA margin are in line with our internal expectations.

As we started with our operational excellence program, Q1 was about building capabilities in talent, which we consider an important first step. Although this temporarily leads to higher cost now -- this will be compensated by future efficiency gains. Like-for-like EBITDA in Q1 2026 has outgrown the reported EBITDA performance of just plus 1%. And develops in line with the above-mentioned like-for-like revenue growth.

To sum up, ticketing remains our high-quality earnings stream and Q1 reaffirms its resilience. Retail ticket volume. On retail ticket volumes, Q1 2026 delivered 39 million tickets compared to 40 million tickets in Q1 2025, a modest decline. This is mainly attributed to the structural change in our partner business in Q1 2026 as explained before, 2/3 of the ticket volume are generated outside Germany, a significant marchstone reflecting the successful internationalization of our platform and reflecting our moat in Europe.

Putting everything together, the volume softness in Q1 2026 is due to the explained 1 time effect and not a demand signal and especially not the result of increased competition.

Turning to our Live Entertainment segment. Live Entertainment delivered a strong performance in the first quarter. strong, but within the expected range. Revenues went up to EUR 44 million compared to EUR 292 million last year, an increase of well over 30% and surpassing prior years as shown in the chart. Adjusted EBITDA came out strong to EUR 29 million compared to EUR 12 million in Q1 2025. The margin expanded to 7.2%. This improvement in our live entertainment business reflects 2 factors: first, a strong portfolio of shows in Germany and the United States and second, a growing contribution from our venue business to be detailed on the next slide.

Let's go down into our Venue business as an integral part of our flywheel strategy. Venue management maintains an important and high-quality earnings stream. With revenues at EUR 40 million and an adjusted EBITDA of EUR 18 million, margins structurally stable and are very much comparable to the margins we generate in our ticketing segment. Worth mentioning in this context is the following: after hosting the Olympic ectopy tournament in February with about 400,000 visitors the Unipol Tom in Milan opened for music concerts in May this year. The Milan arena contributes, therefore, already to the operational results and is a meaningful addition to our high-margin Venue portfolio.

Last, but not least, let me walk you through the P&L bridge for Q1 2026. In addition to the adjusted EBITDA of EUR 119 million, which I have already explained in detail, we were able to report a positive financial result of approximately EUR 9 million. The change of around EUR 13 million compared to the previous year is primarily attributable to favorable exchange rate effects. Taking all this together, the EU EPS amounts to EUR 0.66 showing an increase of EUR 0.18 per share versus last year. Again, this reflects the combination of both operational momentum and an improved financial result.

To sum up and what to take away from today's call are the 3 following things. First quarter of 2026 is in line with our expectations, and we remain positive for the remainder of the year. We have seen solid organic growth on group level, live entertainment and ticketing on a like-for-like basis. And thirdly, the operational excellence program has started and marks the for 2030 ambitions.

That 1 concludes our remarks for Q1 2026. I hope this has been insightful for you, and many thanks for your attention. Operator, let's jump into the Q&A. Please open the line now.

[Operator Instructions] The first one is from Edward William.

William, Marc have 2, if that's all right. So first, I just want to come back to something I asked at full year results. So 2 of the most common pushbacks we tend to hear from investors on the stock are 1 AI disintermediation risk and two, intensifying competition from your main U.S. competitor in Europe. So could you maybe walk us through how you're positioned on both of those and how you want investors to think about them?

And then my second question was just on mobile ticketing. It's been discussed in the past as a pretty attractive margin lever for the ticketing business, but maybe you could give us an update on where the strategy and rollouts it today.

Yes, it's Marco. Let me start off, and then I add William, and he can conclude. So starting off with our friends in North America. I mean, we all know it's a great company. Microrepino has done a terrific job basically in building U.S. live entertainment over more than a decade. And yes, But on the other side, when a company this scale faces that kind of structural uncertainty at home, international growth narrative, of course, serve a dual purpose for them. They are genuine business activity, and they are also a signal to investors and regulators that growth can continue regardless of how the legal domestic situation resolves for them.

So we understand this completely. And we think investors or the capital markets should weigh Live Nation's European ambition accordingly as a capital deployment option driven partly by domestic constrained, not solely by European opportunity. So the critical question for us is does that constrain it partially defensive internationalization represent a meaningful threat for us? And the answer is no. And let me now strip out a little bit more why we are convinced that this is a big node for us.

So in Europe, primary ticketing is a relationship and compliance business. Venue operators and promoters in Germany, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Benelux, Spain and France. They are not switching systems because of Live Nation's undisputable, very strong position in the United States, yes. These customers, they are evaluating reliability, regulatory compliance, commercial terms and platform capability. And on all these dimensions, we are the incumbent in Europe. And incumbents in this industry are rarely displaced without a contractual or technological discontinuity. And to be honest, we don't see any of this on the horizon.

William, do you have anything.

Yes. Let me close with the forward framing. First of all, we will present to all of you a detailed view of our competitive positioning and our growth architecture at the Capital Markets Day. It is to say that we will announce the date very, very soon. What I, however, would like all of you to take away is the following: -- the structural tabs and European life entertainment are strong. Our ticketing segment is compounding at record levels. And as Marco outlined, the regulatory, and I could also say perhaps the reputational pressure on our principal global competitor is, if anything, an accelerate for our European growth and consolidation thesis and not an -- so all in all, we are therefore very, very confident with respect to our structural mode in Europe, and we see this as untouched.

So -- and then let me follow up with the AI part, yes. And I mean everyone knows that we all hold this industry very dear to our heart. And so let me start with a little bit of an intro before we come to more clearer specifics, yes. So I mean, 1 thing is very sure live will always be live, right? -- not a product that can be digitized, automated or replicated by any technology, including AI, yes? When thousands of people come together in the same room for the same performance, they are participating in something categorically irreplaceable. In my belief and in our belief as a company. And this is not some kind of a nostalgic observation. It's really a structural fact that underlines our entire business model and our confidence in the long-term growth of this industry, not only in Europe but globally, yes.

AI-generated music on the other side is a real thing, and it's growing. And we view this not really from that perspective where the market tends to look at it as a source of fear and concern. We look at it from an opposite perspective because what is happening there is that for us, it rewards authenticity, yes, the growing content, which is AI generated on the immune side. The more the digital environment fill with algorithmically produced content, the more scarce and valuable the genuine out becomes right? A real artist, a real stage, a real audience, communities form around true artists, precisely because of shared experiences of seeing the music here for getting all the day-to-day hassles. And this cannot be replicated by any technology. So we are, if anything, structurally positioned to benefit from this dynamic.

And now digging a little bit deeper into more specifics, -- the question of our AI strategy becomes much clearer because we are not deploying AI to reinvent what live entertainment is, but we are deploying it to serve the entire value chain that surrounds the life experience much better with more intelligence, more efficiency and, of course, with a compounding advantage at every layer. And for example, these players when you look at discovery and demand generation, pricing, inventory optimization, transaction and access integrity, the whole live event operations post event retention.

So internally, we are deploying AI across all our operations, whether it will be customer service automation, engineering productivity, internal knowledge management as efficiency plays to primarily reduce our unit cost of serving the fan and the promoter and to free capacity for much higher value work. Sorry, I've blown out all my powder.

Yes. That's to summarize many thanks, Marco, what you just said. The common denominator of all of this is that AI amplifies the value of what we already have. i.e., the proprietary data, the platform scale, the European reach, the trusted relationships with artists and our promoters and with the venue to choose and there choose us and where their success depends also on our success. And this is something which is not replaceable by AI. This is absolutely unique. So therefore, AI does not change the nature of our moat. It raises, however, it's high and every layer simultaneously as just outlined by Marco Again, we will share further details on the AI-enabled components of our road map, platform road map, growth strategy at our Capital Markets Day.

But I would like you to take away is that the business we are in is irreplaceable by definition, the platform we have built is deeply embedded across the entire European live entertainment value chain. And AI is the tool by which we will compound that advantage and it's not a certain variable that introduces uncertainty into it. Now I hope this was helpful and answered the question you had. So many thanks for asking it.

You, however, a second question on mobile ticketing. Mobile ticketing is growing. We see already mid-double-digit percentage as the channel of buying tickets for our customers, i.e., our fans or the fans.

The next question is from Annick Mass Basin.

I have 4 questions tonight. First of all, you had a very strong start to the year, definitely better than many had expected. So why is the outlook unchanged today?

The second question is, clearly, this strong performance has come from live entertainment and you've highlighted that it was U.S. and German touring, but also the Milan venue that have contributed here. Now I didn't see the slide. So maybe you showed this on the slide, but could you maybe just give us the buckets of how much of the contribution was due to Milan, how much due to the U.S. storing it and how much due to German toing.

Third question is on naming rights for Milan. Was the first quarter fully integrating naming rights as in was a full 1 quarter included.

And then the last 1 is on the LA Olympics. Can you just explain us again when and how the P&L and cash flow impacts or what they are going to be with regards to the LA Olympics.

Olympics you asked?

Yes. The last question was on the Olympics, how the P&L versus the cash flow impact is going to impact over the next quarters.

Okay. So first question, change in guidance Yes, no. Yes. As you said, we had a good start, a very good start in 2026. However, as you know, our guidance is only 2 months old. Please also take into account that Q1 is indeed the least relevant quarter for full year -- for the full year outcome for this reason we reiterate our guidance for now. However, I can say will remain positive and we will revisit this topic when we talk next time in August or in the summer later in the summer.

To how do we expect ticketing performance? I think the next question. Q1 was in line with our...

Actually, no, it was actually with regards to life entertainment, how much of the revenue step-up was coming from Milan, how has how much was coming from U.S. storing and how much was coming from German touring? If that could be split up?

Okay. In the first quarter, Miran is included at a margin in line with the established core loan arena. And I would refer to the chart in which we saw in terms of the split between the promoter business and venues. We don't give a split between Germany and in the U.S. However, both were very, very strong in Germany, especially with the unmet.

And what I could add is while the venue business continued to operate at a consistently high EBITDA margin level of approximately 46%, the margin remains broadly stable year-on-year.

Ale, do you want to say something on L.A., Marco?

Yes. Nick, it's Marco. With regards to your question of LA. So as everyone knows, it's a 3-year contract. It's a project-based business for us. So we started in 2026 in the last -- and effect us 2027 and 2028, of course, yes. And from a scope perspective, I think it's fair to frame it over the entire year or length of the contract as something that is about to generate according to our expectations, revenue of something in the low triple-digit millions, yes, with average margins we've seen in other projects like this.

The next question is from Craig Abbott, Kepler. The floor is yours.

Yes. I hope you hear me. My first question is just getting addressing the cash flow was quite weakened admittedly traditionally seasonally weak Q1. I just wondered if you could give us some insight on how you expect to see that develop in the coming quarters and that, in particular, I'm talking about the operating cash flow. But then the investing cash flow, I assume there were remaining on investments there. Could we expect then those ease off in the coming quarters? If you could shed some light on how you expect to see the cash flow development would be great.

And the second question is I just wondered if you had any update to provide on your say, strategy to try to find a partner or partners for a propco opco type partnership for potential future venue projects.

Yes. And the third 1 was just if you could give us any insights on Q2, my last one, sorry. Any insights on particularly bearing in mind that you had a very weak quarter last year in live entertainment with the cost overruns at several festivals, if you could shed any kind of light there. Kind of help us out, it would be great.

Okay. Perhaps not in the order of your question. Let me start with the question on the venue structure. As you rightly mentioned, we follow a propco/opco strategy. We follow the idea and we confirm the idea of an asset-light model for the entire company. Having said this, this is work in progress, but we are in accordance with our planning. -- more details can be shared later this year. As I mentioned in the last call and in our bilateral discussions, -- these are very structured or highly structured discussions and negotiations with a variety of different partners.

So please rest assure we are working on this very hard. Nothing has changed that we want to keep only a minority share in PropCo. And in other words, we will preserve the asset-light model. But we don't have a result yet, which -- which can be announced at this state.

Q2, Q2 perhaps there's something to share on LA ticket sales in the sense that all ticket sales have started in the U.S., and it has been communicated by the IOC that the first ticket drop for LH '28 was sold successfully with demand exceeding expectations by far. Having said this, this is not surprising and is part of our budget, respectively, outlook already. And more details, especially on this will be shared then in the Q2 earnings call.

Live entertainment, live entertainment, Marcel, do you want to add something.

I'm taking on life entertainment discussing this since last year, of course, yes. So I mean the good thing is that we had a very good start into this year with Live entertainment -- and as we've already said in our full year earnings call end of March, that we have done a lot of homework there, yes, because as the main topic has been the performance of the festivals, not particular to CTS, but festivals all over the place. And as we have said already in March, that we have done some cleaning there, yes. So which should -- or at least gives us confidence come into Q2, life entertainment year-over-year, yes, that we have seen or at least I'd say we are very confident, yes.

On the other side, you know as well that so far, what has been announced the large festivals for this year, for example, Roaming and Rock & Parker sold out, great lineups. So from this perspective, to comment on current trading and what we would expect, particularly for live entertainment in this second quarter, yes, we see much more sun shining rather than rainy cloud.

Okay. Then the last question, operating cash flow. Given the seasonal nature of the business, we expect operating cash flow to improve significantly over the course of the year with the strongest cash flow generation typically occurring in Q3 and Q4 reflecting the seasonal strength of the ticketing segment in the year-end period. I hope this helps, right? And we are very confident there very strong there on operating cash flow later this year.

Okay. And on the investing cash flow, I mean, can we expect that number to come down now after Q1 with the Milan venue for the operational.

There will be certain investments still to be done, right? The final amount, which we will have spent, so to speak, on the arena will be determined at the end by also the contributions from the city of Milan. But nothing in the range you have seen before. These are now -- I mentioned this before, I think in the earnings call, smaller amounts on technical equipment, microphones, et cetera. So the large bulk of the world, yes, i.e., the construction work that has been done, okay?

The next question is from Olivier Calvet, UBS.

Marco. I have 3, if I may. Firstly, could you come back on the retail ticket volume decline? So I understand this is a partner business, but -- can you maybe further specify if you include stage entertainment in the comparable period? And could you maybe roll out any element of demand softness or competitive pressure there?

The second question would be on geography. If there was any noticeable impact of some of the big slates that were announced in the first couple of months of the year on your plans for ticketing in terms of on sales?

And thirdly, just a follow-up on ignoring any potential contributions from the municipality of Milan. What's the remaining CapEx budget you will have for the year? If you can comment on that, that would be great.

Okay. Perhaps first on retail ticket volumes, smallest declined 4.4% year-on-year, as you already mentioned. Without disclosing confidential information, the retail ticket volume development year-on-year is mostly indeed stage. But what I would like to take you away more importantly, is that ticketing revenues are up year-on-year, which underlines the quality of our ticket volume in Q1 '26. So the volume in itself is not necessarily therefore, an indicator for the robustness and healthiness of our business. So this 1 ticket retail volume I would also take the question on CapEx. And Marco, you take the third one. Here, it's a mid-double-digit euro amount. I mentioned this in the last call already. And as I said, it's more technical equipment than anything else. Marco, if you take the...

Olivier, it's Marco. I'll take the question on the pipeline and the roster so far. I mean so far, has been in line with previous years. So there were neither positive nor negative outliers, yes. But I mean, there are many, many good act still in the pipeline for the remainder of the year. But as you know, we've gone more of that, the more we enter the second half of the year, yes. But for now, I think it compares very well, and there have been neither positive nor negative outliers in the terms of big on sales across all geographies.

The next question is from Lars from Cliff Bank.

Yes. I would have 2 questions, if I may. You already mentioned that you're seeing first benefits of the operational excellence program. Would you also be willing to share the costs of the program with us? And how much, for example, has affected Q1 profitability.

You said you had 2 questions is the 1.

That was the first one. And the second 1 was, you were kind enough to share the revenue impact of the stage entertainment business that is unfortunately not with you anymore. Would you also be willing to share the impact on the profitability level with us? Or is it differently, can we assume that the EBITDA margin of the business you lost is comparable to your ticketing division's margin on average?

Okay. Let me start with operational excellence. I will divide this in 2 buckets. First, we will provide you with what the budget is for operational excellence program with a detailed breakdown at our but for now, Q1 can be seen as a good proxy for the quarterly impact in 2026. We would say we expensed so far a low single-digit million amount for operational excellence. Now an investment, which, of course, we pay back at a later stage. And as I said, operational excellence is setting the basis for accelerated growth in the years to come, especially until 2030, 2031. I hope this answers your question on operational excellence stage.

Here, can be said, margins are lower than the rest of the fixing business as already indicated in my -- what I said before during the call.

The next question is from Bernd Clanton Barclays.

Just a follow-up on the LA Olympics. You mentioned low triple-digit revenue contribution over those 3 years. My understanding of the relatively low ticketing revenue guidance for 2026 was partly a reflection of that one-off impact from stage Entertainment. But if we're kind of assuming roughly EUR 33 million, EUR 35 million or so of contribution from the Olympics, should that not more or less offset the hit you're experiencing from stage entertainment, -- and then maybe related to that, in the past, you've sometimes shared how you're thinking about underlying ticketing growth of the market and how you should go relative to that? I think in the past, you've mentioned like 6% to 8%. And outside of this year, I was just wondering how you're broadly thinking about that.

And then just again on ticketing maybe to what extent do you have visibility into the rest of the year.

And then my final question is, can you share any update on synergies you're seeing for France M&C tickets.

Ben, it's Marco. Let me kick off, yes. So with regards to -- let's start with the more general thing. The market expectations, as you said, yes, 6% to 8% which is, of course, what we see in the markets we are active in as a potential on average over the next 5 years. And this is, of course, why it's important to see that in our core business, particularly in ticketing, we have grown, yes, our organic growth is in line with that.

On the other side, what William mentioned in the call is the quality of the tickets we have sold, yes, which led to even better revenue growth than volume growth, yes.

With regards to the visibility we highlighted this for the remainder of the year. We see a very good pipeline. But of course, as we don't have any control about the timing of the on sales is, of course, hard to be more precise for us. but we see continued tailwinds for European touring yes, which is as well the underlying factor for the market potential we are seeing over the next 5 years.

Coming back to L.A. Yes, we've indicated what the revenue is over that time line and then you bring the question how it affects our guidance. The important thing is, of course, to differentiate between the regular ticketing business and this being a project business, where you're dependent on many other parties. For example, that here again, it is not when and how many tickets go on sale. Yes, this is solely due to our customer here, which is the International Olympic Committee. So please understand that this early on, we now have started selling tickets from April onwards, yes, which all went very well. The press around this has been very positive, strong demand. This is going to be a great event, yes.

But of course, for us, it's always important that we give the guidance here that we understand what is really in our control and where we have good visibility on. And here in this contract, it is, of course, completely under the discretion of our customer of how to market the event and give us the order of when to sell tickets and going forward, which surely has an impact about the timing of revenues and earnings.

Perhaps then a word on force beanstickets. Both entities are in detail now integrated, and we are very happy with their performance. Needless to say, U.K. and France are 2 core European markets, which we will now continue to build out. same applies, of course, to the U.S. We indeed see first synergies, both on the top line and bottom line, especially local structures have been merged, where we had the venom and see ticket operations within the same countries.

The next question is from Christophe Reset, BNP Paribas.

I would like to come back on the stage entertainment contract. Can you please explain the structure of the old versus the new contract also could take into consideration that stage entertainment seems to sell a certain proportion of their tickets via their own ticketing system. And if you could help us understanding potential revenue losses on RM is what we hope for as well.

Christoph, it's Marco. Let me kick in again with a general view. And of course, this all goes under the headline that it's a -- it has been a very long-term contract there, which has been adjusted for a part of which has been in-sourced. on the more B2B side of stage, yes, whereas we continue to be their partner on the retail distribution, yes, so tickets, which are sold under Eventimbrand over the Eventim channels for them, yes. Yes.

Perhaps to summarize, the key point is that the retail channel stays with event and other details of this very close and dear hours are unfortunately confidential. But the retail -- as I said before, the retail center stays intact there.

Sorry for the confusion that I have to want to make a follow-up on this. In the past, it has also been possible to buy stage via what is really new.

There were basically 2 ways, right, whether, for example, for the Line King and Germany, that you go to or that you went to Eventim. -- and bar tickets or whether you went to the on website of Stage musical and Stage entertainment. And for that, we've signed a contract with them a long time ago to provide them with the B2B solutions, so enabling them to sell under their own brand which at the early days was really a minor share, yes, which over the last 15 years, of course, as they have invested into their own franchise, you know that they have been sold in 2019 -- and as you can imagine for an IP owner and a content company, COVID was really a dramatic situation.

And from this perspective, the only thing happened that the share which they are now selling for example, the Saturday evening shows, which we could all sell from the back of a truck, yes, this is what is now supplied temporarily by another partner and where they really have to build on our reach where we -- the way of how we cooperate with other promoters because we can provide them with significantly lower customer acquisition costs for the shows that are not that easy to sell, for example, the Wednesday afternoon. This is still to be found on Eventim and over our app.

Okay. This is clear enough. Then I have 2 shorter questions, please. Is there -- has there been any positive effect from the eventual Linpan on your ticket tank revenues in Q1?

Sorry. No, We were just looking at 1 another who is replying because the simple answer is no.

And then the last one, can you give us your view on the ticketing volume growth in Germany for '26, please?

Well, I mean, if I may start into this, -- this is, of course, part of our discussion around guidance, yes. And of course, I mean, -- as I said earlier in this call, we see a very good roster of artists coming through Germany. Yes, we see continued traction, of course, on our retail channel -- we benefit from more international ads coming to Europe and making stops in Germany. But again, it is hard now to be more precise on the volume because this is to 90% much more timing question rather than anything else, yes?

And I don't want to sit here in a year's time and explain why someone who's been selling through Eventim has not sold in December but in January. So look, to summary, we are positive.

As there are no more questions in the queue. With that, we are closing the Q&A session, and I hand the floor back over to the hosts.

Thank you very much. for your time, I hope, or we hope this was helpful and talk to you soon and especially see you soon, September, October this year.

Yes. Thank you very much as well from my side. Have a good end of spring and a nice start to summer. Bye-bye.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the CTS Eventim AG & Co. KGaA Annual Financial Report 2025. [Operator Instructions]

Let me now turn the floor over to your host, Dr. William Willms.

Good evening, everybody, and a very good morning to all of you dialing in today from the U.S. Welcome to CTS Eventim's earnings call for the full year 2025. Thank you very much for joining in today's call. I'm William Willms, the new Chief Financial Officer of CTS Eventim since Jan 2026, and I'm delighted to take you through our results but also our strategic priorities today.

From our side is also on this call, Marco Haeckermann, our Head of Investor Relations and Business Development. Marco?

Hello, everyone. Thanks for joining.

For today's agenda, I will guide you through our promising full year 2025 results, but also our strategic priorities for 2026 and beyond and provide you with our guidance for 2026 and our new approach towards capital market communication. I look forward to the discussion with you on our 2025 results and 2026 guidance, and we'll be happy to open the floor for your questions at the end of the earnings presentation.

Let's begin. Let me start with a detailed look at our 2025 full year outturn and achievements. Before I, however, turn to a more detailed review, I would like to set the stage for today's call. 2025 has been a year of continued momentum for Eventim, a year in which we crossed for the first time in our history, the EUR 3 billion revenue threshold and further consolidated our position as Europe's leading live entertainment and ticketing platform. At the same time, we achieved an adjusted EBITDA of EUR 584 million, demonstrating not only strong top line growth, but also our solid operational execution and profitability.

Looking at our operational scale, we marketed more than 1 million events in 2025 in more than 30 countries worldwide. In terms of reach, our ecosystem generated approximately 7.6 billion digital touch points, highlighting the scale of our customer interactions and the increasing importance of digital channels across the customer journey. And last but not least, we now have more than 260 million user profiles, giving us direct access to a large and highly valuable customer base. This is a key strategic asset of ours, enabling personalization, improving engagement and supporting monetization across our platform.

I would like to follow with 2 slides on operational and strategic highlights. 2025 reflected strong operational execution across both ticketing and live entertainment. Let me provide you with some highlights. We delivered major tour successes with international superstars like Ed Sheeran, reaching over 1 million fans and generating around EUR 100 million in revenue. Besides Ed Sheeran, AC/DC and Apache 207, one of the German superstars, were further highlights in 2025. Our flagship festivals, including Rock am ring and Rock im Park achieved record attendance of around 180,000 fans and strong digital engagement. Rock am ring celebrated its 40th anniversary and Rock im Park its 30th anniversary.

Furthermore, last year saw additions of many unique festivals from the Eventim portfolio, such as Hurricane, Highfield, Garorock and many more. In mega events ticketing, the LA28 Olympic and Paralympic Games launch saw very strong demand with over 1.5 million registrations within the first 24 hours. This project marks the latest success story in our history with the IOC, who has been entrusting us with the sixth Olympic project since 2006.

And finally, our venue business also performed strongly. While I will later zoom in on venues in more detail and the new arena in Milan, in particular, LANXESS Arena in Cologne had again a very successful year, hosting more than 200 shows and welcoming over 2.5 million visitors, further reinforcing its leading position in Europe. It ranks #3 of all European venues in the latest 4-star ranking.

Next, some of our strategic achievements. 2025 was also a year of strategic progress, strengthening our global capabilities and investing in technology to support sustainable growth and margin expansion. Let me give you and provide you with some examples. We initiated the buildup of global functions with the Eventim Media House as a first proof point. With highly engaged fans, million of daily visitors on our marketplaces and a vast base of registered users, we will leverage this rich data pool to deliver innovative media solutions to our global promoter clients and unlock new revenue streams with end customers, the fans.

The Eventim Media House develops new creative marketing assets globally, strengthened social media campaigns as well as new brand partnerships. With this, we will evolve the Eventim brand from a trusted market leader into a global discovery brand. At the same time, we established the foundation for a unified modular global platform, which will enable greater standardization and scalability, improve the fan experience and increase both innovation velocity and operational success.

We also accelerated our investments in data and AI, rolling out enterprise-wide capabilities and building a global data platform, which we expect to materially enhance decision-making and deliver double-digit returns over time. While the use of AI will increase development speed and quality, our global data platform will further enable the flexible creation of new data-driven products. This data platform will further optimize operations and increase monetization as an integral part of our future growth profile. Positive financial impact is expected over the midterm.

Finally, as a global ticketing provider, we leverage mega events like the Olympics, not only to drive innovation, but also to prove the performance of new developments in the most demanding high-scale environments such as Milano-Cortina or the LA28 Olympic Games. I hope this gave you some helpful context for our 2025 results.

Let me now continue with a detailed review of our full year '25 financial performance and the respective segment drill down. In 2025, we delivered a strong set of results and achieved all of our guidance targets, not only at group level, but also across both our segments, ticketing and live entertainment. Starting with group revenue, we grew by around 10% year-on-year to EUR 3.1 billion. At the same time, adjusted EBITDA increased by 8% to EUR 584 million and EBIT also grew by 8% to EUR 477 million.

Beyond the financials, the underlying fundamentals remain strong, too. For example, our fee-bearing retail ticket volume increased by 21% to nearly 178 million tickets, highlighting strong consumer demand and continued traction across the platform. This development was further supported by the full year consolidation of our recent acquisitions, France Billet and See tickets. This strong operational momentum is also reflected in our gross transaction value, which reached nearly EUR 9 billion, underlying the scale and activity in our ecosystem.

Earnings per share, however, declined despite our strong operational performance by 13% to EUR 2.89, driven by external factors, mainly FX effects due to a strong euro against the weaker U.S. dollar. I will explain this later in more detail when we talk about our financial and net results.

Let us take a quick look at group level. Over the past years, as mentioned, Eventim has consistently delivered strong growth combined with high profitability. As said, in 2025, we exceeded the EUR 3 billion mark in revenues for the first time. However, this is not just a one-off achievement. It is the result of a long-term growth trajectory. Looking back, it took the company around 17 years from IPO to reach EUR 1 billion in annual revenues. From there, it took only about 4 additional years to reach EUR 2 billion, excluding the COVID period. And most recently, it took just 2 more years to surpass the EUR 3 billion mark.

Most importantly, however, this growth is broad-based. It is driven by both segments, Ticketing and Live Entertainment across all regions. This strong growth trajectory, however, did not dilute our strong margin levels. Our adjusted EBITDA margin remains at around 19%, in line with the high levels of previous years. Looking at the EBITDA more closely, growth is supported in particular by strong contributions from the ticketing segment, both organically and through acquisitions translated into EBIT.

Let's have a quick look at quarter 4. 2025 was again supported by a strong third quarter and in particular, a very strong fourth quarter, which is seasonally still the most important period for Eventim. In Q4, we delivered revenues of EUR 931 million, representing a significant increase compared to the previous quarter and highlighting the strong year-end demand across our business. This growth was again supported by both segments. The strong top line development is translated into profitability.

Adjusted EBITDA in quarter 4 increased by 12% year-on-year to EUR 246 million, reflecting not only higher volumes, but also the operating leverage in our model. More broadly, this also underlines the strong momentum in the second half of the year, where both revenue and earnings accelerated compared to the first half.

Let me now turn to a drill down into our 2 segments, starting with our Ticketing segment. In 2025, ticketing delivered a consistently strong performance across all quarters with each quarter outperforming the respective prior year period. A key contributor to this development was the full year consolidation of France Billet and See Tickets, which for the first time accounted for all quarters. These acquisitions not only added volume, but also strengthened our regional footprint and international presence. We aim to scale the traditionally lower scale margin business of See Tickets to higher levels with our tech and product excellence and existing reach.

Our broad and well-diversified partner network ensures a strong and reliable supply of events both through our own promoters or through long-standing relationships with third-party promoters. With See Tickets now being part of the group, we are now able to offer an even wider range of ticketing solutions to our B2B partners, either by offering the Eventim retail platform and the ability to profit from our huge customer database as presented earlier, or by providing more or less serviced ticketing solutions in the partner business and SaaS ticketing.

The operational foundation for the just described financial development is a strong and consistent growth in retail ticket volumes, reaching 177 million tickets in 2025, which corresponds to a CAGR of around 29% since 2023. Again, this growth is broad-based across all regions. A key contributor to this development has been the expansion of our international footprint, particularly through the integration of France Billet and See Tickets. As a result, the regional mix of our business continues to evolve.

Today, around 2/3 of our retail ticket volumes are generated outside Germany as illustrated on the right-hand side of the slide. This increasing international diversification is strategically important. By spreading our business across a broader set of markets, we are becoming more resilient to local economic volatility while at the same time reducing dependency on individual on sales or specific events. At the same time, this broader footprint allows us to capture growth opportunities across multiple regions, further supporting the scalability of our model.

Let me now turn to our second segment, Live Entertainment. Again, record results. For the first time, Live Entertainment exceeded EUR 2 billion in annual revenues. With more than EUR 2 billion revenues in a broad portfolio of events, we have built a well-diversified and balanced promotion business. As the scale of the business increases, the dependency on single artists or tours becomes significantly smaller. This is also reflected in the seasonal profile shown on the slide.

From a profitability perspective, we were able to cover first half year effects by strong momentum in the second half, with EBITDA growth supported in particular by our own venues business and the continued development of our U.S. activities. Altogether, we were able to maintain the EBITDA margin in Live Entertainment above 6% for now 3 consecutive years. Within the Live Entertainment segment, venues gained more importance in our business model. With assets such as the LANXESS Arena in Cologne, a number of midsized venues, open-air theaters and the Milan arena, we will further expand this footprint and enhance the Live Entertainment value chain.

This is already visible in the numbers today. Our venue operations contribute roughly 40% to the Live Entertainment segment EBITDA, making it a key earnings driver. The profitability with approximately 46% adjusted EBITDA margin is comparable to our Ticketing business. I will provide you with more details on our financial strategy and overall approach with respect to venues later in this presentation when I talk about our strategy at the next chapter.

Let me conclude the financial chapter with the financial results. As you have seen, our adjusted EBITDA, the key indicator of our operational performance increased by around EUR 42 million year-on-year. However, when moving further down the P&L, we see a notable swing in the financial result. In 2025, the financial result is approximately EUR 100 million lower than previous year, driven by: one, around 50% of the decline is related to negative foreign exchange effects as well as lower interest rate income.

Two, a further 30% relates to 2024 effects nonrecurring in 2025, most notably a dividend contribution from the Cartel project. And three, the remaining 20% is driven by valuation effects linked to option valuations. The increase in operating performance is therefore offset by the weaker financial result, leading to a net result of EUR 277 million and earnings per share of EUR 2.89.

In the following, I would like to highlight now our strategic priorities for 2026 and beyond. Let me start on a very high level. We define ourselves as the European integrated Live Entertainment business, a European-centric integrated Live Entertainment business. While preserving this strength, we have global ambitions. Our business idea is based on the 3 main business pillars: ticketing, events and venues, both integrated and open to third parties. First, ticketing. We operate the largest ticketing platform in Europe, serving both the content side, i.e., promoters and artists and a highly engaged fan base. Beyond ticket sales, this also creates meaningful monetization opportunities through data, personalization and ancillary services while helping drive revenues for our partners.

The second pillar is events. Here, our own and third-party event network creates a broad and relevant inventory base that continuously fuels the ticketing platform. At the same time, the breadth of our event portfolio attracts more customers to our ecosystem, increasing frequency, engagement and demand. Therefore, events are the key traffic engine for broadening the platform. Being highly attractive for third parties, around 20% of the ticketing revenue is generated from group promoter content.

Combined with our venue footprint, this allows us to support the value chain more vertically when providing full-service event organization and deepening relationships with artists and promoters. Just as importantly, events in our own venues feed directly back into the ticketing engine. This further improves quality, supply and execution while also creating a more differentiated offering for customers and partners.

All 3 pillars are therefore intended to be mutually reinforcing. Ticketing drives audience reach and demand. Events generate relevant inventory and customer engagement. Venues provide supply, execution and capability. This integrated model directly translates into a number of structural strengths that set us apart, some of which we highlighted on the right-hand side of this chart.

What I just described can be summarized as a fully integrated ecosystem with strong flywheel dynamics, creating a value loop. Promoters provide the inventory. venues create fan experiences and go-to places for artists. We use the generated data to drive engagement, reactivation and personalization, which improves customer experience and conversion and in turn, generates more data and better monetization opportunities. Generated insights help promoters and venues to market content more effectively and improve sell-through. Ticketing acts as the marketplace and catalyst that connects the ecosystem.

We will continue to invest in this model through strategic growth initiatives and selective acquisitions. We consider a disciplined capital allocation aimed at reinforcing ecosystem dynamic and extending our long-term growth trajectory as essential, creating more value over the entire ecosystem. Having given this context, what are now our priorities for 2026 and beyond. We will continue strengthening our market leadership position in ticketing and Live Entertainment in Europe, while accelerating our expansion in the Americas, where we see significant growth potential. We will enhance our platform capabilities.

By leveraging AI-driven personalization and driving higher-margin ancillary revenues, we aim to increase customer lifetime value while continuing to invest in the robustness and scalability of our technology. At the same time, we will optimize and grow our live portfolio. We plan to further expand our venue business and expand into artist management while preserving our asset-light model. Operational excellence remains a key enabler across all of this. We are driving further standardization and scalability across the organization to support profitable growth.

Last but not least, we plan to continue selective inorganic growth opportunities. Our focus here is on acquisitions in high-growth opportunities where we can quickly deliver returns and realize synergies within our ecosystem. Overall, these priorities will create a bridge between our near-term execution and our long-term 2030 ambition.

Allow me to provide you with some more insight and a short deep dive on our approach towards venues as part of our ecosystem. As I know, this has raised many questions last year. First, where will we invest? We focus on structurally attractive regions in Europe, followed by selected market opportunities in North and South America. Doing this, we target underserved metropolitan areas.

Second, and how we select opportunities. Every venue must have a strategic fit within our ecosystem. And thirdly, all of this will be done, as I said before, while preserving our asset-light approach. We are currently working on a financial, respectively, commercial structure, enabling us to take existing and potential future venue assets off balance sheet. As you all know, such structures are highly complex and take some time due to this complexity. So please bear with us with me on this matter.

To put, however, some more flesh to our venue strategy, allow me to give you some insight on the Unipol Dome in Milan. After approximately 2.5 years of construction, the arena successfully opened earlier this year. With the first event taking place on February 5, the Unipol Dome hosted the ice hockey matches for the Olympic Winter Games earlier this year. This venue represents the most modern large-scale arena in Italy and ranks among the most advanced and sustainable venues in Europe.

The arena sets new standards, particularly in VIP and hospitality offerings as well as in state-of-the-art technical infrastructure for live events. Its distinctive design, including the LED facade establishes a true landmark in Europe and creates attractive long-term sponsorship potential, including Unipol Insurance to be the official naming rights partner. We plan to host around 50 shows this year only with an average ticket price approximately 10% higher than originally underwritten.

Finally, let's have a look at our 2026 guidance and our new capital market communication approach. Eventim profits from strong and unbroken demand for Live Entertainment. In an increasingly digital world, fans like to get together, celebrating unique live experiences. Eventim will stay a growth asset for the years to come, even though our 2026 budget needs to compensate for a onetime effect in form of a structural income change from a long-term contract. We have set ourselves ambitious midterm targets in both our segments and on group level.

We, however, carefully watch the current geopolitical situation. Rising uncertainties might have an impact on disposable consumer income and discretionary spending and thus might impact us indirectly. Everything else being equal, we expect a structural bottom line growth for the midterm in line with past performance, backed by a strong set of growth and margin measures. While we are planning slightly more conservatively for 2026, it is also possible to reach historical performance levels with these measures gaining traction.

With this in mind, we guide for 2026. In ticketing, we expect all KPIs on previous year level, respectively, slightly higher. In Live Entertainment, we expect moderate growth in adjusted EBITDA and EBIT, whereas the revenues are expected to reach prior year level. Finally, we expect Eventim Group level KPIs on or slightly higher level than previous year. CTS Eventim has a consistent track record of returning value to its shareholders. In total, we provided to our shareholders since 2006, EUR 1 billion in dividends. Since 2014, dividend payments have grown from EUR 38 million to EUR 38 million in 2025. This reflects a long-term dividend per share CAGR of 17.4%. We plan to continue our dividend policy of a targeted payout of 50% net income.

Hence, Management Board, respectively, the Supervisory Board is planning to propose to the AGM in May 2026, a dividend per share of EUR 1.44. Being on board now for nearly 3 months, what are my observations and what are my priorities and focus areas for the year to come. 5 focus areas: one, fundamental value creation steering. Value creation focus beyond EBIT or short-term payback metrics anchored in a holistic shareholder value-oriented steering. We will follow a framework KPIs, including cash flow generation, capital allocation and a clear prioritization logic.

Two, I will explain this in a minute in more detail, an internal excellence program, a structured initiative to enhance operational performance and global competitiveness. Three, the preservation of our asset-light model, expanding and preserving this asset-light model to increase flexibility and capital efficiency. We will retain the operator role in venues to protect brand returns and ecosystem strategy while having the venue itself off balance sheet.

Four, the fourth focus area, Investor Relations. I plan to further enhance investor interaction and engagement through proactive communication with increased transparency on strategy and performance and capital markets events to strengthen trust. And last but not least, M&A and M&A strategy. We will pursue value-accretive M&A aligned with strategic priorities and clear synergy cases. We have strict financial hurdles, rigorous due diligence and PMI to ensure sustainable value creation and capital discipline.

As mentioned before and indicated to make everything happen what I just outlined, we will implement a comprehensive operating excellence program to translate strategic priorities into measurable execution. This program brings together our key value creation levers across commercial excellence, tech and product excellence, process excellence into one structured framework. All initiatives will feed into our midterm full potential plan. Such programmatic approach will enable transparency, accountability and execution discipline for all initiatives across the entire organization. The to-be-developed floor plan will refine our midterm ambition targets and is intended to propel the company tech-wise, commercially and financially to the next level.

And last but not least, this call is intended to mark a new chapter in our capital market communication. We are -- and especially me, we are excited to announce our first ever Capital Markets Day at the Unipol Dome in Milan taking place in September this year. Hosting it at the Unipol Dome in Milan, the intersection of our venue strategy will simultaneously give you a firsthand experience of what world-class venue operations look like. During the Capital Market Day, we will provide you with more details on our strategy, midterm strategic full potential plan and our excellence program. We will share the exact date in due course as we would like to combine this with a very special event at the dome. But we are already today looking very much forward to welcoming all of you in Milan.

Thank you very much for your attention. I hope this was helpful and insightful. Operator, let's jump into Q&A, and please let's open the line now.

[Operator Instructions] So the first question comes from Annick Maas from Bernstein.

I have a few questions, and I don't have -- I don't see the slide. So maybe this is on the slide, so excuse me if I'm asking it and it's displayed there. The first one is on the outlook. I think just to confirm that you said ticketing revenues and adjusted EBITDA are going to be on the previous year level in 2026. And in Live Entertainment, you said moderate growth in adjusted EBITDA. And just to confirm that moderate growth is still 5% to 15%, which is the number that you used to quote in the past and revenues will be in line with the prior year. So that's my first question on the outlook.

The second one is Live Entertainment was quite strong in the fourth quarter. In the annual report, you're talking about the good lineup coming up. I just would like to understand, is there already any naming rights proceeds in the fourth quarter numbers of Live Entertainment or not? Then if you could give us just an indication in terms of the first quarter, particularly given reported comps are relatively tough here? And the last one is, can you just tell us a bit more whether this Amplify program is requiring some CapEx or OpEx investments to get going?

Yes. Thank you for your questions. These are indeed many questions. Amplify program, the Amplify program is a subprogram of the overall operational excellence program. It is, so to speak, the pillar, if you look at the slides in the middle on the tech and product excellence side, Amplify will indeed require certain investments as investments in IT, i.e., tech infrastructure, AI, et cetera. no naming rights in Q4 2025. Then the first question was in terms of our guidance. The guidance is a guidance where we are comparing on a qualitative basis to last year.

And as I think you were correct in saying in ticketing, we expect all KPIs on previous year level, respectively, slightly higher. Live Entertainment, we expect moderate growth in adjusted EBITDA and EBIT, whereas revenues are expected to reach prior year level. And overall, the KPIs are on or slightly higher level than previous year. On previous year level, it could include both directions, below or above previous year by adding slightly higher, we decided to add the direction. But I gave you the context in my web just a minute ago, how we look at the world and, so to speak, economics globally for the time being. I hope this answered most of the questions.

Yes. Sorry, just a follow-up. So moderate growth, that means still 5% to 15%. That's the number that you, I mean, presented.

Moderate growth is moderate growth. We never gave out an official percentage associated to that.

Okay. And the first quarter, any indications there?

No, not yet.

The next question comes from Ed Vyvyan from Rothschild & Co Redburn.

I just had 2 questions. So could you just elaborate, please, on what you mean by the structural income change from the long-term contract in ticketing? And then the second question is there are kind of 2 key concerns which we hear a lot from investors around the stock. The first is the increased competition from Live Nation in Europe and then second are fears around AI disintermediation. So could you please comment on these 2 points and maybe give us a bit of your understanding of how Eventim is positioned to tackle both of those issues?

Okay. I don't see AI as an intermediator, so to speak, or disruptor for our business. AI will help us. But as I tried to say just a minute ago, AI and the increasing digital world is basically supporting Live Entertainment, is supporting the need of people seeking unique life experiences. So AI will be used by us to drive personalization, monetization opportunities, ancillary revenues, but we don't think that AI will basically replace live experiences for human beings.

We are fully committed to roll out a genic first product and software development, as I mentioned before. And as I said, this will reach the entire value chain by 2026. And we are following an genic first approach where we see efficiency in time-to-market improvements by 80% and beyond. Live Entertainment is certainly a strong competitor, but this is just one out of many. We have our own strategy. We follow this strategy, and we are confident that with this strategy, we will return value to our shareholders, whether it's in Europe or in other places in the world.

And then just that question on -- you mentioned the structural income change from long-term contracts impacting the guidance. Can you just discuss that a little bit, please?

This is where -- on this contract, we have less prepayments. It's just on a regular level contract where we have access to tickets. And this just a normal contract ticketing contract like with any other, so to speak, customer of ours. The contract expired just by the term of it. So nothing too unusual of it.

The next question comes from Bernd Klanten from Barclays.

First question on venues. Can you expand a little bit on how exactly you're planning to remain asset-light while pursuing future venue projects? Then in your annual report, you listed risks based on changes in the market through product services, innovations, business activities and corporate values, and that was changed from low to medium. Can you maybe expand a little bit on that, what the idea was behind that? And then on CapEx, how much did Milan costing overall when I look at sort of property, plant and equipment we've seen quite a significant uptick again with EUR 236 million versus EUR 142 million last year. Can you perhaps give a little bit more color there, what was driving that?

So on venues, venues, as I mentioned and as you put it down on the slide, could mean greenfield as well as brownfield venues. So it's not precluded that we go greenfield, but what we will change is the way how to approach the venue. We could bring in partners at an earlier stage. We could using stage or development to core models or structuring projects where long-term capital enters once key milestones are achieved. In terms of venues being on our balance sheet, like the Unipol Dome, as I said, we are still in the process of developing the right structure. This could include partnering with somebody. This could include SLA financial structures.

As you will know very well, there's a broad range of possibilities. We are discussing them internally in the moment. We will discuss them with potential partners/investors or finances in the market in due course, and we'll come back on that later in the year at latest at the CMD.

How we think about CapEx for venues over the next 3 to 5 years was, I think, the next question. We expect a selective project-dependent capital requirement that will flexibly align with our concrete opportunities and the respective market conditions. I, therefore, cannot give you now a direct and will not give you a direct number. In doing so and following this approach, we will rely both on partnership structures, as I said, and co-investments as well as where appropriate on the independent execution of projects in order to deploy capital efficiently and realize opportunities in a targeted manner.

Now how much did the Unipol Dome cost? After having hosted the ice hockey matches for the Winter Olympics this year, the venue is now almost ready. Just some technical fit-out needs to be realized in the upcoming months. The net amount of total cost over and above what has already been recorded in our financial statements is, however, still depending on various components, including certain subsidies we are foreseeing.

And on the risks that you've changed in the annual report?

What we put down on the risk section is the normal, so to speak, risk start of operations of the Unipol Dome, the normal ramp-up risk you would consider. We are, however, having hosted Olympic games with all these people and with a high standard of Olympic game in the Unipol Dome, I think this can be considered as a lower risk than compared to other risks we might face in this world today.

The next question comes from Olivier Calvet from UBS.

Just 2 questions left. Could I come back on the phasing of the year? Your main competitor has had a very strong start of the year in terms of the slate they've shown. So just curious how you see phasing and if that's incorporated in your full year '26 guidance? And then just on venues, helpful to see the additional disclosures. I'm just wondering if you could remind us the venues that are included in these disclosures and sort of contracts in place for those, anything that would be relevant, also particularly looking at '26?

Olivier, it's Marco. Could you please repeat the last question?

So yes, venues, yes, could you remind us what you include in your disclosures, which venues are included on revenue, EBITDA, right, and the contracts that are in place for those?

There was a second -- so it's LANXESS Arena in Cologne. Waldbuhne and K.B. Hallen in Denmark. The first question about the phasing of the year, as you were referencing to Live Nation, right?

Yes.

I mean, basically, there is, at this particular moment, no particular phasing, which we see throughout the year compared to what others might say. So we expect a regular year in 2026 compared to 2025.

We have the next question from Gerhard Orgonas from Berenberg.

Two questions, please. One is coming back to this long-term contract that has run out. Could you give us a financial impact from this, the headwind that you have in '26 compared to '25? And in venues, I'd be interested in what kind of scale you're looking at in terms of adding venues? Are you going to double, triple? Or what is the magnitude that you're looking at?

On the first question, I understand that question of yours, but we are there bound by confidentiality agreements with the partner. On venue scale, Fair question as well. This will be scaled and always put in place with overall investment in CapEx over a year and our cash we have available at the year or respective financing. At the end of the day, there is a gold rule. Opportunity needs to meet strategy.

Now we will not do anything stupid. As I mentioned before, rigorous financials will apply as well as due diligence. At the end of the day, it's a selective approach in the geographies, the regions I mentioned. There, we talk to partners, there we talk to governments that we talk to cities. Overall, one thing is clear, you cannot handle -- you can only as a company, handle a certain amount of venues, which limits, so to speak, the ability, so to speak, to overboarding.

And thirdly, as I mentioned before, venues always will basically need to provide the necessary flywheel fit, as I mentioned before, with again put a certain limitation on where we go. I hope that answers your question. More to be provided later.

So there are no further questions. Back to you.

Okay. Thank you very much. I hope this provided helpful for you, and you are as excited as I am for our upcoming Capital Markets Day. We will talk to each other, of course, during our quarterly results discussion. But legacy we'll see each other then in Milan. So hopefully, exciting event, music event as well as strategic and financial event. Many thanks to everybody. Bye-bye.

Welcome to the third quarter earnings call of CTS Eventim. My name is Marco Haeckermann, and I'm going to present the third quarter, followed by a Q&A session. So let's go.

The headline for the Q3 result is very clear. We are leaving the noise of Q2 behind, and we are talking about strong signals we've seen in Q3. Ticketing has posted positive like-for-like growth in the third quarter. Adjusted EBITDA margin in the segment is up by more than 200 basis points despite ongoing integrations from See Tickets and France Billet. The development in Ticketing is backed by very strong organic margin growth in the third quarter year-over-year.

Live Entertainment returned to growth in the third quarter after a muted Q2. Adjusted EBITDA margin is up by more than 100 basis points in Q3 year-over-year, and our venue operations delivered on prior year's level.

We've seen a positive financial result in the third quarter of a little bit more than EUR 2 million versus a negative result of around EUR 0.5 million in Q3 last year. And putting all this together gives us enough confidence to again confirm what we've said already in August when we released the half year results that we confirm our group KPIs and ticketing with regards to the outlook for 2025.

Let's look at some highlights for the first 9 months in 2025. The first impression is right, all the arrows point in the right direction and show a green color. Group revenue is up to EUR 2.1 billion, which represents growth of 6% year-over-year. Adjusted EBITDA was almost at EUR 340 million, up by almost 5%. And EBIT is above EUR 260 million, which represents growth of even more than 6%.

The development of our retail tickets and the tickets outside Germany posted a tremendous growth of 29% and almost 43%, which is still positive affected by the ongoing integration and first-time consolidation of See Tickets and France Billet. And our last 12 months GTV reached almost EUR 9 billion by the end of September.

Let's dig a little bit deeper into the first 9 months results. The growth in revenues of 6% was driven by both segments. Ticketing growth came in across all subsegments despite the nonrecurring Paris 2024 revenues we've seen last year. And Live Entertainment, as I've said earlier, has returned to growth after the second quarter. Adjusted EBITDA is up by almost 5% with margin levels back at prior year's level, mostly driven by very strong organic margin growth in Ticketing and Live Entertainment returning to last year's EBITDA margin level. The impact on EBIT is comparable with almost 6%, which is, of course, reported on an unadjusted basis.

Looking at the results from a quarterly perspective, Q3 posted the highest revenue over the last 7 quarters. And the second -- the third quarter in Ticketing captured See Tickets for the first time on a clean like-for-like basis. Live reported positive momentum quarter-on-quarter. The adjusted EBITDA had no adjustments in 2025, while there was in the comparable period last year, an adjustment for M&A-related transaction expenses of a high single-digit million amount. As said, the margin expansion was driven by both segments, which is, of course, a very positive development compared to what we have discussed in August this year. And let's not forget, the main quarter from an earnings perspective is still to come with the fourth quarter of 2025.

Bridging now from adjusted EBITDA of almost EUR 340 million to our net profit versus previous year, you see here that our adjusted EBITDA was up by EUR 15 million. And then after depreciation, the financial result, we posted earnings before taxes of EUR 260 million.

It is important to highlight that the negative trend in the financial results is mostly determined by what we have discussed already with the H1 numbers as the third quarter financial result was positive, but within the first half, we had negative effects from foreign exchange, mostly U.S. dollar of roughly EUR 15 million. There was a nonrecurring dividend payment of around EUR 14 million from our autoTicket project and the lower interest income, which translated as well to roughly EUR 15 million less interest income in the first half. But this, as I said, was mostly attributable to the first half and Q3 has posted a positive financial result. Adding it all up, we end up with almost EUR 150 million of net profit attributable to CTS shareholders.

Taking now a look at the segments. Ticketing revenues grew by 2%, although the organic growth was in the mid-single-digit percentages, and this effect comes from last year's third quarter having seen a high single-digit million contribution from Paris '24, which is a nonrecurring item. The third quarter growth was driven largely across all our core markets.

The disproportionate development on adjusted EBITDA shows how strong the organic business has improved its profitability in the third quarter. Even without considering the nonrecurring earnings impact from Paris 2024, adjusted EBITDA has grown by 8% year-over-year in the third quarter. And even with the ongoing integrations and the still dilutive impact on adjusted EBITDA margins from the newly acquired entities, we are able to expand our profitability in the third quarter, mostly backed by very strong performances in our core markets on adjusted EBITDA profitability.

Taking a look at our retail ticket volume. The retail ticket volume in the third quarter went up from 36 million to 42 million. And looking at the right side of this slide, you see that due to the ongoing integration of the international businesses, which we've acquired in See tickets and France Billet, the share of Europe is increasing based on the retail ticket volume.

Taking now a look at Live Entertainment. Revenue in the third quarter grew by 5.5% despite muted development in Q2. All leading indicators as of 30th September '25 are up. With leading indicators, I'm referring to, for example, prepayments which we have received, which is -- which you can consider an order intake or a KPI for deferred revenue of our Live Entertainment segment for the next season, which is a very positive indicator for what's to come in the next year. As we've discussed in summer, we continue to have our festival portfolio under review where we expect positive impact next year.

The strong EBITDA development in Q3 shows that overall, the season and the content has been very helpful to our overall development and is mostly backed by our German and Italian businesses in Live Entertainment. Our venue business, which we report in this segment as well, remains highly profitable at previous year's level. Overall, we see that the Live Entertainment segment has returned into its target margin corridor with 7% in Q3.

And this concludes the presentation of our Q3 results for today. And now I hand over back to the operator to open the line for your questions. Thank you.

And we're coming to the first question, and it comes from Olivier Calvet from UBS.

Maybe I'll take them one by one. But first, to clarify the guidance comment. On the last call, you guys were saying sort of the 5% to -- that we should take the lower end of the 5% to 15% growth at EBITDA level. It sounds like you're now pointing again to the full range. So I'm just wondering if you'd be able to narrow it down a little bit for us now with only about a month left to the year.

Yes. Thank you, Olivier. So as I said, we would prefer to leave the commentary unchanged versus H1, although having seen the very strong development in Live Entertainment in the third quarter, I can say that we have gained a little bit more headroom in what we've said. But for now, I would leave the guidance unchanged. But you can be sure that we as well are taking into consideration the strong return to positive momentum in Live Entertainment as well.

Okay. Okay. And how is Ticketing developing into Q4? Any sort of color you could give here also on the 2026 artist lineup that would be helpful as well.

Yes. I mean while we are still in this quarter, I can't say anything about it in financial terms. But I mean, the highlights we've seen so far, I can say that the demand side is very well on track, seeing what we have put through the pipeline, whether it was big festivals. We're seeing great lineups even for festivals in the second tier.

On the other side, we have had some really renowned bands going on sales so far in the fourth quarter. But it's always important to highlight, particularly for us, yes, it's always visible to look at the top act, but the majority of our tickets really come from a very, very diverse content portfolio. And all I can say is here that throughout Q4, what we have seen so far, we see unchanged momentum from artists going on tour and wherever we can make it visible that these shows are on sale, that we will activate the demand and put fans in front of the stages to have a good time with their artists.

Okay. Okay. Then just one on the festivals business. Is there -- are there any specific festivals you've made a decision on in terms of going forward, what -- whether they will be operating in 2026 or '27? Is there any such decisions you could point to?

And the second one also on -- within LE, the Milan venue ramp, if you could just shed a bit of light on that ramp, how to think about it into next year?

Yes. I mean with regards to the festivals, there are no particular names. And it would be a little bit unfair because I know that our Live Entertainment management is working very closely together with the promoters to plan out what's to come for the next year, looking at the infrastructure. And it is, of course, a completely wrong take to just look at the name of the festivals because there's a very complex infrastructure behind this, how you book artists, through which festivals or even other events you would want to route them.

They are very busy. The team around Frithjof Pils together with the promoters to focus on the profitability. And like I said throughout the call, we are confident to see positive impact from their work on the overall portfolio already next year, but it shouldn't stop there because as we've discussed in summer, overall, in that part of the value chain, you have to cope with permanent OpEx inflation, artists asking for more money. The overall infrastructure to operate these formats is not getting cheaper. And it is always the more important to roll over these OpEx inflation onto the ticket price and to become better in selling them at the right price to make these events profitable for everyone.

With regards to Milan, everything is on plan, I would say. It's, of course, difficult now to say something more particular about bookings because the venue has to open. But I think it's fair to say we are already seeing a very good demand for that venue. And when we look at nights, which a venue can be booked, which is an important KPI there, I must say that we are positively surprised by how well this new piece of valuable infrastructure for the live entertainment scene in Italy has been received so far and that's -- up to now, even where the venue is still in its final construction stages that we are coming close to a triple-digit number of bookings, which at least promoters and various content providers are asking for where they would wish to host shows in our new arena.

Okay. And any ETA on when you would hope to start having shows there, a rough idea?

Yes. I mean the opening act is, of course, the Winter Olympics. And once the ice is off the stage, yes, you can put the speakers on, and host great live music shows there. Sorry, just to be clear, I'm referring to ice because the ice hockey matches will be hosted there, in case someone is listening who hasn't heard about this yet.

Next up is Ed Vyvyan from Rothschild & Co Redburn.

Congratulations on -- it looks like a pretty strong set of results. I have three questions. So just firstly, on Live Entertainment, your adjusted EBITDA came in well, well above consensus. So could you maybe just walk us through some of the moving parts in the quarter? I think last year, you did have a drag from U.S. Touring JV. So it would be good to understand the comp there.

Ticketing, sort of a similar question. If you could walk us through what happened with organic margins when you exclude integration costs and then maybe the Paris Olympics, could you sort of quantify these effects?

And then lastly, kind of moving away from the quarter, you've been making a lot of changes, it looks like internally to prepare for mobile ticketing. So when should we expect mobile ticketing to be rolled out in a more meaningful way? And could you maybe give us an idea of expected penetration rates and the margin uplift from that?

Thank you, Ed. So first of all, with regards to Live Entertainment and the strong development of the profitability, I mean, on the one side, we, mostly in Germany and Italy, had a very good lineup, just to name one name, Ed Sheeran, makes probably the top of that part in the third quarter with a large number of shows, which we've promoted there.

On the other hand, while we were talking about festival, and this is what we've discussed already in August, and now we are seeing the positive side of it. I mean, we had some pre-incurred expenses in the second quarter for the festivals, as we said, which were now compensated by the revenues which we have generated. And as we've discussed as well, there was, for example, one festival, which we've acquired within See Tickets, Garorock, which took place last year in June and which flipped over into the third quarter, but this only had a minor impact on revenues and profitability there. But it was a profitable festival, so it's worth highlighting.

On the last bit with regards to the U.S. development, not so much has changed. We are seeing now other acts coming through the pipeline there. And we just had a discussion about this. It seems like that in the U.S. as well, now moving a little bit the portfolio towards higher ages and not to the target group between 15 and 20 years, which seems to be more affected by what's going on in the economy in the U.S. and the willingness to pay high prices for tickets, while now, for example, acts like [ Brandy and Monica, ] the only one I remember, to be honest, which are selling to a little bit more older audience where the $50 notes or $100 notes are a little bit loose, more loose to pay for these tickets.

And this is a development which we are curious to see of how it pans out throughout the end of Q4, but this was as well in Q3, any changes in the U.S. had a minor impact. So we were basically running where we were in Q3 last year as well.

With regards to Ticketing, excluding the integration costs, we have seen very good organic margin momentum. And I must say this was particularly due to our core markets in Central Europe, including Germany as well. But here, again, it was not particularly a topic driven by top shows.

But as I said earlier, we should never forget, although it's always flashy to talk about the big names, yes, we should not trick ourselves a little bit that the large part of our portfolio are not the big acts, but the acts from Tier 2, Tier 3, very independent acts, but other names that fill arenas and which gives us a much more constant flow and which helps us, of course, to leverage our customer reach in very efficient ways to help them to sell out the shows better than the year before, which is a constant task our team is working on and which then ultimately is reflected in constant operating leverage. So if we sell the same category year in and year out, you can always be sure that we become more profitable on that overall genre.

Other changes with regards to mobile ticketing, I must say, as you've seen and as we've discussed throughout the first 9 months, hiring new responsibilities starting off at the very top with Karel Dorner as a CTO, and Karel having brought on stream new colleagues for products, for the overall IT infrastructure and development going forward. We are already seeing that development is gaining momentum and where we will become -- where we will be more active in rolling out these parts of the infrastructure, but it's, of course, part of a broader story. And here, with the year to come, we would expect to start reporting material increases in mobile penetration rates.

But what is more important than to talk really about the capabilities of the new product generation. As you, of course, know that once you have a customer on the mobile channel, it's not only that you have a direct connection to every ticket buyer or ticket holder, but you have a communication stream on -- which gives you the chance for better cross and upsell opportunities, which, of course, given the market projections, not only in Continental Europe, but I would say, globally over the next 5 to 10 years will become a very important theme, not only to sell more tickets, but as well to increase the GTV per customer and focus on that. And therefore, mobile infrastructure is key. And this won't be a bottleneck for us to utilize the opportunities and capture the value over the next couple of years for CTS Eventim.

And next up is Annick Maas from Bernstein.

So my first question is you just touched on mobile penetration. So I'd be quite keen to understand how many tickets you are selling through fanSALE today.

The second one is, I don't have access to the slides, so maybe it's on the slides, but could you isolate the integration costs for Q3? And just confirm that Q3 was really the last quarter with the integration cost and in Q4, it's -- they are none left basically.

And then you announced a new CFO. So the background seems not the most obvious to ticketing. So can you just maybe give us a bit more explanation on why the CFO, yes.

Thanks, Annick. So your first question was with regards to fanSALE, and which is a different element, I would say. I mean, rolling out the mobile infrastructure, of course, facilitates better liquidity in the aftermarket for which we can then have fanSALE coming more to fruition with its full potential.

As of now, our reselling activities and always considering, of course, that our dominant markets in the EU see more and more regulation on that, but this is not a holdback for us because with being the biggest ticketing platform in Europe, we can provide this aftermarket liquidity with fanSALE, which, of course, mobile penetration is a key growth driver for and where we have already the EVENTIM.Pass product, which facilitates ticket exchanges after the initial distribution. This is becoming a very interesting topic over the next 3 to 4 years. But as of now, the revenue contribution from fanSALE is still negligible, I would say.

Integration costs for the third quarter, as we said in summer, we would expect to come in somewhere in the low to mid-single-digit millions, which is on track. But in contrast to the second quarter, the very strong organic development overlapped this impact.

What we've said with regards to Q4 was that we might still expect a low single-digit million effect from ongoing integration. But overall, we would expect a net impact so that the overall development will cover the last EUR 1 million or EUR 2 million of integration effects. And with looking at the Q3 development and the strong organic margin development, I must say that this is a very reassuring development because we are even beyond target here because the operating development even covered the integration cost in the third quarter, which is a very positive leading indicator for the fourth quarter.

With regards to our new CFO, I mean, first off, we are looking forward to give him a very warm Eventim welcome. As per his past, I think it's very worth highlighting that he brings tremendous expertise in -- not only in M&A, but in the broader finance space from various perspectives. I think it's fair to say that with his expertise coming from Lufthansa, he knows complexity, which is something we're working on to reduce day by day.

So I'm very sure that he can help us on our mission there because it's always important to highlight when we talk about our profitability levels here, forgive me, my blunt answer, but there are still too many Excel spreadsheets, which we send around with e-mails. So even behind our very strong profitability levels, there are deep pockets of efficiency gains where I'm very sure that our new colleague, which we will welcome at the beginning of next year, will help us because he probably have seen many of those cases in his former job. So ideally, he brings the protocol to bring us even forward there. So that's why we're looking forward to welcome him as of 1st of January.

The next question comes from Bernd Klanten from Barclays.

Maybe first question on organic Ticketing growth. I guess, year-to-date, you should be in the low to mid-single-digit range. I guess without giving any specific guidance, would you expect these organic trends to broadly continue into year-end and into next year?

Then second question, can you remind us of just very roughly combined revenue and cost synergy expectations for France Billet and See Tickets maybe also into next year? And any color maybe that you can share on their respective margin developments so far?

And then a question somewhat related to the Milan question earlier, how much revenue and margin contribution do you expect for the Winter Olympics next year? And how should we think about the relative attribution to Ticketing and Live there?

Bernd, thanks for your question. So with regards to organic Ticketing growth, I would rather say that so far in the first 9 months, organic growth in Ticketing has been more like in the mid-single-digit percentages. And this is a run rate which we expect going forward into the -- throughout the fourth quarter.

Overall, I must say that as we've said earlier, our midterm perspective and expectations for growth, not only for Ticketing, but for the overall live entertainment industry in Europe and even globally points towards 5% to 7% growth until 2030, 2031. And it goes without saying that our ambition is not to grow less than how the markets are growing.

Revenue and cost synergies for See Tickets and France Billet, I mean we have said earlier, and this remains unchanged that overall, once the integration project is completed, that as from this combination between our legal entities and the ones which we've acquired that on both sides, we would expect cost synergies somewhere in the low double-digit millions.

And with regards to Milan, given that there are contract specifics, I don't want to split out our revenue and earnings expectations for the Olympics in particular. What I think is more important for the overall project is that once the Olympics are done and we have seen the new ice hockey Olympic champion, as I've said earlier, I mean, there are many promoters waiting to put up their gear to host shows in our new arena, which will be more important for the overall profitability in the very first year, although it will still be a ramp-up year, and there will be many more interesting years to come after 2026.

And now we're coming to the next questioner. It is Lars Vom-Cleff from Deutsche Bank.

Two to three quick questions remaining, if I may. I mean, doing a back-of-the-envelope calculation, gross transaction value per ticket seems to be up 9% quarter-on-quarter. So is that for me an indication that pricing is still strong and that customers are still expecting -- still accepting price hikes? Or is it rather a mix effect we're seeing?

So I mean, honestly, I haven't done this back-of-the-envelope math yet for the third quarter, but it points in the right direction, I can say this.

What I -- what is hard for me now to strip out what is really the contribution from the newly acquired entities there, as we know that France Billet and See Tickets, they are selling at lower face values per ticket, which has, of course, an impact, which you've seen on the highlight slide that, for example, the ticket volume KPIs are significantly higher up than the revenue numbers. But given that underlying pricing has been and will continue to be a strong driver for our GTV, it points somewhere in the right direction, but don't name me on whether it's 9% or whether it's somewhere in the mid- to higher single-digit percentages.

Okay. Perfect. And then thank you very much for sharing your view on synergy effects and integration costs for the French acquisitions and integrations. Just for me to be absolutely sure, this will all be gone in '26, right? We shouldn't expect any additional headwinds for '26 anymore?

Yes, that's the plan.

Okay. Perfect. And then I think in one of the earlier calls, you or your CFO said that we should expect a low to midsized 2-digit financial result in '25, where you said that looks likely. I mean, after 9 months, you're at minus EUR 4 million. Is that still valid, low to midsized 2-digit financial results?

Honestly, I'm not quite sure whether he said that in particular because we have seen versus last year quite a significant drawdown in the first half due to the effect which we have named. And I think it's important now to look at Q3 as it has been posted in the -- in today's report that although this has turned positive with around -- a little bit more than EUR 2 million, but it is unrealistic to expect for the fourth quarter now an impact that will reverse what we have seen in the first half.

And I'm not quite sure whether Holger has said something in that direction. But if that was your perception, I mean, my back-of-the-envelope math now with regards to financial results makes this nearly impossible, simply because the foreign exchange effects and of course, the nonrecurrence of the autoTicket dividend, for example, that's something very hard to capture.

Understood. Perfect. And then a quick last one. Yesterday, I saw an article in the [indiscernible] that it will be far harder for Vienna to finance the arena in Vienna and that they seem to be struggling. Is there any news on the Vienna arena from your side? Or is it still pending and nothing to add to what you said in the past?

No, there's nothing to add from our side. I've seen some news flow, but this was city related, the way of -- how I saw it, but there's nothing which we could add to what we haven't said in the past.

And next up is Craig Abbott from Kepler Cheuvreux.

Yes. First of all, just real quick on Live Entertainment. Obviously, a very good quarter in Q3. But obviously, it's always been traditionally lumpy and Q4 traditionally has been a seasonally soft quarter, although the U.S. is a little bit more even out over the year. I just wondered were there any special effects in Q3 that we might see that back out in Q4, if you could at least give us like some color there?

And also looking into '26, you mentioned some of the KPIs were shaping up well for '26. I mean, at this stage and given the efforts you're taking on making your festival portfolio more profitable, should we be thinking about Live Entertainment being within its target corridor profitability-wise next year?

And then on Ticketing, sorry, I just -- maybe I just missed it. Could you just be a little more precise on the organic development, both for the revenue and the margin, particularly in Ticketing in Q3? Yes, those are my two questions at this stage.

Yes. Okay. So with regards to Live Entertainment, I can say that so far, the strong development in the third quarter, as we said, had some tail -- not really had some tailwinds. I think the only real mentionable spillover effect was this one festival, but this is not really moving the needle on whether it would have occurred in Q2 or -- well, it now occurred in Q3.

It was really good lineup, as we said, mostly in Germany and Italy. I referred to at Ed Sheeran doing a tremendous number of shows, which was very helpful here. But I wouldn't really want to flag it as something particular. We are expecting the trends which we have seen so far to roll into the fourth quarter. And as I've said earlier in regards to a question related to the guidance, although we are reiterating what we've said in August, but the strong development of Live Entertainment in the third quarter gives us more confidence, but we would now prefer to take this headroom into the fourth quarter.

But overall, I think to that degree, Live Entertainment has been punished in August, led by March, maybe I don't want to ask for an apology, but I think that we will be able to level that out of what Live Entertainment has been punished for in the second quarter. I hope this gives you a direction.

With regards to leading indicators, 2026, yes, I mean, it's, of course, a very strong leading indicator when your deferred revenue is up by more than EUR 100 million. If you look at the balance sheet date, 30th of September, I'm referring to the prepayments received, which means the tickets that have been sold for our own Live Entertainment and the revenue which has been generated but will be recognized when shows actually take place next year.

So -- and from that perspective, we have no other reasons to believe that we continue throughout 2026 operating in our target margin corridor because, as I've said earlier, that our Live Entertainment management is working very close together with the promoters to optimize the portfolio. And this will definitely be helpful to be in our target margin corridor between 6% and 8% EBITDA margin as well in 2026.

And maybe if I can add with regards to next year, while we are talking about Live Entertainment, but we have other great events coming into the pipeline. And just one I would like to mention is that although it's still a couple of years out before L.A. will actually host the Olympics in 2028, but our work starts way earlier. So we are very excited about 2026 and technically can't wait to start on with that.

My other open question, and then I have one more. The open question was just again to give us a specific -- the organic development in Ticketing on revenues and margin in Q3.

And then my last question is on Ticketing. I mean I know you cautioned us earlier not to focus too much on the big headline tours. But looking at the Ticketing outlook for Q4, I mean, actually, the flow of on sales these last weeks in October, November has been very, very good. I'm just a little bit surprised you're not a little bit more, say, confident on that Ticketing outlook for Q4, if there's any more color you want to add there.

Of course. I mean, sorry, that I skipped your first question. Organic growth in Ticketing in the third quarter was around 4.5%, which is in line with the around, yes, 6% we've seen in Q1 and around 5% we've seen in the second quarter in Ticketing. And as I said earlier, we expect to remain on that level going through Q4. And as our projections for the overall market growth show at least this kind of growth going forward for the market that this is, I would say, a threshold more like on the bottom line above which we aim operating going into the next 3 to 5 years.

With regards to the Ticketing outlook and the on sales you're referring to, yes, you're right. We have seen some good names. What is more important that even behind those good names, the larger part of the portfolio is developing well and that is not only a single market, but various markets.

But again, we would like to stay where we are, which if you understand, we are now in a transition of the CFO role, which for me personally, I thought it's fair just to continue maybe with some more headroom as we thought we would have at the end of August, but with more confidence. And like I said earlier, give Mr. Willms a very warm Eventim welcome when he will report the full year results by end of March.

That's very clear. Sorry, just to go back to my second question in the middle there, the organic Ticketing margin in Q3, please, and then I'm done.

Was in the high 40s.

So okay. Comparable with last year. Okay.

Yes, was up versus last year.

We have one more question in the line, and it is Christoph Blieffert from BNP Paribas Exane.

I have one left, please. And this one is on the German Ticketing platform, please. Over summer, you have sent around EUR 10 vouchers, most likely to incentivize fans to buy tickets and you have also granted discounts for long tail events taking place in '26. I'm just wondering how you describe the fan demand, in particular for smaller events and whether you have created some pre-buying in the third quarter? Any comments would be helpful.

Yes. Thanks, Christoph. I mean, first off, these are tools, marketing tools, mostly and products, which we haven't introduced now for the first time, right? So there is no change basically in what we have done. Maybe it has become a little bit more visible to you, which I would say is a positive development because it has been in the pipeline for many years and the more visible we can make to potential buyers in Germany, what we have on offer, the better basically it is for the overall content.

So I would say there is no indication that we are seeing some kind of early buying or general timing effect, which was a big topic throughout the pandemic, for example. And overall, I must say, discounts and so forth, I mean, it is a very important, high-priority topic for us constantly and not only for us, I think, for the general industry to create awareness and get more eyeballs directed to where the content is because no matter which market you look at, whether it's Continental Europe and still in the U.S., the biggest problem in this industry is still that there are so many people we know who would love to attend an event, but they simply don't get the information on time.

I would say even in the U.S. that when you have a group of target personas that would want to see a particular act of, say, 10 people that even with all the marketing power the market has, that only 7 to 8 are really made aware on time that this content is on offer. In Europe, I would say it's still only 5 or 6. So there is tremendous upside, which we will capture going forward while we are now scaling up and building capabilities and led by Karel Dorner, our new CTO.

And just, again, while we are talking so much about back-of-the-envelope math, a EUR 10 voucher is so much below our average face value we're selling that let's assume that whatever the number was last year in the third quarter or fourth quarter of what we have sold in terms of EUR 10 vouchers versus this year, and even if that number would have gone up, in terms of revenues which we make from that voucher, it's really a very low number that would never move the dices on our Ticketing development.

Then this concludes our earnings call for the 9 months' figures. Thank you very much for staying up a little bit longer and giving our friends from the West Coast a chance to join in our earnings call. And yes, wishing you all a good night, a maybe very early happy holiday season, and we look forward to seeing and hearing you again on our next earnings call, which will be hosted end of March next year. Thank you very much.