Vivid Seats Inc. (SEAT), a leading online ticket marketplace, has reported robust financial results for the first quarter of 2024.
The company announced over $1 billion in marketplace gross order value (GOV), $191 million in revenues, and $39 million in adjusted EBITDA. With a 20% increase in top-line growth and exceeding 20% in adjusted EBITDA margins, Vivid Seats has also marked a significant achievement in women's sports, with a women's sports team topping sales on their platform for the first time.
The company is on track for international expansion by year-end and has seen positive synergies from its acquisition of Vegas.com. Named one of the world's most innovative companies by Fast Company, Vivid Seats reaffirms its guidance for 2024, expecting double-digit growth.
Key Takeaways
- Vivid Seats reported $1 billion in GOV, $191 million in revenues, and $39 million in adjusted EBITDA for Q1 2024.
- The company experienced a 20% increase in top-line growth and exceeded 20% adjusted EBITDA margins.
- A women's sports team was the top-selling performer on Vivid Seats for the first time.
- Plans for international expansion are set for the end of the year, with key infrastructure investments in place.
- The acquisition of Vegas.com is driving revenue synergies and customer retention.
- The competitive landscape remains consistent, with Q1 2024 being more competitive than Q1 2023.
- Concerts are seen as having robust growth potential, with sports events also performing well.
- Customer base remains broad-based with high repeat customer rates.
- Skybox Drive platform is progressing with a growing waitlist, and potential future monetization is considered.
Company Outlook
- Vivid Seats is optimistic about achieving double-digit growth in the long term.
- International expansion is expected to be completed by the end of the year.
- The company's guidance for 2024 includes double-digit growth on both the top and bottom line.
Bearish Highlights
- M&A opportunities are described as episodic and not factored into the base case growth plans.
- Some headwinds in the concert industry are acknowledged, although expected to alleviate later in the year.
- The macro environment presents challenges, but sports events are outperforming expectations.
Bullish Highlights
- The company sees strong ticket prices and demand dynamics as positive factors.
- Women's sports and other sports categories are driving above-category growth rates.
- Skybox Drive is trending well with a growing waitlist, indicating potential for future revenue streams.
Misses
- No significant misses were discussed during the earnings call.
Q&A Highlights
- CEO Stan Chia expressed confidence in the company's ability to sell tickets to Las Vegas attendees and then market to them for events in their home markets.
- The company's repeat customer rate remains high, indicating strong customer loyalty.
- There have been no significant shifts in consumer interest or the demographic profile of customers.
- The company is exploring the potential to monetize Skybox Drive in the future.
In summary, Vivid Seats has delivered a strong start to 2024, with significant growth and strategic advancements positioning the company for sustained success.
The focus on international expansion, leveraging synergies from acquisitions, and tapping into the growing interest in women's sports are key strategies driving the company's optimistic outlook.
Despite some industry headwinds, the company's broad-based customer appeal and innovative platforms like Skybox Drive suggest a robust future trajectory.
InvestingPro Insights
Vivid Seats Inc. (SEAT) has recently showcased impressive financial results, and a look at the InvestingPro data and tips provides additional context for investors considering the company's stock. With a market capitalization of $1.13 billion and a reported revenue of $712.88 million over the last twelve months as of Q1 2023, the company's financial health appears robust. This is complemented by a revenue growth of 18.76% during the same period, indicating a strong upward trajectory.
One InvestingPro Tip indicates that Vivid Seats is trading near its 52-week low, which could suggest a potential buying opportunity for value investors, especially considering that analysts predict the company will be profitable this year. Moreover, with a Price / Book ratio of 10.79, the company is trading at a high multiple, which could be justified by its profitability over the last twelve months and the expectations of continued growth.
Investors should also note that Vivid Seats operates with a moderate level of debt, which is an important factor to consider in terms of financial stability. However, the company does not pay a dividend to shareholders, which could influence the investment decision for those seeking regular income.
For those interested in a deeper dive into the financials and strategic outlook of Vivid Seats, InvestingPro offers additional tips that can provide further insights. By using the coupon code PRONEWS24, investors can get an additional 10% off a yearly or biyearly Pro and Pro+ subscription, unlocking access to the full list of InvestingPro Tips for Vivid Seats and other companies.
In summary, the InvestingPro data and tips offer a nuanced view of Vivid Seats' financial position and market performance, complementing the strong start to 2024 reported by the company. With strategic initiatives in place and a focus on growth areas such as women's sports, Vivid Seats is positioning itself for sustained success in the competitive online ticket marketplace.
Full transcript - Horizon Acquisition (SEAT) Q1 2024:
Operator: Good morning, and welcome to the Vivid Seats First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. Following managements prepared remarks, we will open the call for Q&A. I would now like to turn the call over to Kate Africk.
Kate Africk: Good morning, and welcome to Vivid Seats first quarter 2024 earnings conference call. I'm Kate Africk, Head of Investor Relations at Vivid Seats. Joining me today to discuss Vivid Seats results are Stan Chia, Chief Executive Officer, and Larry Fey, Chief Financial Officer. By now, everyone should have access to our first quarter earnings press release, which we released earlier this morning. The press release, as well as supplemental earnings slides, are available on the Investor Relations page of Vivid Seats website at investors.vividseats.com. During the course of today's call, management may make forward-looking statements within the meaning of Federal Securities laws. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, that could cause actual results to differ materially, including the risks and uncertainties described in our earnings press release and most recent annual report on Form 10-K, and our other filings with the SEC. On today's call, we will refer to adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted EBITDA margin, which are non-GAAP financial measures that provide useful information for our investors. To the extent reasonably available, a reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to their corresponding GAAP measures, can be found in our earnings press release and supplemental earnings slides. And now, I would like to turn the call over to Stan.
Stan Chia: Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. We're off to a great start in 2024 with strong financial results and substantial progress made on key strategic initiatives. These results are a testament to our strong market position, superior and differentiated offering, as well as the consistent execution of our talented team to keep raising the bar. Today, I'll walk you through our financial highlights and then provide an update on our strategic initiatives. Then, Larry will speak to our financial results in more detail. In the first quarter, we delivered over $1 billion of marketplace GOV for the second quarter in a row, along with $191 million of revenues and $39 million of adjusted EBITDA. The strength of our business has continued, and we are proud to have delivered 20% top-line growth and strong adjusted EBITDA margins that exceeded 20%. We saw widespread demand strengths continue in the quarter, with fans across categories wanting to experience it live with their favorite artists and teams. Following quarter-end, the industry reached an exciting and important milestone for women's sports. After the Indiana Fever selected Caitlin Clark with the first pick in the WNBA draft, a women's sports team was the top-selling performer on our platform for the first time ever. We are excited to see the continued growth in women's sports and believe this demonstrates one example of the broad-based strengths we are seeing across the live events landscape. As the live event industry continues to benefit from long-term tailwinds, and as we continue to unlock leverage from our recent investments, we look forward to driving sustained double-digit growth on both the top and bottom line for years to come. Through our loyalty program and brand initiative, we reached nearly 60% mix of repeat orders in 2023. Repeat orders are highly accretive to our margin profile, and Vivid Seats Rewards is one of many mechanisms that we employ to retain users within our ecosystem. Game Center is another key mechanism that attracts both existing and new customers to our platform. Whether it's winning free tickets, competing with friends, or scoring promo codes, the engagement and retention of customers has been excellent. In fact, customers that have earned promo codes have on average engaged with our platform 26 times before earning their first code. The repeated brand exposure and high-intent engagement creates many more opportunities for players to browse tickets and make repeat purchases, all the while providing us with more information to personalize our offerings to each user. Last quarter, we announced that we were accelerating our international expansion timeline, and I want to take a moment to highlight the excellent progress we are making. As we focus on internationalizing our platform so that it scales efficiently across geographies, we are pleased to report that we are on track to launch internationally by the end of the year. While the platform cost of international expansion is now embedded in our financial profile, upside from international revenues and contribution is still to come. As we look abroad, we continue to see favorable market conditions and believe our differentiated value proposition will be well received by international consumers. We have also made substantial progress with our recent acquisition of Vegas.com. The integration of this business is going well, and we are already driving revenue synergies. We are now selectively cross-listing and optimizing ticket listings from Vivid Seats, such as for top concerts and sporting events, on our Vegas.com property. This is driving incremental revenues as high-intent live event fans traveling to Vegas browse an even more comprehensive offering of live event listings on Vegas.com. Our optimization efforts are ongoing, and we look forward to ramping cross-listed volumes. As we've said before, we see great potential and multiple avenues for synergies with Vegas.com. Las Vegas, which is already a key market for us, is also the home of the recently announced College basketball crown, a new post-season tournament beginning in 2025. We are thrilled to be the tournament's official ticketing provider and will be the exclusive home for tickets across all games in the tournament. This is a first for Vivid Seats and an example of how we are leveraging the power of our industry-leading technology platform in new ways. With this unique and innovative partnership, we will provide fans with a new turnkey end-to-end ticketing experience while simultaneously elevating our brand awareness nationally through another high-profile event in the entertainment capital of the United States. In summary, we are pleased with the great progress we are making on our strategic initiatives on the buyer side of our marketplace. As always, our focus is on driving long-term stickiness with both buyers and sellers. Shifting to the seller side of our business, we are proud to share that Skybox remains the leading ERP for professional sellers. Building on our leading position, we strengthened our seller product lineup further and look forward to launching Skybox Drive, our new automated pricing tool, later this year. We continue to expect strong adoption from sellers for this tool, which is plugged directly into Skybox and will leverage robust data from our marketplace. As mentioned on previous calls, we have gone to new lengths to drive innovation and optimization in our marketplace. Launching new products for both buyers and sellers, expanding internationally and strengthening our tech stack. These efforts have resulted in Vivid Seats being recognized among the world's greatest innovators. We are proud to share that we have recently been named to fast companies list of the world's most innovative companies of 2024. This prestigious list shines a spotlight on businesses that are shaping both industry and culture through innovation and setting new standards. With that, I will turn it over to Larry for a more detailed review of the quarter.
Larry Fey: Thanks, Stan. In the first quarter, our business continued to perform well amidst ongoing end-market strengths, which we were pleased to translate to solid financial results. In the first quarter, we generated more than $1 billion of marketplace GOV, which increased 20% year-over-year and was driven by increased total marketplace orders. Average order size was $358 in the first quarter of 2024 versus $376 in the first quarter of 2023, with the delta driven by the impact of acquisitions that bring a different AOS profile. We delivered $191 million of revenues in the first quarter, an 18% year-over-year increase. Our take rate was 15.6%, consistent with expectations of 15.5% or higher for full year 2024. In the first quarter, we delivered $39 million of adjusted EBITDA and a 20% adjusted EBITDA margin, while making incremental investments to develop our international platform capabilities. As a reminder, our results from the first quarter of 2023 included $8 million of non-recurring timing benefits, which will impact year-over-year comparisons. Turning to cash flow, we generated $39 million of cash from operations in the first quarter, bringing our cash balance to $154 million, and our net leverage to 0.7 times forward adjusted EBITDA. We continued to expect strong cash generation and adjusted EBITDA to cash conversion in 2024 and beyond. After announcing a new $100 million share repurchase authorization on our fourth quarter earnings call, we repurchased 715,000 shares for an average price of $5.74 in March, leaving $96 million remaining under the authorization at quarter end. At these price levels, we believe repurchasing our stock is an attractive use of our robust cash flow. With the strong start to the year, we continue to expect 2024 marketplace GOV in the range of $4.2 billion to $4.5 billion, 2024 revenues in the range of $810 million to $840 million, and 2024 adjusted EBITDA in the range of $160 million to $170 million. Our guidance calls for double-digit growth on both the top and bottom line for 2024, and we expect to deliver double-digit growth on a sustained basis as we capture a continued live event growth in North America and expand abroad. With the long history of operating leverage in our business, we believe our recent investments will augment both growth and profitability and support adjusted EBITDA margin improvement of 50 basis points per year in the coming years. Back to you, Stan.
Stan Chia: Thanks, Larry. Before we conclude and turn to Q&A, I'd like to highlight the progress we have made on our ESG initiatives. Last week, we published our 2024 environmental, social, and governance fact sheets, providing new and updated performance metrics. Sustainability and corporate responsibility play a vital role in our business strategy, and we are pleased to share the progress we have made in 2023. On the environmental front, we measured and disclosed our scope one and two greenhouse gas emissions to better understand our impact, enhance transparency, and benchmark future progress. And on the governance front, we will have a majority independent board of directors with fully independent board committees by November 2024. We continue to demonstrate our commitment to enabling exceptional experiences for all stakeholders through the ongoing support of our employees, customers, and communities. To conclude, we are building upon an excellent 2023 where we delivered nearly 25% top and bottom line growth, and we are making significant progress thus far in 2024 on multiple strategic initiatives while delivering great financial results and increasing shareholder value. We look forward to making continued progress throughout the year toward our international launch and harnessing synergies from our Vegas.com acquisition. We are confident that our long-term strategy sets us up for double-digit growth again in 2024 and sustainably thereafter. With that, Operator, let's open it up for questions.
Operator: Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Ryan Sigdahl with Craig-Hallum Capital Group. Your line is now open.
Ryan Sigdahl: Hey, good morning. Stan, Larry, Kate. I want to start with guidance. So you mentioned accelerating international expansion timeline. I guess is that different from what your expectation was a couple months ago, or just relative to the past kind of few years’ strategy? And is 10 million still the right cost assumption that guidance? And then kind of lastly on guidance, I guess you beat nicely on Q1, reiterated the year. Any other puts takes besides international in there?
Stan Chia: Yes, thanks, Ryan. I think international is progressing well. I don't think you should interpret that as a change in our philosophy. We are still not assuming within our guidance any revenue or contribution margin beyond the G&A investment. If we get to a point where kind of conviction and certainty on timing shifts to a level where it's prudent to include it, it will let you know that we're not at that point yet, but we're trending well to be able to go live before the end of year. There are no changes on the investment amount. I'd say that's all trending consistent with expectations. And then if you look at Q1 relative to full year guidance, obviously I think off to a night start, but still early in the year with a lot to play out so it felt prudent to maintain the target for that.
Ryan Sigdahl: Very good. Just my follow up, AEG partnership, I guess for College of Basketball, Crown, New, Unique, kind of where you guys are going to distribute primary tickets, be the exclusive. But can you talk through I guess the uniqueness of this deal, how you want it, why does AEG and AXS need Vivid, and then if there are any other opportunities like this out there?
Stan Chia: Yes, here Ryan. Look, I think we're really excited about being their partner on this new tournament. I think as we continue to demonstrate, we have looked to use our technology across multiple vehicles where I think the uniqueness of what we do combined with abilities that we have allow us to serve as wonderful sources of distribution for partners and ultimately great value for fans and sellers. We've got a great relationship with AEG, AXS through this, and I think when we looked at what we do well and what they were looking for in a partner, this looked like a fantastic opportunity, and we're really excited to see how it plays out next year.
Ryan Sigdahl: Awesome. Thanks guys. Good luck.
Operator: Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Curt Nagle with BOA. Your line is now open.
Curt Nagle: Great. Thanks very much for taking the question. Yes, maybe Stan, one for you. So, Curt is here in terms of vegas.com, seems like that's ramping nicely. Synergies just starting to come through. Any more metrics or in terms of just a framework of kind of what potentially if we could see from cross-selling or integrating that asset in a false way into the platform?
Stan Chia: Yes, Curt. Thanks for the question. Look, we were excited when we acquired vegas.com and call it four or five months in now. We're even more excited about what we see. We continue to look at that as really a critical part of our marketplace business and the thesis that, or the thesis that we had going into this, I think, continue to play out well, whether that is being a wonderful customer acquisition source for us, that we are then able to blend into our other marketplace brands or simply being able to monetize that traffic in an incremental manner where we are now able to add not just the selection that vegas.com had organically pre-acquisition, but we are also able to infuse it with events and selection that they didn't have access to prior from the Vivid Seats supply side. So, I think continue to be excited. Those are the thesis that we had going into it and we're starting to see a lot of that come to fruition and remain really bullish on that through the remainder of the year.
Curt Nagle: Great. I'm going to be able to follow up with one competition, the U.S. obviously, your primary, the only market right now. How does that look relative to, let's just say the end of the year and how it shaped up through the quarter? I know you didn't give guidance to the year, or at least you said the quarter, but you put up some really nice GMV, so admittedly you were executing well. But just anything to call out in terms of how to think about relative competition for your bigger competitors and just how you think that shapes up through the year.
Stan Chia: Yes, I'd say we, in prior quarters, you have been political language and I think indicated that in the back half of last year, within those normal bands, perhaps on a little bit closer about the higher side than the lower side, I think that continued into Q1 without meaningful change. What I would call out is that if you did like a year-over-year, Q1, 24 or Q1, 23 comparison, Q1 23 was on the other side, right, within those natural oscillations, Q1 23 was a fair bit, we saw less competitively intensive relative to the balance of the year whereas this year it feels like it's on the higher end of the spectrum but in both periods, I'd say within balance that we see in the past.
Curt Nagle: Okay, thanks very much.
Operator: Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Dan Kurnos with The Benchmark Company. Your line is now open.
Dan Kurnos: Yes, thanks. Just let me follow up on that Larry for a second. Just, and Stan, given the strong re-engagement and stickiness metrics that you guys have and given, kind of the noise in the competitive landscape. I know you guys always find unique ways to go out there and market, but what's kind of the thought here on driving sort of new customers into the system a little bit more aggressively while, the other guys are trying to figure out a way to market?
Stan Chia: Hey, Dan. Look, I think, as you said, we have always focused on the things that we control and look to build on products and platforms that allow acquisition and stickiness to be strong, right? We spent some time talking about vegas.com. I think that is a very unique source for new customer acquisition. If you look at that Crown Basketball Challenge tournament that we announced with ANG, we're really bullish on that, right? When you look at the fundamental basis for doing that deal, that will be a very, I think, strong source of customer acquisition and retention that will be unique to us and our ability to retain that within our ecosystem, right? So, I think, while we always talk about, undoubtedly this is a competitive environment, the reality is, I think we are very focused on the things that we control and have great confidence in the investments that we're making to drive both better acquisition and, as always, I think, much stronger retention, which we see through our engagement vehicles, our repeat rates, our loyalty programs.
Dan Kurnos: It's clearly showing the number, Stan. I guess the follow-up, I guess, on the AEG stuff, I mean, what is your appetite for further primary rather than secondary, or is this, as you said, more just a unique customer acquisition play?
Stan Chia: Yes, I think the appetite is always there for great deals that are accretive to us and wins for our partners, right? So I don't know that I'd look at it as primary or secondary. I think I'd look at this as we bring great marketplace technology to the ecosystem with an ability to drive value to those who need distribution, as well as being able to allow sellers and fans to participate greatly. And I think, we found a great partner in the AEG who was willing to construct that deal in a way that made sense for both us and them, and wherever those opportunities exist, will be really aggressive in pursuing them.
Dan Kurnos: Intelligent deals in this marketplace. That's a novelty. All right, Stan, appreciate it. Nice talking to you guys.
Operator: Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Maria Ripps with Canaccord. Your line is now open.
Maria Ripps: Great. Thanks so much for taking my questions. First, I just wanted to follow up on international. Could you maybe give us a little bit more color on the building blocks of your international infrastructure investments? What are some, maybe, some of those sort of more intense aspects of the investment cycle? And then any color you can share on the potential sort of markets that you have in mind?
Stan Chia: Yes, I think Maria, yes, I think it's no small feat to certainly internationalize the platform. And I'm really excited and proud of the work that the team's already done so far this year. As you mentioned, there are key building blocks that you have to build and invest in to be able to scalably launch across markets. And so I think about that as just as simple as it sounds, language capabilities that extend into the platform on the buy side, on the sell side, on the support and service side, making sure we understand, I think currency, again, on the buy side, the sell side, into making sure that we can both receive and remit payments, understanding local regulatory environments and ensuring compliance across the platform, right? I think, if you look at those as the very large building blocks to make sure that the platform scales, that certainly takes up a lot of the investment work and then being able to then, customize that in a scalable manner to the markets that we decide to go live in is probably the later piece. And again, I think everything we're seeing so far, we remain really excited about the ability and on track to do that before the end of the year. And as you talk about markets, we've looked across, I think, the landscape and certainly as others in the space have discussed, there's just, I think, great opportunities across multiple markets. And so I think as we look at the international landscape, we'll certainly be excited and happy to talk more about it as we start to go live.
Maria Ripps: That's very helpful. And then secondly, sort of with generally stronger than expected Q1, how should we think about the seasonality of GOV and revenue sort of this year in context of your full year guidance?
Stan Chia: Yes, I think no significant shifts in how we think about the year, but I would highlight some of those exogenous reasons that we tend to shy away from giving precise quarterly guidance. Data peer in Q1, for example, pretty good, super bold dynamic with Las Vegas as a destination, pretty robust ticket prices corresponding to that. A pretty good college football playoff matchup, a lot of hype and interest around the NCAA tournament. So some of those particularly in sports, call it exogenous matchup driven, elements fell our way. And so in the spectrum of Q1 relative to the full year, we probably came in a little bit more robust than if those had gone the other way.
Maria Ripps: Got it. Thank you so much.
Operator: Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Matt Farrell with Piper Sandler. Your line is now open.
Matt Farrell: Thanks for letting me ask a question and congrats on the strong start of the year. Really exciting to hear about the momentum in women's sports here at the end of Q1. I guess maybe as we think about the rest of the year and moving forward, how should we be thinking about the tailwind of women's sports more broadly and maybe even hitting on maybe some of the second tier sports as well and just growth you're seeing in those on the platform?
Stan Chia: Yes, thanks Matt. So I guess I'd start with sports represents a little under 40% of our GOV collectively. Within that, there's multiple verticals across each of the major professional leagues, college basketball, college football, soccer, and then now as we think about the other sports category. So I'd dimensionalize that if you think about six or seven major pillars within a portion of the business that's roughly 40%, you can think about any one pillar into high single digits of our overall GOV. What we've certainly seen is a lot of tailwinds behind soccer, tailwinds behind fighting, UFC in particular, but also some ex-[Indiscernible] cross-wrestling and then women's sports. And so you can think of those tailwinds as probably driving well above category growth rates, but the overall adjustments you make just given the respective shares of each of these leagues represents of our sports book, which is a minority of our overall GOV position. So a nice tailwind probably wouldn't design a financial model around.
Matt Farrell: And then you've hit on a lot of the revenue synergies from the recent acquisitions, but anything you could add on the cost side and synergies there, is it helping to offset some of the investments internationally at all? Thanks.
Stan Chia: Yes, I'd say in both instances we acquired businesses that were, I think, run on the lean side of the spectrum. There are definitely pockets here and there where we're able to consolidate some functions and capabilities, drive some efficiency, drive some shared learnings, bring vendors together to get some bundling benefits just from our stale. But I would characterize those as clearly secondary to the strategic and revenue opportunities that we've articulated.
Operator: Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Cameron Mansson-Perrone with Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open.
Cameron Mansson-Perrone: Thanks. Morning, guys. First off, just as we think about the mix of GOV across categories for Vivid, obviously there's a lot of moving parts to this year with the business integration, but I'd love to know, looking forward to 2025 and beyond, just how do you guys think about where that mix evolves over time and which verticals in your mind are the stronger, more attractive growth vectors long-term for Vivid, whether that's from a GOV growth perspective or better worth take-rate opportunity perspective, we just love to hear your thoughts on kind of how you think about that medium-long term. And then Larry, following up on your comments around the kind of expectation for margin improvement over time, just curious also how you guys think about that strategically and why 50 basis points is maybe the right cadence or if it's not the 50 basis points necessarily, because I'm sure that you're not running it long-term for any specific target necessarily, and the competitive environment has a lot to do with this, but just how you think about the trade-offs in terms of the margin trajectory over time. We'd love to hear. Thanks, guys.
Larry Fey: Yes, thanks, Cameron. Sorry about the segment. Generally, we have come to the belief that the secular trends are probably the most robust in concerts in particular, and driving that as you've got really robust demand dynamics, you don't have the same capacity constraints that you have in sports. So if you were to pick on the major professional leagues, baseball, football, hockey, basketball, in most years it's the same teams playing in the same stadiums on the same schedule, with the same playoff opportunity, and growth will typically come from price and then the episodic expansion of a playoff series, insertion of the season tournament, right, and then NFL, they're talking about week 18 or an 18th game, but those types of abilities that drive the number of events are a bit more limited within the existing major sports. Whereas in concerts, many venues, especially the largest venues, are well short of 100% capacity utilization in our Chicago example, where I drive by Soldier Field, 65,000-person stadium, and I think it's full 20 days a year. So the opportunity for artists to trade up, and you can extend that across the United Center and a number of the other large stadiums, is much more robust in concerts, which I think underpins a nice secular growth tailwind. We touched on some of the secondary sports that have really bolstered the existing pillars, that I think helps the sports growth rate, but even with that, I point to the fundamental trends underpinning concerts is probably a bit more robust. The last piece, there's not dramatic differences in take-rates. There's not dramatic differences in repeat rates across the categories, but they're not identical, right? You can imagine someone who goes to baseball games and there's just so many games in a year, the proclivity to repeat is probably slightly higher than when you see Taylor Swift and Jeff come back into your city for five years. And so you see that span of the categories, so slightly different take rates, slightly different repeat rates, perhaps an opportunity over time as we continue driving engagement, driving platform comfort, that we can shift concert behavior to look a little bit more like sports, but that's a very long-term opportunity. Then shifting to the margins, it's always a little bit of a balance. We're speaking in aggregate at the P&L and what we're hoping that some of the series of micro-decisions will roll up too year-after-year, but ultimately underpinning that when you decompose those margin commentaries is a series of risk-reward and ROI evaluations across innumerable opportunities. And so it's properly calibrating where you want to draw the line of what you're saying yes to, what you're saying no to, with the background music being that we've knowingly made some pretty significant investments into some loyalty and brand initiatives and have committed to driving leverage against those. And I think that impacts kind of the marginal decision to make sure that we're adhering to that overall ROI profile and ensuring that we're delivering proper returns on the investments we’ve made.
Cameron Mansson-Perrone: Got it. Helpful color. Thanks, Larry.
Operator: Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Thomas Forte with Maxim Group. Your line is now open.
Thomas Forte: Great. Thanks for taking my question and congrats in the quarter. I joined late, so I apologize if someone asked something like this earlier in the queue. In the earnings release you indicated you're confident in your ability to grow top and bottom line by double digits for the long-term. First, are those organic growth rates or reflective of assumptions on future strategic M&A? And then second, while we're on that topic, can you talk about your current capital allocation priorities between investing in the existing business, strategic M&A, and buyback?
Larry Fey: Yes, thanks, Tom. Starting with the latter on capital allocation, I think you've hit on the three things that we'd like to invest in. Certainly everything about investment into the business itself, organic investments, if you will. We generate a lot of profitability. We generate a lot of cash flow. I don't think we've in any way deprived the business of investments. And so somewhat tying into the prior comments I just made. We see a lot of opportunities. We say yes to a number. We say no to more. But we're always evaluating those through a risk reward and ROI framework and have not ever come to a point where we said no to things that we felt like were the right long-term answer in favor of short-term performance. And so then as we do generate that profitability and cash flow, it begs the question, right? We've got a strong balance sheet as we continue to generate cash. What do we do with it? And the two highest investment pieces that we see have been, if you can find, strategic and accretive acquisitions, we should pursue those. If we can buy ourselves and attract the prices, we should pursue that. Now both of those are somewhat outside of our control, right? The opportunities that come down the pipeline are beyond what we can influence. So we evaluate what is available at any point in time. And then similarly, we don't control where our shares trade. I think we've indicated with our share of purchase initiatives that we think currently it's a particularly attractive time for us to be reinvesting in ourselves. And that will be and hasn't and will remain the bar for acquisitions, right? They need to stand alone on an absolute but also on a relative return basis. So we'll continue to do that on the double-digit growth profile. I think because of that episodic nature of M&A, we can't and won't build that into our base case growth plans. If they do come along, right, they can either fill in or add to those targets. But we wouldn't build that into a base case.
Thomas Forte: Thank you, Larry. I appreciate that.
Operator: Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Andrew Marok with Raymond James. Your line is now open.
Andrew Marok: Hi, thanks for taking my questions. First one, maybe on vegas.com you've mentioned some of the top-line synergies that you've been able to begin your realization of so far. But maybe have you seen notable synergies or the opportunity for to date for buyers of events on vegas.com where you're able to market to them back in their home market? Like if I'm from Detroit and I'm visiting for a conference and buy a show ticket, have you seen an uplift from being able to sell me a Tiger's Ticket when I get back to Detroit?
Stan Chia: Yes. Hey Andrew, your exact example is a really strong thesis under which we acquire the business. And I think we're excited by the early signs we've seen there. We are certainly underway in that campaign. We believe it's a really strong opportunity for us around those who come to Vegas and go home and the ability to market them into the Vivid Seats brand that has all of that selection, rewards tied to the home market that they're in. I think those campaigns have launched. We're really encouraged by what we see. I think given the lower frequency of this industry in general, we still need some time to play out. But as we always talk about our repeat race on a cohort basis continue to trend as high as they've ever been. And I think we are really excited about the ability to in fact accelerate that through the vegas.com synergies that we see on that side.
Andrew Marok: Great. Thank you. Maybe one more if I could. Kind of on the breadth of your customer base, obviously. Really strong indicators of demand both on the industry and for you guys in terms of order volumes and things like that with AOS is kind of continuing to creep up. It's not new that we've heard concerns around discretionary budgets and things like that. I guess maybe speaking to the breadth of your customer base, is it still like the same large pool of customers who are maybe more willing to spend on more expensive events and experiences? Or is it maybe a smaller group of more dedicated buyers who you're really getting these benefits from? Thanks.
Stan Chia: Yes, Andrew, I would say I don't think I've seen anything that would point to change when we look in the past at the demographic profile of our customers. I think it's pretty reflective of what you would anticipate, right? Balance across almost any way you slice it. Geographic, gender, income, age. Obviously reflective of these that cost money, right? There's going to be some skew towards affordability. But beyond that, it's been very broad-based across interests that are almost by definition quite broad. And nothing we've seen suggesting at the broad level any weakening in consumer interest in attending these types of events and going more precise than that haven't seen any meaningful shifts.
Larry Fey: Yes, I'll bring it back, Andrew, just to almost what we were just talking about. I mean, there's two things, right? One, the category and industry, secular trends that we've always talked about. I think we remain excited and all signs point to continued interest and frankly as the demographics move into some of the newer generations who are coming into purchasing power, I think it's clear that this is a category that they will remain prioritized on their spend. And then on the Vivid Seat side, I think that's where our investments are there to really capture and retain customers regardless of which demo, regardless of which bracket you're in. I think interest in the category remains strong and it's shifting to perhaps stronger as we move into those demos and our platform continues to be built with the premise of engaging and retaining those users with the deceased.
Andrew Marok: I appreciate the detail. Thank you.
Operator: Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Ralph Schackart with William Blair. Your line is now open.
Ralph Schackart: Good morning. Thanks for taking the question. Just on the macro environment, just curious maybe what you're observing. As we sit here today as you progress through the year and just a reminder what's factored into the guidance for the macro. Maybe just a follow-up, switching gears to Skybox Drive. You've been in beta here for a little while. Just maybe if you can brighten up Stan what you're hearing from the beta and maybe thoughts longer term on the ability to monetize it on a longer term basis. Thank you.
Stan Chia: Yes. Hey, Ralph. Thanks for the question. In fact, Skybox Drive also trending, I think really well on track to launch later this year. We're always judicious with this, right? I think this is a platform that sellers run the entirety of their business on. So I think we're making sure again that as we start bringing it to market that it is able to really handle a critical component of how they run their business. I happily share, when we look at the waitlist and people that we have eager to come onto the platform, it's a triple digit waitlist and growing, right? So I think as our beta continues to grow in size of people on the beta, the waitlist continues to grow at an even accelerated clip. And as I've always said, I think, one, our guidance, has zero incremental contribution from Skybox Drive. But if you look at the industry in terms of prices that are out there, I don't think you'll find a price that is free of charge. So I think should we decide at some point to monetize the product, I think it would wholly be within industry norms to do so.
Larry Fey: And then on the macro question, I think we had previously articulated our views on long-term industry growth being, call it in North America, high single digits to low-level. Coming off of a couple years of really strong performance with the industry growing well above those levels, we had built in a perspective of being on the lower end of that range. With that, also including some acknowledgment that there's a couple hundred basis points of headwind with Taylor and Beyonce not being on the road in 2024. So nothing's meaningfully changed in that regard. I think I'd call out that if anything, sports is trending a little bit better than we would have expected given some of those favorable exogenous influences start the year. And then if you can think about the calendar of concert timing, the headwinds that we are quoting on a full-year basis disproportionately hit in the first seven months of the year and alleviate a bit in the back app. And so I think you're swimming in the -- you're swimming upstream a bit on the concert side right now, but I expect that to alleviate on the back end of the year.
Ralph Schackart: Great. Thanks, Stan. Thanks, Larry.
Operator: Thank you. I am showing no further questions at this time. Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.
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