Uptix: Live Nation just posted its best quarter on record

11/2/23 7:00PM

Center stage

Following a record-shattering series of live shows this year — with unprecedented demand driven by the concerted efforts of artists like Taylor Swift and Beyoncé — events promoter Live Nation Entertainment has capitalized as the ticket-shifting tour-de-force.

The company, which also owns Ticketmaster, just delivered its biggest quarter ever, seeing revenue boom 32% to a roaring $8.2 billion in Q3, notching a profit of nearly $484 million. These results are in tune with the astronomical ticket sales that Live Nation has posted so far this year: a record 140 million, already eclipsing 2022's total.

Golden ticket

Typically the strongest quarter for concert sales, this summer has been a belter for live music, as tours from fan favorites like Harry Styles, Coldplay, and Pink grossed up to $300 million each.

However, Live Nation President Joe Berchtold was quick to discount individual star power as the root cause of the company's considerable growth: “No artist is going to account for more than 1% of the tickets, so no one or two will ever hurt us year over year.

Even so, the company has come under fire for long wait times and resale price inflation during the frenzied US ticket sale for Swift’s Eras Tour. But rising costs are unlikely to slow consumer appetite for gig-going: the average ticket price for the top 100 US tours was ~$120 in 2023, around a $58 jump from just 2 years before. And, moving into 2024, concert attendance is only expected to accelerate — Live Nation has already booked two-thirds of its commitments for next year, with half slated to take place in large venues.

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OpenAI’s ARR reached over $20 billion in 2025, CFO says

Sam Altman’s $500 billion artificial intelligence behemoth hit a major financial milestone last year, according to a new blog post over the weekend from OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar, as the company confirmed it had hit a more than $20 billion annual revenue run rate at the end of 2025.

Elsewhere in the blog post, Friar spent time addressing the company’s shifting goals, referencing plans to “close the distance between where intelligence is advancing and how individuals, companies, and countries actually adopt and use it.” As has become customary in the AI company press release genre, the CFO was also keen to tout the unending growth of the business, writing:

“Both our Weekly Active User (WAU) and Daily Active User (DAU) figures continue to produce all-time highs. This growth is driven by a flywheel across compute, frontier research, products, and monetization.”
“Compute grew 3X year over year or 9.5X from 2023 to 2025: 0.2 GW in 2023, 0.6 GW in 2024, and ~1.9 GW in 2025.”

And, perhaps most importantly for current backers and those keeping an eye on the private company before its rumored mega IPO:

“Revenue followed the same curve growing 3X year over year, or 10X from 2023 to 2025: $2B ARR in 2023, $6B in 2024, and $20B+ in 2025. This is never-before-seen growth at such scale.”

That latest figure has certainly set tongues in the tech world wagging, just as the company announced it would begin rolling out ads to free and ChatGPT Go users. It also puts the chatbot giant a fair way ahead of competitors like Anthropic, the company behind Claude.

OpenAI Anthropic ARR race — Sherwood News

A business that scales with the value of intelligence

“Both our Weekly Active User (WAU) and Daily Active User (DAU) figures continue to produce all-time highs. This growth is driven by a flywheel across compute, frontier research, products, and monetization.”
“Compute grew 3X year over year or 9.5X from 2023 to 2025: 0.2 GW in 2023, 0.6 GW in 2024, and ~1.9 GW in 2025.”