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Post Malone at 2024 Governors Ball
Post Malone at this year’s Governors Ball, run by Live Nation, in New York (Astrida Valigorsky/Getty Images)
WE’LL DO IT LIVE

Live Nation’s blockbuster year ends with a bang as company forecasts an even better 2025 for concerts

Shares were up modestly in after-hours trading.

Kelly Cloonan

Live Nation just rounded out a year of record concert attendance and revenue with a fourth-quarter earnings beat, sending the stock up slightly as the company said it’s preparing for an even bigger year in 2025.

The live concert giant reported $5.68 billion in fourth-quarter revenue after the closing bell on Thursday, coming in slightly above forecasts of $5.63 billion, according to analysts polled by Bloomberg.

The figure brings the company’s full-year revenue to a record $23.16 billion, rounding out the end of not just a big but a huge year for live music, led by tours from Bruce Springsteen, The Rolling Stones, Bad Bunny, Oasis, and, of course, Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour.

Live Nation — which owns hundreds of venues, not to mention ticketing platform Ticketmaster — saw concert attendance rise to an all-time high of 151 million, eclipsing a previous record of 146 million set in 2023.

Looking forward, the entertainment giant forecast a bigger year for live music in 2025 owing to a strong global concert pipeline, including the likes of Shakira, Rüfüs Du Sol, and Coldplay. The company failed to specify exact numbers, but said it expects operating income to post double-digit growth over the year, though management warned that foreign exchange fluctuations could drag on Q1 results.

Live Nation’s stock has surged in the last year to a new record, up 66% to far surpass the S&P 500’s 23% rise. The company came out of its pandemic-era slump stronger than ever amid a booming “experience economy,” plus a strategic shift from leasing concert venues to actually owning or controlling them via long-term leases or equity rights. The company has also simultaneously built up a brand partnership empire, with ownership stakes in (or partnerships with) many of the food and drink brands sold at its venues.

Those other lines of business, with comparably higher margins than its ticketing business, have paid off considerably. Last year, ticketing brought in $2.99 billion of the company’s revenue, while its revenue from concerts (including VIP seats, food, drinks, parking, insurance, and other upgrades) totaled $19.02 billion, the company reported.

But Live Nation’s so-called “flywheel” business model — and surge-priced tickets — hasn’t been without pushback from fans, independent music venues, and, perhaps most notably, the Justice Department. Last spring, the DOJ launched an antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation and Ticketmaster, alleging that its live music empire “harms fans, innovation, artists, and venues.”

The company’s executives have appeared hopeful, though, that such regulation will ease under President Trump.


Kelly Cloonan is a journalist who has written for Business Insider and Fast Company.

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Luke Kawa

Opendoor surges on bullish options bets as traders look to potential real estate tokenization

Opendoor Technologies is surging on Friday amid bullish options bets and social media posts referencing unconfirmed rumors about the company.

The stock moved higher in the premarket session after the soft inflation report boosted stocks and briefly pushed long-term bond yields lower (positive for a real estate company). But the real gains came after the opening bell rang and options demand picked up.

As of 12:11 p.m. ET, roughly 664,000 call options have changed hands versus a 10-day average of about 364,000 for a full session.

What seems to be galvanizing members of the “$OPEN Army” is the potential for the company to pursue the tokenization of real-world assets, with Robinhood often bandied about as a potential partner in this endeavor.

(Robinhood Markets Inc. is the parent company of Sherwood Media, an independently operated media company subject to certain legal and regulatory restrictions.)

Opendoor bulls have often pointed to signs that Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev appears to be fond of the company, from what appeared on-screen during a demo of a social trading feature at HOOD’s conference in Las Vegas in September to offering support to Opendoor CEO Kaz Nejatian in setting up an opportunity for retail shareholders to ask questions during the online real estate company’s next earnings call.

Opendoor is currently in a quiet period ahead of earnings, which restricts what type of announcements a company can make.

The call options seeing the most demand expire this Friday with strike prices of $8, $8.50, and $9.

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Luke Kawa

Beyond Meat gains amid slightly better-than-expected Q3 sales, positive commentary on legal issues

Shares of Beyond Meat built on their premarket gains after the plant-based meat seller reported preliminary Q3 sales a bit ahead of Wall Street’s expectations, before paring this advance after the market opened.

For the three months ended September 27, management said net revenue would be approximately $70 million. That’s in line with their guidance range of $68 million to $73 million, but Wall Street was expecting sales to skew toward the lower end of that range, at $68.7 million.

However, its anticipated gross margin of 10% to 11% is lower than analysts had been expecting (13.8%). That’s still the case even adjusting for expenses related to its downsizing of operations in China, which would have left margins around 12% to 13%, per Beyond.

Perhaps more importantly, the company provided positive commentary regarding arbitration discussions with a former co-manufacturer that appear to bring it closer to a resolution while limiting potential damages:

“As previously disclosed, in March 2024, a former co-manufacturer brought an action against the Company in a confidential arbitration proceeding claiming that the Company inappropriately terminated its agreement with the co-manufacturer and claimed damages of at least $73.0 million. On September 15, 2025, the arbitrator issued an interim award (the ‘Interim Award’) and found that the Company had a valid basis to terminate the agreement with the Manufacturer. The details of the Interim Award are confidential, and a final arbitration award has not been issued. Additional proceedings will be held to determine the award of attorneys’ fees, prejudgment interest and costs, if any, before a final arbitration award will be issued. On September 25, 2025, the Manufacturer filed a request with the arbitrator to re-open the arbitration hearing. On September 29, 2025, the Company opposed this request. On October 20, 2025, the arbitrator denied the Manufacturer’s request.”

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