Operator
Operator
Good afternoon. My name is Seth Duncan and I will be your conference facilitator today. At this time I would like to welcome everyone to the Live Nation Entertainment Second Quarter 2015 Earnings Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks there will be a question-and-answer period. Before we begin, Live Nation has asked me to remind you that this afternoon's call will contain certain forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ, including statements related to the company's anticipated financial performance, business prospects, new developments and similar matters. Please refer to Live Nation's SEC filings including the Risk Factors and cautionary statements included in the company's most recent filings on Form 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K for a description of risks and uncertainties that could impact the actual results. Live Nation will also refer to some non-GAAP measures on this call. In accordance with SEC Regulation G, Live Nation has provided a full reconciliation for the most comparable GAAP measures in their earnings release. The release, reconciliations and other financial or statistical information to be discussed on this call can be found under the Investor Relations tab on investors.livenationentertainment.com. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Michael Rapino, President and Chief Executive Officer of Live Nation Entertainment. Michael Rapino - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you. Live Nation has continued growing in the second quarter and for the first half, with revenue up 12% and AOI up 6% on a constant currency basis in the second quarter. The increase in revenue was led by our concerts business as we continue attracting more fans to more shows globally, which in turn drives AOI growth in our advertising and ticketing businesses through first half of the year. With the majority of our tickets sold for the year, we are confident that we remain on track to deliver our 2015 plan, and all key leading indicators reinforce our expectations of continued top and bottom-line growth as we build global market share in our core concerts, advertising and ticketing businesses. We have built the industry's most scalable and unparalleled live platform, bringing 450 million fans in 40 countries to that magical two-hour event each year. Concerts are the flywheel for our high-margin on-site, advertising and ticketing businesses and this year we expect to deliver record operating results, increasing revenue and profitability for each of these businesses. Starting with the concerts business, we have now sold approximately 75% of our projected tickets for the year, and through July we are pacing 7% ahead of last year's ticket sales. This is our top leading indicator that we will increase concert attendance again this year. We continue to be the world's leading promoter for about three-quarters of the top 25 tours, including U2, Imagine Dragons, Luke Bryan, Kid Rock and One Direction. The strength of our global platform continues to deliver growth as we have increased year-on-year attendance. In the second quarter over a million more fans attended our shows. For the full year we expect to grow our fan base by over two million fans, which on its own would be one of the top five promoters in the world. Along with attendance growth, we have also grown per-fan on-site revenue this year by 18% to over $20 per fan in our amphitheaters and festivals as our new sales initiatives, particularly those focused on the high-end fans is paying off. At the same time, we continue building our global platform for the future, most recently adding Marek Lieberberg to establish our concerts business in Germany. Germany is one of the top three concert markets in the world and Marek has a history of promoting more than 700 shows for over two million fans each year. Adding these shows to Live Nation can make us the top promoter in Germany, and moving those two million tickets to the Ticketmaster platform in Germany will substantially increase our scale and market position and ticketing in Germany. With this move, Live Nation now has a promoting presence in all major Western European markets, along with our presence now in nine Asian markets, we are the only promoter able to provide global and regional touring support at scale for artists. Our artist managers continue to provide a strong pipeline of shows to our concerts and sponsorship division. In the sponsorship & advertising business, we have delivered strong growth through the first half, with both revenue and AOI up over 20% on a constant currency basis. Our key leading indicator for advertising, contracted net revenue is up 19% on a constant currency basis as of the end of the second quarter and we have sold 80% of our planned sponsorship for the year. This now gives us confidence that our AOI growth rate in sponsorship & advertising for the year will be in the low teens, an acceleration from recent years. Our online advertising continues to build rapidly, growing revenue by 36% and AOI by over 30% at constant currency for the first half. We now have over 65 million unique monthly visitors to our sites and broader network, making Live Nation one of the top three online music networks. On the content side, we have entered the second year of streaming live shows with Yahoo! Live, with an increased focus on festivals this year, including EDC in Vegas, Wireless and Creamfields in UK and Voodoo in New Orleans. Our Live Nation TV channel with VICE Media is launching this month in beta and to provide live music fans and advertisers a channel dedicated to live music content, delivered by VICE's unique story-telling ability. With the growth of our Festival businesses we are also continuing to build our base of major advertisers, increasing the number of companies that pay us over $1 million a year by 15%, now delivering a collective $200 million to Live Nation in 2015. With all parts of our advertising business now performing and growing rapidly, we expect a record level of AOI growth in 2015, with continued strong runway. Ticketmaster has continued building its global leadership as a ticketing marketplace this year, with 7% growth in traffic leading to a 10% increase in primary and secondary GTV. A key driver behind this growth in site visits and GTV has been our mobile first strategy, building our products for ease of use and viewing on mobile devices. Mobile now consistently accounts for more than half of our traffic, both in North America and internationally. And year-to-date we have deployed 27 updates to our apps globally as we are enhancing the fan experience. As a result, we continue seeing growth in mobile ticket sales, up 21% through the first half, and now accounting for 21% of all ticket sales. Our app install base continues to build as well, now at 19 million, as more fans are seeing the benefit from improved search and ticket management functionality. I am confident that 2015 will mark the true point of conversion of Ticketmaster to a technology company. We have the right leadership and technology teams in place, building a marketplace and delivering products with great fan features while also capturing cost savings for the business. With all this, Ticketmaster has never been better positioned. After growing the business in the first half of the year, we expect 2015 to be another year of growth and record results for the company and we are confident that we will deliver the final year of our three-year plan. Based on the strong position of our leading indicators in concerts and advertising and ticketing, operationally we expect revenue and AOI growth in each of these businesses and overall for Live Nation this year. And more fundamentally, we continue to see a wide set of both organic and acquisition opportunities to further grow each of these businesses beyond 2015, directly building on the success we have achieved to-date. With that, I will turn it over to Joe Berchtold, our COO, for more details.