Eventbrite has delivered a positive outlook for 2023 amid global concerns about the effect that rising inflation and labor shortages could have on the industry.
Speaking on Eventbrite’s Q3 Earnings Call, CEO Julia Hartz says she sees 2023 to be a year for even greater recovery and is confident the industry will weather any macroeconomic issues.
Hartz, along with CFO, Lanny Baker laid out the latest Eventbrite results for Q3 delivering some important and interesting insights for the live events industry.
Hartz touched on the resilience of consumers and their continued demand for live events, particularly in the music and food industries, given the current economic climate.
“In Q3, we observed steady growth and ticket buying behaviour. 10 million unique buyers purchased tickets to paid events. Cumulative consumer searches for events in our platform were up 47% year over year through Q3 with music and food and drink leading in terms of popularity.”
She went on to state Eventbrite’s continued support in creating demand for event organizers by saying, “Our ability to drive even stronger demand for events on the platform is a key area of focus and investment for us.”
The bounce back for event organizers post-pandemic continues with Hartz saying that “The average creator is holding more events today than in 2019.”
This reflects the resurgence of live events in 2022 and the continued ramp-up of the industry going into 2023 where both Hartz and Baker shared positive sentiments for Q4 and the whole of 2023.
“2023 for us is a year where I think we'll see even greater recovery not only in the live events industry but also within our own business,” said Hartz.
CFO, Lanny Baker shared that the consumer demand for live events continued to remain healthy throughout Q3 and expects the same for Q4 whilst keeping note of the expected friction macroeconomic trends may cause.
“The outlook range for Q4 is in line with the slightly stronger than the quarter-to-quarter pattern observed pre-pandemic. We currently expect consumer demand for live events remain healthy, based on the strong desire to gather our renewed ability to do so safely and the affordable local nature of most inventory on our platform.”
“We recognise that macroeconomic factors such as inflation, labor shortages and other factors may lead to greater friction around staging live events in the near term.”
Baker went on to state that he believes 2023 will see continued growth. However, it will be at a steady rate as international markets level out following lockdowns and the quick return to a large number of events in 2022 causing a statistical anomaly.
“The variations over the last six or nine months have really had more to do with the year ago comparisons and whether a year ago at this same time Australia was on lockdown, and now they're not.”
“So there's huge year-over-year growth in Australia, and those kinds of comparisons (in similar markets). But I think as we look at things sequentially, we're starting to see more of a steady recovery and a little bit less of those sort of highly volatile periods like we saw a year ago.”
