Live Nation Earnings: Encouraging Trends for Next Year and Solid Profit Growth Outweigh Weak Sales

With fewer major stadium shows during the third quarter, narrow-moat Live Nation’s revenue was unsurprisingly down substantially. However, operating income growth was impressive, and there were several encouraging signs that portend strong sales growth in 2025. Beyond stadium shows, all underlying metrics look strong, notably continued solid growth in events and fans’ spending at events. We'll wait until the firm’s Nov. 13 investor meeting before finalizing our model, but barring major revelations, we plan to raise our $105 per share fair value estimate by a mid-single-digit percentage on a stronger near-term forecast.