Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing - Instacart Is IPO Ready
Episode Date: August 28, 2023Instacart is profitable and it’s growing, Is that enough to spark investor interest? (00:21) Jason Moser and Deidre Woollard discuss: - How Instacart makes its money. - What it means to be a grocer...y technology company. - If a strong Instacart IPO will be go sign for the market. (17:31) Alicia Alfiere and Deidre Woollard break down how Live Nation profits from blockbuster tours. Companies discussed: LYV, DASH, UBER Host: Deidre Woollard Guests: Jason Moser, Alicia Alfiere Producer: Ricky Mulvey Engineer: Dan Boyd Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Jason Moser. Is Instacart the IPO the market has been waiting for?
Motley Fool Money starts now.
Welcome to Motley Fool Money! I'm Deidre Willard, here with Jason Moser.
Today, we're going to dive into Instacart's IPO. Hey, Jason, how are you doing?
Jason Moser. Hey, Deidre, just fine. How about you?
I'm good. My first question for you is, are you an Instacart guy?
I have to admit, it's not that I am against Instacart or anything. I guess I'm still
just very much an in-person grocery shopper, and old habits die hard. I could see myself
jumping into that Instacart world at some point, though. It sure looks really convenient.
That's interesting, because in their S-1, they said 12% of grocery shopping took place
online last year. That's lower than other categories. Maybe there's a lot of people
out there like you that are just not interested in doing this. Do you think that's true?
Well, probably to an extent. We've said it before, changing consumer behavior is really
difficult. This could be something that appeals, and probably does to an extent. I look at
my kids, for example, and the mobile and convenience tools that they use. This might
be something that would be more easily integrated into their daily lives as they get older,
kind of raised with this being the norm. This is absolutely not the norm for most of us.
We just didn't grow up this way. You get stuck in your behaviors.
I think one thing I've always said, Amazon really changed our value system, so to speak.
What I mean by that, convenience is far more a priority than it used to be because we have
a choice. Now, it's not all about just the lowest prices. It's also about convenience.
We value our time differently. You'll be willing to pay for certain conveniences.
Grocery shopping isn't the most exciting thing in the world. It can be a time suck.
And if you're like me, I tend to go to the grocery store every day or every other day.
I don't stock up our kitchen with a week's worth of food, because I'm never really fully
certain what I'm going to make for dinner. I'm not really a big fan of waste, and I don't
want that food sitting in there for long periods of time. But I think this is a convenience
that I think would resonate with consumers. But when you look in this S-1, management
even noted this. They said, in the S-1, this transformation will play out over decades.
I think that is encouraging to see, that they're looking at it from that perspective, acknowledging
the fact that, listen, at 12%, sure, there's going to be some growth opportunity there.
But maybe this isn't necessarily the same as something like your electronics or whatever
else that you might buy from Amazon, just for convenience sake.
I think the other thing is that people are just more comfortable these days doing
things virtually. We grew up shopping in the grocery store, but people today, they grew
up seeing things online and expecting them. So, I think that's part of it.
The other part of it, I think, is that people are just now more comfortable with having
a stranger do stuff for them. This is another of those double-sided marketplaces.
According to the S-1, you've got about 7.7 million people. They're ordering deliveries.
You've got about 600,000 of the shoppers going to the stores and doing the picking.
It seems a little bit to me like a DoorDash.
I guess there's some controversy over which is the better gig.
Is this an issue of how they manage both sides of this marketplace going forward?
Yeah. When it comes to food, delivery is a bit of a greater leap of faith.
This isn't just pizzas we're talking about.
A lot of people like to go there and just choose from the quality of the produce or
or whatever it may be. I don't know that this is a job where people enter this line of work
thinking this is what they want to do for the rest of their lives. This is probably
a job for most that is more of a means to an end. Loyalty is probably not a strength,
unless they're paying for that loyalty. It sounds like it's going in the opposite direction.
It sounds like Instacart is trying to whittle down that cost structure a little bit.
That's understandable. If you're an employee, you have two choices, and neither job is really
what you love to do. If it's just a means to an end, you're typically going to go to
the higher-paying job. It does boil down, unfortunately, in many cases, just to dollars and cents.
I think, you look at a company like this, there's not a high barrier for learning.
It's probably a job where you can jump in there and learn it pretty quickly. Even if
employee turnover is high, I don't think there are necessarily prohibitive costs that come
with that turnover. Integrating new employees into that network, integrating new shoppers
into that network is probably fairly easy. I liken it maybe to Uber drivers or whatnot.
It's something where you're going to see some of that employee turnover, and that's just
the nature of the gig. Maybe. I don't know. The way I'm thinking
about it is, it's so easy to get it wrong. I asked my Instacart person for a substitution
for bananas, and they came up with peppers or something like that. So, there is a little
bit more of an art to it, maybe, than DoorDash. I think that makes a lot of sense.
There's some judgment that comes into play here. Some people are probably a little bit
more thoughtful about what they're putting into these baskets for the shoppers.
So, yeah, I absolutely can see that. It is a job that does still require some thought
and consideration. Again, you're talking about groceries. You're not ordering a pizza.
Typically, coming with a basket of 20, 30 or 40 different items, you want what you want.
And if it's a bad experience, if it's a consistently bad experience, if you're getting that order
and it's not really the stuff that you want, then maybe you say, well, there's a reason
why I didn't do this online grocery shopping thing, and that's why, and I'm just going to
go back to doing it in person. Then, really, you may not ever get that consumer back.
They may not ever really fully trust that process. That could be lost business.
Yeah, absolutely. One of the other things I think is interesting about the S-1 is that,
yes, the delivery part is a big part of the business, but another huge part of it
is the ad platform. It's like 30% of the revenue. We've seen the importance of ads,
We see it with the streamers, like a Netflix or Disney+, but also with Amazon and Walmart,
especially Walmart.
Instacart has this big opportunity here.
They've got that captive audience.
They've got the grocery brands.
They say they've got over 5,500 brands.
This is an important part of the business, but it's super cyclical.
We've seen that recently with other companies getting hurt by that cyclicality.
How does that factor into how you think about Instacart?
I think it's a natural fit.
I would be disappointed if they weren't pursuing the advertising opportunity, because it feels
like a very natural fit for a business like this, particularly when you think about how
many brands they have on that platform and the brand relationships they have with companies
like Campbell's and Nestle and Pepsi and whatnot.
They can even quantify it.
In the S-1, they know that on average, their ads deliver more than a 15% incremental sales lift.
In some cases, they say even twice that for brand partners like Campbell's and Pepsi and whatnot.
Again, I think of a company, I go back to Uber, because I think this is very similar
in that regard, Uber with a burgeoning ad business.
I think it's a very natural fit for that platform as they become more things than just a company
that gets you from point A to point B.
I think the key for Instacart in regard to that cyclicality, ultimately, is just making
the business not so fully dependent on it.
And I think we're seeing signs, again, that they are trying to do more than just grocery
delivery and advertising, which is encouraging. Yeah, absolutely.
And you mentioned Pepsi, part of the story here.
They're in line. They want to purchase $175 million of the Series A preferred stock.
Clearly, they believe in the business.
Yeah. They are a brand partner. That means they likely have some anecdotal evidence
to the value of the platform. Taking an ownership stake in the business could certainly help
in a number of ways for them to learn more about their customers, what customers want,
product placement, product ideas and whatnot. It sounds like maybe they're taking advantage
of a little bit of their institutional knowledge of this business. That makes a lot of sense.
It feels like a positive sign to me. The interesting thing here is, this company is
going public. They're a little older. They're profitable. They may or may not stay that way.
I think they have some advantages over some of the other IPOs recently. I'm thinking about
trying to compare them to DoorDash and that journey.
Yeah. In regard to profitability, it is one of those things. It's nice to see that
they are going public without having to convince us of that path to profitability.
I think that could be a big catalyst for a company like this, particularly in a difficult
time right now. We've learned a lot over the last several years with many of these businesses
going public that probably really shouldn't have gone public, or at least at the time.
They need a little bit more time to mature. It does look like, in this case, Instacart
is in a position where the business is well-established, and they've painted a very good picture of
the potential market opportunity. Now, it's just a matter of execution and capital allocation.
Yeah, definitely. I was thinking about this this weekend, looking through the S-1 and
thinking about whatever happened to Peapod. I was in Wiredtown, Massachusetts, late 90s.
Peapod, one of the earliest online startups. They made it through that delivery craze of
the early aughts, when everything was being delivered and then none of those businesses survived.
Peapod survived, but Instacart came along and took over.
Is there anything that Instacart can learn from Peapod?
The first thing that came to mind here, because Peapod at its time was extremely revolutionary,
but it was dealing with an environment that wasn't really as favorable to the tech demands
that a business like this requires.
I think they really started out with a great idea. It was maybe a little bit ahead of its
time just based on the tech capabilities that existed. It makes me think of these businesses
that were older businesses that were built on more antiquated technology vs. these cloud-first
businesses that were built on cloud technology and therefore a bit more nimble and able to
iterate and grow more quickly. I think that's probably some of that here, at least with Instacart.
Again, it's a company that's taken advantage of technology to ultimately become more than
just a delivery company. They're using this platform ultimately to become what they consider
a grocery technology company. It's beyond just delivery. It's beyond just advertising.
It's really helping brands figure out what their customers want. It's helping grocery
stores in regard to analytics and whatnot. Potential opportunities there are really all
over the place, thanks to the tech capability today.
Yeah. I noticed at the start of the S-1, they had the grocery technology company,
and I'm like, hmm, I'm not sure. But then, as they went through it, I'm sort of like,
yeah, I guess so. With Peapod, the problem was that they couldn't bring on the partners.
They couldn't scale as fast as they wanted to. Instacart, the reason they were able to
grow so fast is because they had the infrastructure so they could do that.
Yeah. If you think about Peapod, the one thing I remember about Peapod is the big trucks.
Yes.
Right. We're just in a different place now. The actual getting things from point A to
point B, so to speak, you're not reliant on just these big trucks. We've got a much larger
force of transportation out there that they can leverage, which I think makes a lot of sense.
And our expectations are that we get things a lot faster, too.
Yes, they are. The world keeps speeding up.
IPOs are tricky. They're so exciting. I'm a little risk averse. I like to watch
from the sidelines. I want to see what's happening with the company. With Instacart, the growth
is good, but maybe slowing. We talked a little bit about shopper attrition and that two-sided
marketplace thing. Is there anything that you're watching for or you want to see within
the first year? Yeah. I'm glad you mentioned the growth
aspect there. Clearly, they benefited from the past three years. But as most businesses,
there was a lot of growth that was pulled forward, and that's now started to normalize
a little bit. When you look at some of the data there, the orders, for example, from
the six months ended last year to the six months ended this year, essentially flat.
Gross transaction volume just up 4%. You have to figure inflation probably played some kind
of a role in that as well. It does seem like things are slowing down here. I, like you,
would rather sit on the sidelines and watch this thing for a little while, I don't feel
a need to jump into IPOs, generally speaking, because we know that the enthusiasm is high,
particularly now. The market's really hungry for a good IPO. I think this is a business
that has a lot of potential. I certainly understand all of the enthusiasm behind it. It's still
a challenging time. You look at this business, while it's a relatively proven concept, and
know that management is taking that longer-term view, as what they've said in the S-1, I'd
like to follow leadership and see that they're sticking to those guns, so to speak, to see
that they are continuing to take that long-term view and to make decisions that are in line
with that long-term view. You could see a world where, at some point or another, maybe
the business is witnessing some challenges, or the stock price is witnessing some challenges.
Then you start to wonder, are they going to change their decision-making and do some short-term
focused things in order to accommodate for that voting machine nature of the market in the near-term?
So, seeing management stick to that long-term playbook, I think, will be one thing.
Then, also, an interesting part of the business is the membership side of the business.
You've got the Instacart Plus product. I think that's a good metric to keep an eye on.
As we know, with companies like Uber and others, these members really do account for more of
the spending for businesses like these, it can be immensely profitable, particularly over time.
So, it would be nice to see them continue to grow that membership base as time goes on.
Yeah, I'm thinking a lot about the membership bases that are in companies like Uber and Uber Eats.
It's still sort of nascent, but it seems like there might be real potential. I think that the
thing to watch there is, we're not going to have multiple memberships to things the same way we
might have multiple streamers. We're probably going to pick one. If I'm a consumer, I'm probably
not going to have multiple of these, right? I think that's exactly right. It's either
going to be Instacart or it's going to be something else. Ultimately, that's one of
the advantages that Instacart has here. They've been able to scale so quickly. Having that
big of a network, it's going to give them a better chance at delivering on what they
say they're going to deliver on. That, I think, ultimately is what people want. They want
to know that they're going to be getting what they ordered, and they want to get it in a
timely fashion, and it just can't be too expensive.
You mentioned that the market really wants to see a good IPO. I saw a figure
over the weekend from Equities, quoted in The New York Times, at least 1,400 private
tech companies worth a billion. The unicorns, they're all just waiting on the sideline for
the right moment to go public. We've seen the Cava IPO, awesome. We've seen the Better
IPO, not so awesome. We've got the Arm IPO coming up, too. Is this the moment? Is this
when the floodgates open? What do you think? I tend to think not. Clearly, the appetite
for good IPOs is there. We've also learned a lot over these past few years. There's a
lot of junk that went out there. You look at things like SPACs and how many companies
were able to go public, just via the SPAC structure, for example. A lot of companies
that really shouldn't have gone public at that point. We do know that with private valuations,
they oftentimes aren't as efficient, perhaps, as the public valuations. While I think this
is a good sign, I look at those 1,400 or so companies with those billion-dollar-plus valuations,
and I think there's probably still a lot of junk in those as well. We need to be careful.
Yeah, totally agree. Well, thank you for your time today, Jason!
Thank you!
It was the summer of Taylor Swift, but what does that mean for Live Nation?
I sat down with Alicia Alfieri to walk through the ins and outs of the company that concertgoers
may hate, but investors might love.
I'm excited to talk to you because this has been the summer of live music, and especially
Taylor Swift and Beyonce.
I mean, my goodness, the Heiress Tour.
it's not a concert. It's like a phenomenon. It's lifting whole city economies. It gets
news coverage when Taylor comes to town. This has been crazy. So it's been good news for Live Nation,
which we're going to talk about today. It's one of the companies I think everyone loves to hate.
But it's good for them on one level, but it's drawn some attention to the fact that Live Nation
and Ticketmaster, they kind of own us. So what's the background here? Swifties are a little upset
sometimes because they can't get tickets. What's going on?
Yeah. So, let's recap what happened. So, back in November, Ticketmaster canceled the public
ticket sale for Taylor Swift's Heiress Tour. And again, lots of demand here. I think there was even
a small earthquake from all over. In Seattle, yeah.
Yeah. What happened here is that fans were seeing long wait times and other technical issues
trying to buy tickets for the pre-sale of the tour. So, it looks like, to me,
the biggest culprit here was supply and demand. So, Taylor Swift is pretty famous,
which is what my eight-year-old nephew told me while we were singing along to one of her songs
on Tuesday. And the thing is, he's not wrong. When you have someone or something that resonates
with a lot of people, you have a ton of demand for that thing. And in this case,
the demand was incredible. So, 3.5 million fans signed up for the pre-sale, and only 1.5 million
actually got a code to enter the sale while the rest were on a waiting list. Usually only 40%
of people who get a code will actually show up to buy a ticket. But for Taylor Swift, fans with a
code, without a code, everybody logged in to buy tickets. And Live Nation also reported a lot of
bot attacks. And these factors cause delays and other tech issues. And during the pre-sale,
Ticketmaster sold more than 2 million tickets in a single day, which was a record. But fans were
understandably frustrated, especially when they hopped on over to the secondary or resale ticket
market and found tickets for, in some cases, thousands of dollars. So this drove many fans
to air their frustrations on Twitter and to lawmakers, which put Live Nation on the radar
for several people in Congress. Yeah, that's really interesting, too.
Let's talk about Congress. One of the complaints, too, has been the extra fees. It's not even a
Live Nation issue or ticketing issue. We see extra fees in Airbnb and everything else.
But Congress is looking at this. What's going on here?
Yeah. I love the name of this act. It's the Boss Swift Act for Taylor Swift,
is the Swift part. Bruce Springsteen, of course, is the boss. This aims for transparency in ticket
pricing with an all-in ticket price that's inclusive of fees and taxes. This is important
because according to the Government Accountability Office, they found back in 2018 that extra fees
were about 27% of the overall price. So, that could be a pretty big surprise after you hit
the purchase button for tickets. The legislation also seeks to provide consumers with information
on refunds for tickets, as well as the number of tickets being sold and whether these tickets are
new or resold. So I think transparency is usually a good thing. And here it seems like it's an
improvement on the consumer experience or the user experience. So I don't really see this as
a negative for Live Nation. But transparency is not the same thing as affordability. I think part
of the issue here was Live Nation started using what they call a dynamic pricing model, which is
they did this as an effort to help get artists more money of the ticket sales. So ticket buying
isn't the only place where we have this dynamic pricing. You talked about Airbnb. That's definitely
one of the companies that use this. Also Uber and Surge pricing. So the model is high demand,
higher prices. And like economic principles of supply and demand, you're going to get,
as people want more of this thing, the prices are going to go up. The only difference is you
have this model that allows them to quickly inform and adjust the prices.
Well, and with Taylor Swift tickets, there's no substitution. You can't get a lesser version
of Taylor Swift. So there's really kind of nowhere to go.
Exactly. Exactly.
Well, and the other part of this is not just the fees. That's the one side that the government is
looking at. The other side of this is whether or not Live Nation with Ticketmaster is a monopoly,
and if so, is it going to be broken up? Because part of the problem is, here you have Ticketmaster,
they're selling the tickets, and then you've got Live Nation, they're promoting and they're
operating venues. So if you're an investor in Live Nation, it seems like a really great
business now, but is this a big concern? It's a fair question. I think it depends
on your thesis and who you are as an investor. So Live Nation is a top dog in a lot of the
business that surrounds concerts. It's estimated that they're the largest live entertainment
company, the largest producer of live music concerts, and the largest live entertainment
ticketing sales company. That's a lot of largests, and we haven't even talked about the venues yet.
If your thesis hinges on Live Nation being the biggest across many aspects of the concert space,
I think it's easy to be afraid of the threat of the government potentially coming
to split up the company. But I'd say don't get too ahead of yourself here. First, it's an awful
big if that we're talking about. A lot of things have to happen before we get to that point.
Also, remember, this is hardly the only company that's been called monopolistic and faced threats
of being broken up. And I think maybe the most important, if your fears are realized and the
government splits up a company that you own, would that actually be a bad thing? So the answer is,
as Jim Gillies would say, it depends, right? If you're a fan of Joel Greenblatt's You Can
Be a Stock Market Genius, then you know that special situations like divestitures or perhaps
even breaking up a company could be an opportunity for investors and for the companies, because it
could potentially allow the business segments to be freed up to become the best versions of
themselves, potentially. But every situation is different, and it really depends.
Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of things that could happen. You could have two separate
companies with a spinoff. You could have someone else taking over. Of course,
the government would probably get involved there, too. But there's a lot of options that
could happen there. Yeah. And you know what? Again, it also
depends on who you are as an investor. If you're not a fan of Live Nation or companies that have
really cornered a market, you might not be interested in holding a stock like this. And
it's totally OK. It's your own individual journey.
Yeah. And I think one of the things that I find surprising about Life Nation, I study
real estate. This is one of those stealth real estate companies, kind of like McDonald's
is a stealth real estate company. I love these. According to their last 10K, they own 172
venues in the U.S., 99 venues internationally. So if you're an investor, do you think of
this as a real estate company to some extent?
Well, they do have a pretty big footprint in the venue space. And some of these venues
are pretty well known to, like the Fillmore in San Francisco or the House of Blues venues.
And for me, what's important here is this feeds into the idea of being everything concerts,
the ticketing, the promotion, and the owning of venues. And this creates a powerful flywheel
effect for the business, which means that the success in one area of your business helps to
fuel other areas. So more shows means more tickets sold, means more fans at shows,
and more things being bought at these shows.
And Live Nation likely makes more per fan at the venues that they own themselves.
So it's all part of that flywheel equation.
Yeah, the flywheel for me is fascinating because you're right.
It's not tickets.
It's not just tickets.
There's sponsorships.
There's advertising, which is bigger and bigger.
They've also got some sneaky ancillary ways to make money beyond tickets.
So there's a fast lane pass, sort of like with Disney, where it gets you in faster.
Maybe you get other add-ons.
There's meet and greets and little fan add-ons.
There's all sorts of things that you can make money, especially when you've got something
like a Taylor Swift or a Beyonce or anybody with a big fan base.
It gives them a little more money and gives Live Nation, it sounds like, maybe a lot more
money.
So do you factor that in, too?
Yeah.
So this is another part of the flywheel, this ancillary spend.
And it's so easy to focus on the ticketing aspect of Live Nation and forget all about
the opportunity when fans are actually at the concert.
And there are a few ways to make money here, like you talked about, right?
You could sell concertgoers premium experiences and other upsells, and you could also sell
advertisers access to those fans' attentions, right?
They're a captive audience.
But the growth here in these ancillary revenues really depends on the growth in concerts and
events.
again, it's part of the flywheel, but it's one that requires balance because there isn't
unlimited potential here, right? You wouldn't want to go to a concert where ads are ultimately
detracting from your experience, right? Like if there were commercials in between songs,
that would be terrible. That would not be good.
Yes. So everything in balance, but it is definitely an interesting way for them to make money.
Yeah, absolutely. Well, let's talk a little bit about the CEO, Michael Rapinoe. So he's this kind
of, you know, he's a promoter. He's definitely a promoter kind of guy. And he would like to be
paid for it. He had a $139 million pay package that was voted down by shareholders, partly because
it didn't quite have the alignment with long-term performance. That was a non-binding vote. His pay
is at discretion of the shareholders, but he is one of the most highly paid CEOs. I mean,
he's doing a great job, but he's getting paid a lot. Yes, he is. And I think this is like a secret
advertisement for looking at a proxy statement and also voting if you are a shareholder during
the proxy elections. It is your way of telling the company how you feel about specific issues.
So while the vote is non-binding, it's possible that the company will take notice of this.
Sometimes you don't even need a majority. Sometimes if you just have enough voters
saying that they don't approve of this, it could kind of embarrass the company into redesigning
a compensation package. And by the way, the ratio of Rapinoe's compensation to that of his median
employee was over 5,000 to one. Big number. Yeah. But we should also note here, and I think you had
mentioned it, that Rapinoe was the CEO throughout the company's struggles during the pandemic,
and that he did take a pay cut during COVID. So he has done a good job. But I think the question
here is really, can executive compensation impact your thesis? Can it break your thesis?
And I think it's possible something egregious is happening in compensation or with the company's
governance. I think in general, when you're analyzing the company, it's a good idea to look
at what executive comp is based on. So Charlie Munger says, show me the incentives and I'll show
you the outcome. So according to Live Nation's proxy, 63% of Rapinoe's 2022 salary was based on
performance. And one of the factors here is adjusted operating income. And always,
whenever something's adjusted, it means it excludes items. And some of those items are
important. So the things that this excludes, it includes stock-based, or excludes rather,
stock-based comp, depreciation, amortization, and other items. And 63% isn't bad. And this
adjusted operating income isn't bad, but it's not the most impressive way to incentivize
executive performance either. I think as investors, we like to see a lot of management's
compensation tied to performance that drives the business.
And I think when someone's getting paid a lot, too, you always have to ask yourself,
would it be the same company without that person in charge?
Yeah, absolutely.
And I am not sure it would be the same company without him in charge. So,
I don't love the high price here, but I do think he's worth it to some extent.
Oh, yeah.
And again, he did see the company through that storm of COVID.
Yeah.
So that is massive.
Well, let's talk about that storm of COVID, because for a time we all thought, well, we're
just going to go see concerts in the metaverse.
We're just going to put on our Oculus Quest or whatever, Vision Pro or whatever's coming
next.
We're going to want to do that.
But that didn't happen.
Instead, everybody has rushed out and seen everybody this summer.
It's not just the headliners. Everybody's gone to festivals. Everybody's seeing everyone.
Live music is back so much. And Rapinoe, in the earnings call, he said he doesn't see
it slowing down through 2024. I don't see it slowing down either, based anecdotally
on what I'm seeing from people in my life. But given that maybe we might see a recession,
who knows at this point, maybe a little baby recession. How should we think about consumer
behavior? Yeah. Well, I would say with any investments, there's always risks, right?
And a decrease in consumer spending or a potential recession could potentially impact people's
ability to afford those tickets, right? And we have seen a shift in consumer spending
away from the things that we bought during the pandemic and toward experiences, right?
And concerts are definitely an experience.
But again, there is the risk that belt tightening will impact someone's ability to afford going
to a concert.
There could also be a concern that with all of the revenge experience spending that's
happening after COVID, that consumers can burn themselves out and not as many people
will be interested in concerts in a year or two.
So far, that doesn't appear to be the case.
Live Nation says it has a strong pipeline of artist shows for the next year and that
confirmed future shows are up relative to the same point last year.
Also, Statista, which provides market data and statistics, is forecasting a 5% compounded
annual growth rate through 2027 for revenues for global music events.
We do think we're going to continue to have concerts.
Also, don't forget, it's a truly unique experience.
It's one of those things, there are very few things that you have to be there for the event
to really get the true experience, right?
It's live sports and live music.
So I think there's always going to be a special glow to concerts.
Yeah, I think that's right.
And I mean, the good news is this is not Taylor Swift's retirement tour.
And she's going international, and international is a big part of Live Nation.
So it seems like positive tailwinds here.
Yeah, absolutely.
Thanks for your time today, Alicia. Thanks. Glad to be here.
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I'm Deidre Woollard. Thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow.
