Live Nation had a very successful second quarter, according to its 2025 earnings report. The company’s overall revenue saw a significant uptick from 2024; it jumped a 16% increase to the tune of $7 billion. Last year at the same time, Live Nation generated $6.02 billion.
According to Variety, Live Nation saw similar gains from Q1 to Q2 in 2024. The news is great for Live Nation, though they didn’t have a record-breaking summer season — historically the biggest quarter every year.
As for how Live Nation’s bottom line impacts pricing for artists and costs for fans, according to The Hollywood Reporter, back in February, when asked about high ticket pricing for some of the concerts this year, CFO Joe Berchtold said the artists with stadium tours “are priced at almost perfection,” and that the higher prices are meant to detour scalpers.
“The artist, in general, every cycle, is a little more educated on ‘what’s the best way to price my ticket?’ ‘How do I keep it accessible to my fans, but make sure scalpers don’t run away with the front of the house?’ So we love seeing these stadiums sitting somewhere around 95 percent sold out. The instant we sold out at 10am means we’ve transferred a lot of wealth to the scalpers,” Berchtold said.
The latest report doesn’t cite any specific artist or tour for Live Nation’s uptick in Q2, but it should be noted that Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter and the Rodeo Chitlin Circuit Tour and Kendrick Lamar and SZA’s GNX Tour were successful, high-profile ventures this year. The report states that over 130 million tickets were sold for Live Nation concerts, that’s a six percent increase compared to 2024, and is led by international markets. More than 40 percent of global stadium shows sold out 95 percent of tickets in the first week – that’s a double-digit increase.
