After the train wreck of Q2, this quarter brought increased profitability from price increases and Ad revenue, but saw ticket sales drop 14% from Q3 of 2023. TicketSignup continues to to be much smaller than Eventbrite, but we seem to be catching up.
When looked at over a longer period of time, it become even more dramatic. Since 2019, Eventbrite ticket sales have dropped 27% while our company has grown 70% in terms of ticket sales. Here is a chart of how many times larger Eventbrite is (maybe we will catch them over the next 10 years!):
As we have discussed before, Eventbrite seems to have made strategic mistakes like believing they are a Marketplace when they are not, and charging customers too much for a product that is now lagging the market. The price increases can be seen in this “take rate” that Eventbrite brags about to Wall Street:
We have a more detailed list of why events are moving away and choosing TicketSignup here.
We also introduced an Eventbrite Migration Program to help customers make the move to save money and grow their events. And we are seeing a number of customers moving and having great success (turns out they can sell more on TicketSignup than the propaganda Eventbrite tells them about their marketplace).
Financials
Eventbrite reported a smaller loss from operations than Q3 of 2023 due to the price increases and drastic staff reductions reported in Q2 and earlier.
The loss for operating their core business was offset by utilizing customer cash held in float of $355 Million.
They are using this cash to buy back shares ($39 Million in share repurchases so far out of their $100 M authorized). And pay down debt by $120 Million this past quarter (they “only” have $240 Million in debt left).
Eventbrite is not about to go out of business or anything. But they do have financial strains of a operating a money losing business, a stock that has fallen from the $20 range to the $3 range, ticket sales that continue to fall, not the strongest balance sheet, and pressure from Wall Street and incentives to their executive team to drive the stock price up. This causes them to do silly things that are not focused on the best interests of their customers.
Happy TicketSignup is Employee Owned
Seeing quarterly reports like this makes us happy we are an employee owned company. We know the way we will be successful is to make our customers successful, not increasing our “take rate” and playing financial games. We make money when our customers make money, and we share it with all of our employees and invest in our technology that makes our customers even more successful.