Live Nation has engaged in another round of furloughs, including those working for its subsidiary Ticketmaster, according to a new report by Pollstar.
Back in April, weeks after the COVID-19 pandemic forced the indefinite shutdown of virtually all music venues across the world, Live Nation furloughed a quarter of its North American Ticketmaster workforce as part of sweeping cost-reduction strategies. Then, within the following few weeks, Live Nation furloughed nearly 20% of its full-time employees while executive took measurable pay cuts and President/CEO Michael Rapino surrendered his entire salary.
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Now, four months later and with no concrete ending to the U.S. concert shutdown, the world’s largest live entertainment company has been forced into another round of staff reductions.
According to the Pollstar report, Live Nation’s losses exceeded $567 million for Q2, with revenue at $74.1 million compared to a Q2 2019 revenue of $3.15 billion. On the bright side, however, the Live Nation earnings report did note that 86% of fans have kept tickets for rescheduled shows and the company has sold 19 million tickets for 2021, highlighting an optimistic outlook for the future.
“While this is a challenging time for everyone – the live events business in particular – there are a few things that I am confident about: we are well positioned to weather this crisis, and we will get through this; when it is safe to return, we will have an abundance of fans and artists ready to enjoy live music again; and Live Nation will do everything in its power to meet our responsibilities to artists, fans, our employees and everyone else affected by this shutdown by bringing back as much live music as fast as possible when it is responsible to do so,” Rapino said in a statement obtained by Pollstar.
Rapino elaborated that he expects live events to return in full by the summer of 2021. For the latest updates on concerts in the U.S. and around the world, check out Live For Live Music‘s concert cancellation tracker.