Vivid Seats - Earnings Call - Q3 2025

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good morning and welcome to the Vivid Seats Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference call. Following management-prepared remarks, we will open the call for Q&A. I would now like to turn the call over to Kate Africk.

Kate Africk (Head of Investor Relations)

Good morning and welcome to Vivid Seats Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference call. I am Kate Africk, Head of Investor Relations at Vivid Seats. This morning we issued our third quarter financial results. The press release, as well as supplemental earnings slides, are available on the Investor Relations page of our website at investors.vividseats.com. During the course of today's call, we may make forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially, including the risks and uncertainties described in our earnings press release, our most recent annual report on Form 10-K, our subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, and our other filings with the SEC. On today's call, we will refer to adjusted EBITDA, which is a non-GAAP financial measure that provides useful information for investors.

A reconciliation of this non-GAAP financial measure to its corresponding GAAP measure can be found in our earnings press release and supplemental earnings slides. This morning we also announced a leadership transition that is effective today. Lawrence Fey, who has served as Chief Financial Officer since 2020, will succeed Stan Chia as Chief Executive Officer. Additionally, Ted Pickus, who has served as Chief Accounting Officer since 2022, has been appointed as interim Chief Financial Officer until a successor is identified. Accordingly, Larry and Ted are joining me today on the call. With Larry's extensive history with Vivid Seats dating back to 2017, the Vivid Seats board believes he is uniquely qualified to navigate the evolving industry environment and steer the company back to growth. Larry will share more detail on his vision for Vivid Seats' next chapter today. I would like to turn the call over to Larry.

Lawrence Fey (CEO and Director)

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. First, I would like to discuss the leadership transition and express my gratitude to Stan for his leadership and service over the last seven years. His accomplishments include successfully leading Vivid Seats through a global pandemic, bringing Vivid Seats to the public markets, and launching key innovations such as the Vivid Seats Reward Program, which provides a foundation on which we will continue to build as we deliver a unique and leading value proposition to our customers. I recognize the responsibility of this role and will look to take decisive action to reverse recent trends and build a resilient business well-positioned for long-term success. The core pillars of our strategy start with the foundational advantages that have been in place at Vivid Seats for years and build from there.

There is much work to be done, but the foundation to return to profitable growth is in place, and our path forward is clear. Vivid Seats has long been known for its leading tech capabilities, unique data, and focus on efficiency. In recent years, as paid search has become more competitive and customer acquisition economics have become strained, Vivid Seats has increasingly invested in its app with a focus on building a loyal and recurring customer base. We are now increasing our focus and investment in delivering a leading value proposition to our customers. Alongside our loyalty program with rewards redeemable in the app, late in the third quarter we launched our Lowest Price Guarantee, also in the app.

We believe the combination of our Lowest Price Guarantee and our loyalty program represents the most compelling value proposition in the industry, and we are already seeing positive responses from our customers. With our enhanced value proposition, we expect to see a growing number of app users and resulting transactions. Our app users return more often, convert at a higher rate, and touch performance marketing channels less. Over time, as our volume increasingly moves into the app, our performance will be increasingly insulated from the heightened competitiveness we have seen in performance marketing channels in recent years. Further, we believe that information transparency will only increase as AI proliferates and impacts the way consumers interact with brands across the internet.

It will take time to build comprehensive awareness of our enhanced app value proposition, but we are confident we will disproportionately benefit as AI reshapes consumer discovery and decision-making as we match consumer demand with the most compelling value in the industry. One of our initial efforts to build awareness of our app value proposition is our recently renewed partnership with ESPN. With ESPN, we have launched a national marketing campaign on Disney streaming, which is reaching more than 127 million global subscribers across over 700 live sports events monthly. We are excited to see how fans respond to our new offering as awareness continues to build. We believe our investments in delivering a leading value proposition will drive order volume but reduce our take rates. Funding these investments in a sustainable manner will require a commitment to operating the most efficient platform in ticketing.

We will focus on operating as a lean and agile organization enabled by powerful technology and unique data. We announced the cost reduction program last quarter, and we are now more than doubling our fixed cost reduction target from $25 million-$60 million. We have made substantial progress towards our updated target with savings spanning fixed marketing, G&A, and stock-based compensation. Both these savings and our considerable reinvestment in our app value proposition are reflected in our initial 2026 guidance. Continuing with our theme of driving efficiency through clear focus, we executed our corporate simplification agreement, which included the termination of our Tax Receivable Agreement and the collapse of our dual-class share structure early in the fourth quarter. The corporate simplification will yield substantial immediate and ongoing savings. As part of the termination, we issued approximately 400,000 Class A shares to the former TRA parties.

In return, we will avoid $6 million of cash TRA payments otherwise due in Q1 2026, while capturing up to $180 million of lifetime tax savings subject to generating sufficient profitability. In addition, by simplifying our structure, we expect to save approximately $1 million per year from reduced financial reporting and compliance costs, while also removing tax inefficiencies in our structure. At current levels of profitability, we anticipate our annual cash income taxes to be approximately $3 million. The savings between our cost reduction program and corporate simplification will create a more focused and agile organization, one that can invest strategically for growth while maintaining discipline and profitability. Next, I'll address trends in our third quarter results, which we believe validate our path forward and underpin our initial 2026 outlook, which Ted will provide.

While private label remains under pressure, we are encouraged to see stabilization and early signs of momentum across our owned properties. Against a flat sequential industry backdrop, Vivid Seats and vegas.com delivered sequential GOV growth, while the Vivid Seats App delivered double-digit sequential growth and returned to year-over-year GOV growth. This is a direct result of our ongoing investment in product development and our enhanced value proposition. As we look to the fourth quarter and into 2026, there are no quick fixes, but our priorities are clear. We are committed to improving our financial performance by leveraging Vivid Seats' foundational advantages, including leading technology, unique data, best-in-class efficiency, and continued investment into a unique and differentiated value proposition. Now I'll turn it to Ted to discuss the quarter and financial outlook in more detail.

As we mentioned earlier, Ted, our Chief Accounting Officer, will take on the role of interim Chief Financial Officer. Ted has been at Vivid Seats leading our accounting function for more than a decade. I have full confidence in Ted and am glad to have him step into the interim CFO role as we manage our leadership transition.

Ted Pickus (Interim CFO)

Thank you, Larry, and hello, everyone. I am honored to be with you today and to assume this role during a transformational time for the business. Turning to our results, in the third quarter, we delivered $618 million of marketplace GOV, $136 million of revenues, and $5 million of adjusted EBITDA. These results reflect an intense competitive environment that impacted our private label business, which was also impacted by the loss of a large partner. We generated $618 million of marketplace GOV in Q3, which was down 29% year-over-year. Total marketplace orders were also down 29%, with average order size flat. Looking at sequential trends compared to Q2 of this year, overall marketplace GOV was down 10% due to private label headwinds, while owned property GOV increased in a flat sequential industry environment. We generated $136 million of revenues in Q3, down 27% year-over-year.

Our Q3 marketplace take rate was 17.0%, down from 17.5% in Q3 2024. We expect near-term take rates in the 16% range. Our third quarter adjusted EBITDA was $5 million, down substantially from the prior year due to lower volume, lower take rates, and negative operating leverage. We expect improved operating performance as we enter 2026 with the full benefit of our recent cost reductions. Next, I'll address our 2026 initial outlook. With stabilizing owned property volumes, we expect 2026 marketplace GOV in the range of $2.2 billion-$2.6 billion. At the midpoint, this assumes marketplace GOV roughly in line with our third quarter run rate. We intend to reinvest cost savings into our enhanced customer value proposition and, as such, currently anticipate $30 million-$40 million of 2026 adjusted EBITDA.

Our 2026 initial outlook assumes industry volumes are flat year-over-year as the core concert on sale season, which provides supply visibility for the coming year, has yet to occur. We ended Q3 with $391 million of debt, $145 million of cash, and net debt of $246 million. Against a flat industry environment, we saw working capital continue to consume cash but at a substantially lower level than seen the first half of the year. I'll now hand it back to Larry for concluding remarks.

Lawrence Fey (CEO and Director)

Thanks, Ted. Despite challenging year-over-year trends, the third quarter offered signs of stabilization, including sequential growth in owned property GOV, year-over-year growth in app GOV, and substantial cost reduction progress. From here, diligent execution is crucial, but we believe our investment into our app value proposition provides a clear path to return to growth. With that, operator, let's open it up for questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press Star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press Star one again. We do request for today's session that you please limit to two questions only. We will pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Cameron Mansson-Perrone with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

Cameron Mansson-Perrone (Lead Analyst)

Thanks, morning. Thanks for taking the questions. And Ted, welcome to the call. I guess the first question is really just I'd like to hear a little bit more about what gives you confidence in issuing 2026 guidances early, given the pressures that have existed in the business recently. I heard you on the stabilization front, but just a little bit more on what gives you kind of that increased visibility relative to the past, I think, would be helpful. And then if you could just kind of try and help contextualize what's reflected in the high and low end of the guide for next year with regard to competitive environment and expectations and any other catering factors around what would determine whether you shake out on the high or low end. Thanks.

Lawrence Fey (CEO and Director)

Yeah, thanks, Cameron. I think what you've heard us say in the past is that we prefer to give guidance on our Q4 call once the Q4 on sale calendar has run its course as you'll have more industry visibility. The important caveat in the guidance we put forward is it presumes a flat year-over-year industry outlook. I think to your question on what would govern the low end versus the high end, I would start with if the industry under-indexes to flat, that would push you towards the low end. If it over-indexes or grows, that would push you towards the higher end. We certainly saw the Live Nation commentary, which, if you interpolate what they said, it feels like they're pointing towards another positive growth year in North America. Hopefully, there's some conservatism built in.

We'll learn more over the coming months on exactly where the industry settles out, but try to put a baseline that we think is reasonable. Skewed to the cautious side of the spectrum on the industry performance. Why do we put guidance out? Why do we have confidence? I'd point to a few elements. I think, one, we obviously pulled 2025 guidance, so it's been a while since there's been a flag or a stake in the ground for folks to look at. You can see a number of changes playing out in Q3 where we've talked about our cost reduction initiatives. We talked about some of our reinvestment in our value proposition and lots of puts and takes.

Rather than having there be a vacuum where people are waiting in suspense for four months on what the net of all of those are, we wanted to distill it down to a target. Probably goes without saying, if competition or competitive intensity reaches new highs, that will pressure. And if they abate, that will be a release valve relative to the range we put forward. We have assumed essentially a broad continuation of the competitive intensity we have seen in the second half of 2025.

Cameron Mansson-Perrone (Lead Analyst)

Got it. That's all clear and helpful. Thanks, Larry.

Lawrence Fey (CEO and Director)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Next question comes from the line of Dan Kurnos with Benchmark Company. Your line is open.

Daniel Kurnos (Equity Research Analyst)

Yeah, thanks. Good morning. Larry, I guess maybe just to double-click on the leadership transition, obviously, Dan had a lot of digital experience from his history. I guess maybe why now make this move? If you could just give us some color on the thought process. Obviously, to be clear here, I think you're eminently qualified to lead the company, Larry. It just would be helpful to get sort of some of the thought process on the timing. In an agentic world, you talked about discovery with OpenAI. If you're going to push app, which is fine, everyone else is putting their app into OpenAI for discoverability. I don't know what your thoughts are about that, given some of the puts and takes on demand gen and OpenAI potentially becoming the source of demand gen.

Just help us think about your willingness to increase visibility via that channel and other ways that you might increase the visibility of the value prop. Thank you.

Lawrence Fey (CEO and Director)

Yeah, thanks, Dan. I'd start with the thanks to Stan. Of course, we're sincere. Seven years was a great run. I think it was just reaching a time for a shift and preparing the business for the efficiency push that we're embarking on in the near term. To the second question, I think you touched on a theme that is spot on. Yes, we're pushing on app. I almost think of the customer universe as two buckets, right? There's the new customer acquisition, and there's a competitive dynamic around that. Then there's the folks who have already done their research and made informed decisions around which marketplaces they buy from or which marketplaces they consider. That generally occurs in the app, where I think there could be a really interesting blurring of those lines or fusion of the two as we move forward.

If one of the fundamental tenets of AI is increasing information synthesis, increasing information transparency, as we increasingly place the best value proposition out into the ether, we then, of course, have an obligation to make sure that value proposition is digestible by these new AI platforms that are looking for all of the best information to synthesize and distill for customers. You better have something that's compelling, right? If they do their job and put forward the best value proposition, you better be front of the line. That's where we're going with the app. I think in the near term, while we wait for the commerce portion of the AI disruption to fully arrive, we're going to continue focusing on retaining our customers in the app ecosystem. We think there's opportunity coming on that customer acquisition as the technology format evolves.

Cameron Mansson-Perrone (Lead Analyst)

Great. Thanks, Larry. Appreciate the color.

Operator (participant)

Next question comes from the line of Maria Ripps with Canaccord Genuity. Your line is open.

Maria Ripps (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Great. Good morning, and thanks for taking my questions. Larry and Ted, congrats on the transition. Can you maybe share a little bit more color on the competitive backdrop right now? Are you seeing any early signs that maybe some of the competitors in this space are starting to focus more on profitability?

Lawrence Fey (CEO and Director)

Yeah, thanks, Maria. We've talked in the past a bit about ebbs and flows, and it can be a little dangerous to extrapolate short-term behavior and assume it continues indefinitely. I would say, broadly aligning with, call it changes in corporate status, we have seen a shift in competitive posture. It was a fairly methodical increase in share that we saw from StubHub over the last couple of years, common ways, but it kind of went one direction. We've actually seen that reverse and rollover in September and October, where they're now down year-over-year on share. I think that is directly tied to what we perceive as a shift in marketing aggressiveness. The magnitude, obviously, was enough to reverse that trend. It wasn't a reversion to 2022 or 2023 levels.

We, of course, know that they reserve the right to change their mind and posture as we embark into 2026, but a notable change over the last, call it, six to eight weeks.

Maria Ripps (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Got it. That's very helpful. Any early thoughts you can share sort of on the quality of concert lineup in 2026?

Lawrence Fey (CEO and Director)

Yeah, I'd say continue to be. Looking to Live Nation for the prospective views on what's coming. I heard pretty positive commentary when I read the release. I think they touched on what clearly looks like positive North American growth, a skew towards larger venues. Thus far in the year, you get into these year-over-year comparisons where timing just varies slightly year-over-year. We are in the midst of this year. Morgan Wallen just announced that. I think will be one of the top tours of the year. We've seen several others. At this point, I would say, other than week-to-week variants, it looks like the Live Nation commentary is flowing through in what we're seeing.

Maria Ripps (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Got it. That's very helpful. Thank you so much.

Lawrence Fey (CEO and Director)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Next question comes from the line of Ryan Sigdahl with Craig-Hallum. Your line is open.

Ryan Sigdahl (Senior Research Analyst)

Hey, good morning, Larry, Ted. In response to the FTC lawsuit, Ticketmaster is shutting down Trade Desk for concerts. They're also limiting Ticketmaster accounts even further, as it appears, as they take more action on pricing. Curious your perspective on this. Does this present an opportunity for Vivid to take share on the POS side? At the same time, I guess the negative would be how much contraction and negative do you see from a supply standpoint on the secondary ticketing?

Lawrence Fey (CEO and Director)

Yeah, thanks, Ryan. I think you framed it properly in that any disruption to Trade Desk, I think, can only be a tailwind. We think Skybox will be waiting with open arms with its best-in-class capabilities to support any customers who no longer have the full suite that they need to run their business. It can only help our position. As you said, counterbalance if there is additional pressure. I'd start from our fundamental view that the vast majority of what drives this industry is a fundamental, well-functioning financial market, right, where you have artists and teams who are looking to diversify risk. You have artists and teams who are looking to offload risk well in advance of shows and that there is a healthy, vibrant financial instrument via the secondary market that facilitates and benefits all parties.

To the extent folks are violating the rules of the game, we have always said this. We continue to say it. We can, should, will support anything and everything that needs to be done to ensure folks do play by the proper rules as defined by the artists and the primary ticketing platforms. To the extent there are folks that are—I'm sure there are, right? There's got to be a bad actor out there. To the extent those folks' behaviors are forced to modify, I think what will be unknown, right, and we'll find out as you all find out. Does that contract the secondary market, or does it just change the form where you now have increased fragmentation where new smaller sellers fill in the gap and the overall market opportunity remains the same? We will keep a close eye on it.

I do think, yeah, there's a positive tailwind on Trade Desk, a potential headwind, but maybe not on the change to Ticketmaster policies.

Ryan Sigdahl (Senior Research Analyst)

Thanks, Larry. The other hot topic, kind of from an industry standpoint, direct issuance. Vivid has a smaller DI type offering with the college basketball crown. Curious what you think about the ambitions of some of your peers in the space on this model specifically. Kind of to your point on rules of the game, I guess, contractually, etc., just your thoughts on direct issuance and the viability of doing that in an accelerated way going forward and what that potentially means from a secondary marketplace standpoint if that further limits the supply of brokers' play.

Lawrence Fey (CEO and Director)

Yeah, I think. Obviously, strategies are subject to change. Just reacting to the way we have seen the direct issuance opportunity defined to date, right? Maybe they change us, but to date, it's been primarily focused, as we understand it, on unsold inventory. You can imagine regular season baseball games, less popular theater shows, where you have well past the event going on sale, substantial available inventory available from the primary. If that gets piped directly into a secondary marketplace, that would represent incremental supply. I think the threshold question for the robustness of that opportunity would start with, is this a supply or demand-constrained industry? Does the fact that you took an event that already had a decent amount of supply and made more available.

Will that stimulate incremental demand, or will it cannibalize the eyeballs that you were already getting on the site? To sell more, you still need to get additional eyeballs and spend the marketing dollars to bring them in. I think our viewpoint has been that generally, this is a demand-constrained exercise, not supply-constrained in all but the most rarefied era, right? You could see Taylor Swift tickets really selling out, but most events, including World Series, Super Bowl, right? There are tickets available all the way up until the event starts, even for the highest profile events. I'd say we're a bit more muted on our belief of the impact that could have. We certainly have heard that the ambitions are big, and we'll keep a close eye.

Ryan Sigdahl (Senior Research Analyst)

Thanks, Larry. Good luck, guys.

Operator (participant)

Next question comes from the line of Ralph Schackart with William Blair. Your line is open.

Ralph Schackart (Equity Research Analyst)

Good morning. Thanks for taking the question. Larry, I just kind of want to circle back on sort of driving more awareness of the app and sort of the efforts there. I know you talked about having ESPN as a partner to do that, which is obviously a great partner to have there. Maybe you can just sort of provide a little bit more color how you drive more direct traffic here and build more awareness. Would you be contemplating potentially a marketing campaign or other efforts to grow more awareness to go direct to the app? Thank you.

Lawrence Fey (CEO and Director)

Yeah, thanks, Ralph. I think we're doing what I would call our brand marketing surge via ESPN. That is going to be concentrated in the near term, kind of throughout Q4, which is peak sports season. I think this is an industry where there's been many attempts to do broad-based brand marketing, and it is challenging to prove compelling ROI from that. I don't think we're going to reverse course and jump headfirst back into broad brand marketing. I think we're going to continue to focus on thoughtful, different slices of, call it, more targeted performance-based metrics. One of the advantages we have, foundational strengths we have, is we've been one of the leading marketplaces for a long time. As a result, we sold a lot of tickets to a lot of people, and we have a really robust existing user base, really robust CRM database.

A lot of our effort has been increasing our personalization, improving the nature of our messaging. Now when we're delivering a message with a fundamentally improved value proposition, I think that leads to more engagement across that existing user base. Continuing as people, we acquire them on the web, making them immediately aware of what awaits. If they trusted us enough to buy on the web, that's wonderful. I think we have perks that would compel them to come back to the app, and making sure that that hyper-addressable audience gets made fully aware of the proposition. Those are the two major buckets I think we'll be focusing on in the near term.

Ralph Schackart (Equity Research Analyst)

Okay, great. Thanks, Larry.

Operator (participant)

Next question comes from the line of Steven McDermott with Bank of America. Your line is open.

Steven McDermott (Equity Research Analyst)

Hey, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. Just two quick ones. Firstly, for 2026, what World Cup assumptions are kind of built into that outlook?

Lawrence Fey (CEO and Director)

Yeah, we essentially have not assumed a meaningful impact from World Cup. I think that is primarily due to two things. One, there's not a lot of precedent that we can rely on, right? The U.S. World Cup in an era with online secondary ticketing has zero precedent data points. When we look at the last two World Cups, they were in markets that we basically do not operate in, in Russia and Qatar. Trying to strike a cautious tone given a lack of conviction beyond that. The second observation, I think it's fairly well documented, but we've seen FIFA be, let's say, quite aggressive in seeking to monetize, optimize their monetization of the event. I think it's safe to assume there will be incremental volume. We will benefit from it.

Between those two factors, we've opted to essentially disregard it as we've contemplated our outlook for next year, and it would purely represent upside.

Steven McDermott (Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. Thank you. Appreciate that color. My second question, just it sounds like you said StubHub pulled back on marketing spend a bit. Is it fair to say that the Q3 exit rate improved on a year-over-year basis?

Lawrence Fey (CEO and Director)

Yeah, I think it would be fair to say that over the course of Q3, we saw a shift in their behavior and a corresponding shift in volumes across marketplaces. Yeah, that happened closer to the end of Q3 than the beginning.

Steven McDermott (Equity Research Analyst)

Gotcha. No, that's very helpful. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Next question comes from the line of Brad Erickson with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Brad Erickson (Internet Equity Analyst)

Hey, thanks. I just follow up on that last one, actually, Larry. When you say, when you look at kind of what's instructing the stabilization commentary on the owned property business, you mentioned competitive intensity easing several times. Is that kind of the main driver? Any other drivers you'd call out there, either things in your control or other market forces?

Lawrence Fey (CEO and Director)

Yeah, I think the biggest one is, so yeah, the competitive landscape, of course, matters. I'd say of similar, if not equal, if not slightly more important in terms of what we've seen in the immediate term has been this value proposition push and inherent in what we're trying to achieve. As we get more volume in our app, I think that is a more protected ecosystem, right? You can bid whatever you want for a Google link, but if someone already has our app, already trusts us, is already looking at us, they will likely look at us. If we have a structurally better offer, it doesn't matter who else is buying the top Google link. You control your own destiny more on app. That's why we're pushing, right? Reduce the surface area and exposure to competitive response. That's a long game play, right?

You don't make that change and immediately have a profound shift of volume from one channel to the other. We have seen market increases in the volume that's moving into the app. I think this is one of those layer cake dynamics where every month it goes where you bring in a new cohort of customers who have done their research, seen the value prop. They're going to be fundamentally stickier. Over time, that will compound and build into something pretty exciting.

Steven McDermott (Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. Appreciate the 2026 guide and all you gave the EBITDA numbers. Any color you can give maybe on cash conversion relative to that EBITDA guide? Thanks.

Lawrence Fey (CEO and Director)

Yeah, so. Appreciate that question. Yeah, I think if we look at our cash obligations moving forward, of roughly $20 million of net interest expense, we'll have a bit less than $20 million of CapEx, cap software. And then we mentioned in this release that pro forma for the TRA transaction we'll have about $3 million of cash taxes, primarily from international operations. So you sum those up, before you consider working capital, you have a roughly $40 million set of cash obligations. As we've talked about quite a bit the last few quarters, when we're growing, working capital is a source. When we're shrinking, it's a use of cash. I think at the epicenter of will cash balance grow next year is, do you believe that we can sequentially grow GOV?

I think it's reasonable to assume that take Q1 as we lap the private label losses that we saw in Q3, continue to lap those. The overall year-over-year GOV numbers will continue to be down. If the sequential help, because the balance sheet kind of remarks to market every quarter, is stable and growing, you can see working capital reverse course. The base case plan is at the midpoint or better of our guidance. We would expect to be cash generative next year.

Steven McDermott (Equity Research Analyst)

Understood. Thanks.

Operator (participant)

Next question comes from the line of Ben Black with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

Ben Black with (Co-head Internet Equity Research)

Hi, thanks for taking the question. This is Kunal for Ben. Quick one on the outlook. You just talked about the cash flow consequences that we could see. One thing with regard to the assumption that underlie that. Are you assuming that the competitive intensity remains at the September, October levels in 2026? Or are you assuming that maybe things go back to what we had seen earlier in this year? That is what determines the market share that you expect in 2026. The second one would be with regard to the traffic that you are getting and the traffic that you have on your app. What is different from other providers that makes your value proposition so unique that people will not go anywhere else to shop? Thank you.

Lawrence Fey (CEO and Director)

Yeah, so let me start with the app value prop because I think that's a really compelling one. I think we talked about our loyalty program for a number of years. We continue to be on a journey to build awareness of that loyalty program. But those who buy and use that program, I think structurally buy more at a multiple of the typical user. And even before the more recent changes to our value proposition, I think resulted in kind of a clear best-in-class value prop. Recently, what we've really pushed is base lower everyday pricing. We're continually innovating on what kind of inducements and incentives we can provide as customers move through their journey, their lifetime journey with us. We think if you create an experience where someone comes in and realizes that your pricing without.

Paying consideration to any incentives, without paying consideration to loyalty, are the best in the industry relative to our largest competitors. You have a good experience, right? You get great customer service. You enjoy the layout of the site. Subsequent to that, you get thoughtful recommendations. You get incentives and inducements. You sign up for loyalty, and that price advantage becomes even more significant. That is a really compelling lifetime experience. Now, is that to say that others cannot offer various elements of that? I do not think there is anything philosophically that would prevent folks from doing it. I think it is an economic question, right? If you are spending significant amounts bidding for the top keywords on search, can you do that and offer these lower price points? If you have very large partnership obligations, can you do those and offer these inducements and incentives? We will see, right?

I think our belief is that we can operate the leanest platform, and that uniquely enables us to sustainably deliver a best-in-class value prop. Others will need to respond as they see fit. As it relates to the first question on the competitive environment contemplated, yeah, it's difficult to be precise on this. We certainly have seen that it's been kind of an up and to the right level of intensity over the last two years, and we want to make sure we do not just forget that. We also want to reflect that we have seen a change. I would characterize the midpoint as, call it something in between what we've seen September and October and what we saw at the worst of it, kind of late Q1, early Q2. A little bit of.

Reversion from the run rate, but not all the way back to the most extreme point that we saw.

Ben Black with (Co-head Internet Equity Research)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Next question comes from the line of Thomas Forte with Maxim Group. Your line is open.

Thomas Forte (Managing Director and Senior Consumer Internet Analyst)

Great. Thank you. First off, congratulations, Larry and Ted, on the new opportunities and best wishes to Stan for his future endeavors. One question, one follow-up. Larry, are you seeing any changes in consumer behavior when it comes to the secondary ticket market? For example, when you have a game seven in a playoff series, are they still willing to pay premium prices for the experience as they have in the past?

Ted Pickus (Interim CFO)

Yeah. Thanks, Tom. I would say, as a broad aggregate statement, continues to feel like live events are a central piece of what consumers want to spend their money on. We had a tough World Series comp, right? You can't really get better than the Yankees and Dodgers. I think World Series volumes and average order size were down relative to that. When we look at the World Series relative to every year post-COVID, other than the Yankees and Dodgers, this was the second best year. I think healthy, robust demand, we're seeing that across a lot of high-profile events. I think we alluded to this last quarter. To the extent we have seen softened, it's more been on the lower end of the market. I think we actually see that manifest in Vegas more than in our core business. The, call it, weekday.

Lower AOS shows have been. Feeling, I think, some of this much talked about consumer softness.

Thomas Forte (Managing Director and Senior Consumer Internet Analyst)

Excellent. I might be a little early in this one, but can you talk about your capital allocation priorities, including reinvesting in the business, international expansion, strategic M&A, and buybacks?

Lawrence Fey (CEO and Director)

Yeah. I think for now, it's reasonable to assume that we won't be looking to complete acquisitive M&A that would be, call it, adjacencies. I think we've long believed that there could be a compelling consolidation in this space. We would be eager participants in that. TAM expansion, I think we've got to batten the hatches and focus on the core business. Yeah, given the performance on both EBITDA and cash flow this year, I think we'll display a lot of prudence on any cash leaving the system, including share purchases in the near term. I think we think that there's a very compelling value at these prices, but step one is batten the hatches and assure that we have all of the capital we need to continue investing in all of the initiatives that we see really compelling ROIs against, such as international.

We'll keep doing the defend the core. Once we have a little more of a proven track record of stabilization, return to growth, return to cash, we can open up the aperture a bit.

Thomas Forte (Managing Director and Senior Consumer Internet Analyst)

Thank you, Larry. Thank you, Ted.

Operator (participant)

Next question comes from the line of Andrew Marok with Raymond James. Your line is open.

Andrew Marok (Director of Equity Research)

Thanks for taking my question. Maybe on the international part there, I guess, what signals are you seeing in kind of that, what you call the core international business that give you the impetus to continue investing there as opposed to maybe rationalizing some incremental cost savings out of that business? Thank you.

Lawrence Fey (CEO and Director)

Yeah. Thanks, Andrew. I'd start with, we've been pleasantly surprised at the quickness with which we've been able to bring the international business to be contribution margin positive. We are there today already. I think we've had, just to refresh on the context, Viagogo has a very substantial market position in Europe. As a result, when we have shown up in pockets where we have fully competitive supply, and I would say that has initially been areas where it's either NFL comes to Europe, U.S. artists go on global tours, or other events where U.S. sellers have meaningful positions, we immediately have fully competitive supply. When we have competed for traffic and eyeballs on those areas with competitive supply, competitive pricing, we have seen abundant success.

The task ahead then is to continue to add pockets across various countries, especially with a focus on local events where we can have that fully competitive supply and pricing. From what we've seen, the ability to market profitably will follow quickly once you have that supply in place. That's some hand-to-hand knife fighting to get to that point. That's the journey we're on from here.

Operator (participant)

There are no further questions at this time. That concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.