Ticket reseller Vivid Seats shares plunged in trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market Tuesday as Wall Street analysts slashed their outlook for the company. Vivid shares fell as much as 16% before rebounding mildly to finish the trading day at $4.20, down more than 11% from Monday.
“We are moderating expectations for Q3 given recent third-party data points indicate the concert supply headwind accelerated in August, on top of already challenging comps (Taylor Swift and Beyoncé),” said Craig-Hallum analyst Ryan Sigdahl in a research note to clients ahead of trading Tuesday. The brokerage cut its price target for Vivid to $8 from $10, one of three banks to cut their targets of the company Tuesday. Deutsche Bank cut its target to $4.50 from $5.50, while Benchmark dropped its outlook price to $10 from $15, according to wire reports.
As Sigdahl’s report noted, resellers like Vivid are facing a difficult comparison to 2023, when tours by Swift and Beyoncé let ticket brokers run up big profits on those shows. The concert schedule this summer is heavy on artists playing venues smaller than stadiums, meaning there are more events, diluting demand, with less overall dollars at play than 2023 and a weaker flow of resale tickets into Vivid. Compared to competitors, Vivid is more heavily reliant on concerts than other events, according to Craig-Hallum. Vivid’s website traffic is down about 25% this quarter, the firm added.
Despite the concert weakness, sports ticket demand appears to be as robust as always. “Our checks indicate ticket prices in the NFL and NBA are up double-digits [year-over-year], while the secondary market fared well with robust demand for the U.S. Open (tennis) and college football, aided by post-conference realignment interest,” Sigdahl wrote. In their most recent call with analysts, in early August, Vivid executives noted sports demand has been up over 2023, helped by higher interest in women’s sports.
Still, the biggest event of the summer, the Olympics, was a non-event for ticket resellers like Vivid, since they were locked out of selling tickets by the IOC’s arrangement with a domestic France company and Legends for international ticket sales.
Vivid became public in a merger with a Todd Boehly-backed special purpose acquisition company in 2021 at $10 a share. After peaking at $14.35 in late 2021, Vivid shares have lost about 71% of their value. The company was the worst performer in the 40-stock Sportico Sports Stock Index Tuesday. The index dipped 1% on the day, to 1,193, a 4% gain in 2024.
