Photo Credit: Joe Berchtold, Live Nation CFO

Live Nation CFO Joe Berchtold reveals that 30% of Live Nation’s biggest tours are in languages other than English.

Joe Berchtold, Live Nation’s CFO, broke down some eye-popping global statistics for investors this week. Among those, over 60% of the top 75 markets outside the U.S. lack a large, modern, music-ready venue to accommodate the world’s biggest stars. Meanwhile, 30% of the company’s top 50 shows are in languages other than English, compared to only 8% before the pandemic.

Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia and Technology Conference on September 9, Berchtold was quoted by Goldman Sachs analyst Stephen Laszczyk: “It’s not going to be that long until I’m sitting here saying, ‘And now over half of our artists are not US-UK English-speaking artists.'”

“Pre-COVID, I think 8% of our top 50 tours were by non-English-speaking artists. Today, it’s 30%,” Berchtold explained. “I’m amazed. I look at all of our shows down in LA—the number of artists who I’ve never heard of who are selling out arenas, even stadiums in LA. But if you think about it, if you’re an artist of a very specific genre, you only need 0.1% of the population in LA to be your community.”

As a result, Berchtold said that non-US arena building is due to become the next “primary growth area” for Live Nation, as the company predicts that international markets “will lead our growth” in the near future. Given Live Nation’s significant expansion into South American markets this year, this shift is not unexpected.

“The vast, vast majority of our Venue Nation strategy with the arenas and other large venues is in international markets,” he added, noting that nearly two-thirds of the top 75 international city markets for touring lack sufficient venue infrastructure to meet the demands of the world’s biggest artists—and the company’s strategy.

“We look at the top 75 markets, and 47 of the top 75 markets internationally don’t have enough modern arena infrastructure. And big cities—Rome, Istanbul, Frankfurt in Europe; it’s Seoul, Tokyo, [and] Manila in Asia. Latin America, you’ve got Sao Paulo, Rio, Lima. So, very, very big cities,” he said, adding that he isn’t “trying to cherrypick” the cities to which he’s referring. “These are big markets that lack the infrastructure.”

“Because we promote so many concerts, we’ve got a better ability than anybody else, frankly, to make sure that utilization is higher and can generate a return.”

Berchtold also confirmed that there is “no question” that arenas are the company’s top priority over other venue types, “particularly in Europe and Asia, Latin America.” He added that the “number one artist post-COVID has been Bad Bunny, selling out stadiums globally,” while the “number two genre in Brazil is country music.”

Ultimately, the company aims to leverage the success of non-English genres, such as K-pop and reggaeton, by pushing for more international arenas.