Vivid Seats Inc. (NASDAQ:SEAT) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

I think we talked about earlier and the performance there that our users who are on Game Center are purchasing at a 36% higher or faster clip than non-Game Center users. So like you said, I think we’ve got a lot of opportunity, but a lot of that opportunity that we see is where we are going to drive that into our core business and look for benefits, and frankly look at that as really synergistic upside to where the acquisition could take us.

Daniel Kurnos: Got it. Okay. Thanks, and congrats again.

Operator: Stand-by for our next question. Our next question comes from Cameron Mansson-Perrone with Morgan Stanley. Cameron, go ahead with your question.

Cameron Mansson-Perrone: Thanks. Hi guys. Two on there, if I can. One Stan, I was wondering if you could just flesh out a little bit more, when you talk about the $6 billion increased TAM opportunity there, exactly what you’re capturing within that opportunity? And then as we think about, obviously, we can see in your ’24 guidance how you’re thinking about the impact to your business on the revenue and adjusted EBITDA side, but would love some additional clarity in terms of whether we should think about this as being take rate accretive, what the GOV contribution is, unit economics better or worse, obviously, it looks like adjusted EBITDA nicely accretive, but just some — a little bit more on the financial profile. And then finally, if I can, sorry, any — would love to hear just the logic around the financing in terms of using a combination of cash and equity? Thanks guys.

Stan Chia: Hey, Cameron. It’s Stan. Yeah. I think one of the things we put out there which has as excited as you said is we, through our process and through our diligence I think have the opportunity to size the Vegas market, and that $6 billion from our third-party analysis is $6 billion of just Vegas geographical shows and attractions, right. So I think just in that core area, which makes up the majority of that business, which again is the big overlap and where we see lots of opportunity to drive national brand awareness, customer acquisition, synergies within the platforms, just that alone is $6 billion in the Vegas area. And so, then I think as you start to go beyond that and you think about the other things that we’ve talked about whether it is in bundling flights and hotels, whether it is in taking users back to their home markets and leveraging the power of Vivid Seats platform and engagement platform there, I think that’s all on top of that.

So $6 billion as we looked at it is just Vegas and just ticket shows and attractions.

Lawrence Fey: And in terms of a little more detail on the financial profile. First, it will be reported through our Marketplace segment moving forward, so you won’t be seeing any explicit breakout beyond this commentary, because it’s a very similar business and model to our current business. I think it will blend in nicely. As you would expect, given the similarities, I’d say the P&Ls lineup quite well. That said it is somewhat accretive to our take rates and somewhat accretive to our margins. So I think we’ve — after Q2 referenced the 15.5% take rate, I think we can now point to the 15.5% to 16% as a range with the benefit of that modest tailwind from the accretion of this transaction.

Cameron Mansson-Perrone: So maybe anything on the — on the combo of cash and equity for the acquisition there?

Stan Chia: Yes. Thanks. I think it’s the best of answers where the sellers, I think shared some of our enthusiasm, and so the opportunity from their perspective to participate in some of the shared upside, I think the opportunity from our standpoint of alignment moving forward, but against the backdrop where the majority of the proceeds were cash unless we are able to accrue the accretion to the shareholders benefit for the most part.

Cameron Mansson-Perrone: Got it. Thanks, Stan.

Stan Chia: The only other thing I’d add on that it was very comfortable with our capital structure pro forma for this transaction less than one turn of net leverage and with the cash flow that we expect to generate next year, I think that we will pretty quickly approach net debt neutral over the course of the next year or so.

Cameron Mansson-Perrone: Awesome. Thanks.

Operator: One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Logan Reich with RBC. Logan, please go ahead with your question.

Logan Reich: Good morning, guys. Thanks for taking the question and congrats on the results. Just one quick question, just on the marketing spend across the industry. I know you had mentioned that the backdrop is relatively stable, but I was just wondering if you could unpack what you’re seeing from competitors on the marketing side? It looks like your sales and marketing expense ticked up a bit quarter-over-quarter. Just wondering if that’s — you guys leading into overall demand strength or if that’s somewhat related to what you’re seeing on the competitive backdrop? Thanks.

Stan Chia: Yeah. Hey, Logan. It’s Stan. Yes. I think I’d start with, I think the competitive environment certainly, as we said, stable, but I think everybody is out there, I think as they see strength in the industry. I think I’d start with when you look at what comes through in P&L, I think we’ve talked about, we’ve had some opportunistic elements and some timing elements that just reflect marketing in the quarter, and you’ve seen some of the partnerships that we’ve announced I think that we’re really excited about that you’re seeing there. Perhaps more importantly, and I think as we continue to call out a lot of our investments that will have really long-term leverage are pacing well ahead of our expectations in terms of our loyalty program and the repeat rate behavior that we’re seeing amongst users.

I think our repeat rates, we’re now eight quarters from when we first talked about our repeat rate in 2021, and our repeat rates are the highest they’ve ever been in every single category across every cohort of users. So I think we are really excited about our differentiated platform and the ability to continue driving value into that ecosystem and not have to go out there and go head-to-head on what I would say are the acquisition channels. We’ve also talked about our engagement platform, which continues to be a great spot for us, and as we provided Game Center already up closer to 200,000 users in the first four months with almost no marketing and we’ve already seen that purchase behavior on that category of engaged users, it’s 30% — 36% faster than people who aren’t using Game Center.